Page 90 of The Russian's Bought Bride

My father is gone, and regardless of the medical trial not being real, it still had very real consequences.

People died because men like Grigori Malenkov and Dr. Volodin decided human lives were worth less than profit, and somehow, I survived it.

The weight of that truth still shifts around inside me in strange ways. Sometimes it crushes me unexpectedly while I’m brushing my teeth or standing in the kitchen half-awake with coffee in my hands.

Other times, I can think about it with a strange sort of distance, like my mind is finally learning how to hold the grief without letting it consume me whole.

I’ve been learning that healing is not linear, as frustrating as that can be at times.

That’s what my therapist tells me during our sessions, and it has ingrained itself in my everyday life now.

At first, I hated the idea of therapy and sitting in a quiet office talking about trauma with someone paid to listen. It sounded exhausting when I was already barely keeping my head above water emotionally, but Nikolai encouraged it carefully,never pushing too hard, but reminding me that I didn’t have to carry all of it alone.

So I tried, and now, weeks later, I’m glad I did.

It still hurts to talk about my dad, and I don’t think that part will ever stop hurting entirely. But the memories don’t feel quite as heavy anymore, and I can finally speak about him without immediately feeling like I’ll never come back from it.

Sometimes I even laugh while talking about him, which felt impossible before.

Regardless of the joy that comes with remembering Dad in those special moments, today’s session leaves me emotional anyway. It’s a tender sort of pull I feel in my chest that leaves behind more warmth than ice, yet I have to let myself sit with it anyway.

We spent most of the hour talking about guilt and survival, and whether I blame myself for not seeing the warning signs sooner. By the end of it, I felt wrung out in the way deep honesty tends to leave a person.

Even so, when I step out of the office building into the warm Las Vegas afternoon, I feel lighter than I did going in, like that progress is working even behind the scenes in my mind.

The desert heat wraps around me immediately, dry beneath the afternoon sun. Cars move steadily along the street while tourists wander nearby, completely unaware of any darker aspects of the city they frequent.

Before long, I find the black SUV parked near the curb, and Nikolai leaning against it.

I soften instantly at the sight of him, which has been more like an instinctive response to his presence lately.

He’s dressed more casually in cargo pants and a black compression tee like he just got back from work, biceps more pronounced with his arms crossed as he watches the building entrance with that same focused intensity he seems incapable of turning off entirely.

The second he sees me, his posture shifts subtly like he’s been waiting for proof that I walked out alright, and it still affects me more than it should.

I make my way toward him, and by the time I reach the SUV, he’s already opening the passenger door for me with a gentle expression.

“How was it?” he asks quietly, leaving out any stoicism now. He genuinely wants to know, like he always does.

Pausing beside the open door for a moment, I exhale before answering with quiet admittance. “Hard. But good.”

His expression softens slightly, and he reaches out to pull me closer. He murmurs against my hair, “That sounds productive.”

I huff out a faint laugh and settle against his chest, soaking in the comforting and familiar smell of him while my arms wrap around him in return. “Apparently, confronting your emotional repression is productive.”

One corner of his mouth twitches upward, and he hums. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Right,” I snort softly as I look up at him, heart warmer now with him near. “Says the famously emotionally available one.”

That earns me a low laugh out of him before he presses a soft kiss to my forehead. “I can admit things now…that’s an improvement.”

I huff an amused breath and smile to myself as he pulls away to let me slide into the vehicle, then he circles around to the driver’s side.

The sound of his laughter still catches me off guard sometimes, only because I remember when I thought this man was incapable of softness altogether. He really has opened up more than most people would give him credit for. We both have.

The SUV eventually settles into traffic smoothly while Vegas blurs around us in flashes of sunlight and the usual landscape.

For a while, the silence between us feels easy and comfortable while my mind circles back on some of the topics I went over with the therapist before I allow myself to tuck them away for the time being.