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Sergei’s whole body tensed, and he cleared his throat. “Yuri understood that killing Mila would punish me far more than anything he could ever do to me.”

I glanced at the notch in his left ear and the scar beyond it. He saw me looking and stayed quiet.

“Can I touch it?”

His eyes lifted to mine. For one suspended second, he looked almost startled by the question. Then he nodded, and I raised my hand slowly, giving him time to move away. My fingertips brushed the uneven edge of his ear, then followed the thin scar behind it. His body became completely still beneath my touch, but he didn’t pull back.

“I arrived while they were still there,” he said. “One shot me. I killed another.”

“And Mila?”

“I was too late to save her.”

I let my hand fall but didn’t step away. “Do you see her when you look at me?”

His answer came immediately.

“No. I don’t see her when I look at you.”

I searched his face.

“You are not alike,” he said. “I see you, Alessia.”

“Then why do you look at me like I’m already bleeding sometimes?”

His expression twisted with the fear he usually turned into guards, alarms, and locked doors.

“My mind knows the difference,” he finally replied. “My body recognizes the shape of the threat before I can stop it. A woman I⁠—”

He stopped.

A woman he what?

Loved?

Wanted?

Could not lose?

Sergei looked down at my hand resting on the counter between us.

“A woman inside my life,” he corrected. “An enemy intending to use her to reach me. My head immediately goes to the worst-case scenario.”

I understood then. He didn’t mistake me for Mila.

He mistook the future for the past.

Then, the pasta began to boil over.

I turned with a curse, but Sergei reached past me first, lowering the heat while I stirred. His chest pressed briefly against my back. His hand settled at my hip to steady me, and the contact sent warmth curling through me. When I turned, we were close enough that my flour-covered hand brushed his chest. He looked down at the white handprint.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“No, you aren’t.”

“You’re right. More like, sorry not sorry.”

His hand slid from my hip to my waist, and he kissed me. The kiss was nothing like the ones that came before it. There was no gunfire cooling in our blood, no punishment hanging between us, no challenge I expected him to answer. He kissed me slowly, his mouth warm and careful against mine, one hand at my waist and the other lifting to cradle the back of my neck.