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I felt something I hadn’t experienced in longer than I could remember.

Peace.

“He’d have liked you,” I said quietly, looking at Nikolai instead of the memorial. “Eventually. Once he got over the fact that you’re Bratva. He always did warm up to people slowly, the ones worth keeping around.”

“I’d have liked the chance to find out. I’m sorry I never got that chance. I’m sorry for many things, if I’m honest, though I suspect the list would take longer to recite than either of us has patience for tonight.”

“Me too,” I said, smiling at him.

He turned me gently by the shoulder until I faced him fully and pressed a slow kiss to my forehead. And then my temple, then finally my mouth in a way that felt more significant than any kiss we’d shared before this moment.

“You’ve spent four years letting grief dictate the shape of your entire life. I want to help you build something different now.” He paused, his hand finding mine and pressing it gently against my stomach. “For you. For this child. For whatever comes after both of us.”

I pressed my forehead against his chest.

“Okay,” I said softly. “Let’s build it.”

I glanced back once at the photograph, at Mateo’s laughing face catching the last of the gold light, and let myself simply say goodbye rather than continuing to carry the question that had defined so much of my adult life.

Chapter Thirty

Nikolai

Camila’s water broke at 2:00 am.

I have negotiated hostile takeovers, faced down federal agents, and stared down the barrel of a gun without once feeling the helplessness that gripped me when she gasped my name from the bathroom doorway.

“It’s happening,” she said, one hand braced against the door frame, the other pressed low against her stomach. “Nikolai, it’s happening now.”

I had a car waiting within four minutes. I had never moved faster in my life, and yet every second of that drive to the hospital felt like an eternity. I found myself checking the driver’s speed twice, resisting the urge to take the wheel myself. Camila gripped my hand the entire ride, breathing through contractions that were already coming closer together than either of us liked. I kept my voice as steady as I could, even as my pulse hammered fast.

The hospital staff moved with calm efficiency, checking Camila into a private room Yuri had arranged weeks ago, monitors and equipment appearing at a speed that should have reassured me and somehow didn’t.

Standing beside a hospital bed watching Camila breathe through contractions that clearly caused her pain, I discovered an outcome I couldn’t strategize my way toward.

“You look terrified,” Camila said between contractions, sweat already beading at her temple despite the early hour, exhaustion evident even this early into what the doctors promised would be a long and difficult process.

“I’m not terrified.” My voice was rushed.

“You’re lying.” A tired, genuine smile broke through despite the pain. “It’s oddly comforting, actually. Watching the great Nikolai Golovin panic over something he can’t control with money or violence.”

The hours blurred together in a way I had not experienced in a long time, not since those hours when she was under Graham’s hold. I held her hand through contractions that grew steadily worse and wiped sweat from her forehead with a damp cloth the nurses kept replenishing.

“Tell me something,” Camila said during a brief lull, her voice rough with exhaustion. “Distract me. Anything. Not something funny; I don’t think I can laugh safely right now.”

“I once negotiated a merger between two rival casino families for over six hours without a single break,” I said. “I thought that was the longest, most exhausting negotiation I’d ever survive. Viktor fell asleep twice at the table. Mikhail never let it show, though I know for a fact he’d have killed for a coffee three hours in.”

“Really?”

“Now I understand I knew nothing about exhaustion until this exact moment.” I pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “You’re doing something harder than anything I’ve ever managed in a boardroom.”

She laughed weakly, the sound breaking apart into a groan as another contraction built. “Ask me again in an hour if you still think that.”

A nurse checked her progress in the middle of that stretch, murmuring something about dilation and leaving again.

By late morning, the doctors’ careful calm had become more urgent.

I held Camila’s hand through the final, brutal stretch of labor, watching her summon strength I hadn’t fully understood she possessed even after everything else I’d witnessed her survive. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead, her whole body trembling with effort, and still she pushed forward with a stubborn refusal to yield.