Page 226 of Marrying the Savage

I don’t know what passes between them. I only know Damir’s face changes, not with mercy, not exactly, but with the full weight of every year they survived together.

Then Grigori’s injured hand slips.

Damir reaches with his other hand, too late, and Grigori falls.

The sound comes a second later.

I turn away before I understand I am moving. Damir is there at once, his arms closing around me, pulling me into his chest. I grip his shirt with both hands and press my face into him so hard I can barely breathe. He holds me without speaking. His heart is pounding against my cheek. Mine is worse.

Behind us, the terrace is wrecked, and somewhere below, men are shouting, probably having heard the resounding crash.

I keep my face buried in Damir’s shirt.

I don’t look over the edge. But I already know—Grigori is dead.

EPILOGUE

DAMIR

Two weeks after Grigori falls from the terrace, the house is still quieter than it used to be.

No one says his name unless there is a reason. Irina has taken Maksim to the south wing while the doctors finish his treatment and while she decides whether she can remain under my roof without seeing the terrace every time she closes her eyes. Maksim is recovering. The poison left his system faster than expected once Dr. Morozova’s team knew what to test for, but he still tires easily, and every time I see him asleep in his mother’s lap, I think of the clear tape on his wrist and the way Grigori planned even his own son’s pain.

Sergei has gone silent. Dmitri remains hidden. Arman sends information through Mikhail instead of coming near the house. Anya calls Sofia twice a day, sometimes more, and I let the calls go through because I said I would and because I have learned the hard way the price to say no to my wife.

Sofia’s door has not been locked since that night.

I gave the order myself and then stood in the corridor while every guard heard it. No locked doors. No sealed corridors. No orders about my wife that don’t pass through her first unless there is a direct threat to her life and she’s unconscious or unable to answer. The men listened. Sofia cried when Marina called her by name again. I pretended not to see it because both of them deserved the dignity of that moment.

Sofia still sleeps in my room.

Not every night because she is stubborn, and some nights she says she wants space and takes it, but most nights I wake with her body turned toward mine, one hand under her cheek, the other resting over her stomach. The pregnancy is still too early to show, but she touches herself there often. Sometimes she does it when she thinks no one notices. Sometimes she does it while looking right at me, as if daring me to be afraid again.

I am afraid.

I no longer hide it from myself.

That’s not the same as running from it.

Tonight, I find her in the music room. She’s sitting at the piano, frowning at the keys like they have personally offended her. There is a beginner’s book open in front of her, and the melody she’s trying to play comes out wrong every third note. She doesn’t stop when I enter. She only lifts one eyebrow and presses another key with enough aggression to make the sound sharper than necessary.

“You could hire me a teacher,” she says.

“I offered.”

“You offered a terrifying old woman who looked like she would slap my knuckles with a ruler.”

“She taught half the conservatory.”

“She looked like she hated happiness.”

“She probably does.”

Sofia presses the wrong key again, sighs, and shuts the book. “Good. Then we have nothing in common, because I’m trying very hard to enjoy my imprisonment piano.”

I lean against the doorframe. “You are not imprisoned.”

Her mouth twitches, but the almost-smile fades before it becomes real. That happens often now. She comes close to herself, then something pulls her back. Grigori’s gun. The terrace. The fall. The days locked in this room. The moment I walked out after she told me about the baby.