Chapter 104 I love her
Vuk Kael Laskovic
You could say I loved her, Maureen.
But even that word felt too small for what lived inside my chest.
Love was something people spoke about lightly, something they tossed around like it could be measured. What I felt for her had never been something so simple. It was deeper than devotion, heavier than loyalty, stronger than blood.
If the heavens themselves ever decided to speak to me… they would not use thunder or prophecy.
They would use her voice.
She was my heaven.
My eternity.
My beginning and my end.
And I had almost lost her.
The thought alone felt like a blade twisting slowly through my ribs.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
The words came out fragile, barely stronger than breath as I stepped toward the bed.
Maureen lay there against the pillows, pale but awake, her silver hair spread softly across the sheets like spilled moonlight. The room was quiet enough that I could hear the uneven rhythm of my own breathing.
She didn’t answer.
Not a word.
Not even a shift of her body.
That silence crushed me far more than anger ever could.
“It's… uhm…” My voice faltered, and I swallowed hard, forcing myself to continue. “I was selfish. Very selfish.”
Gods.
The memory of her lying in that coma still haunted my mind—the way her skin had lost its warmth, the way the life had seemed to slip further and further away with every passing hour.
The fear of that moment still clung to my bones.
“I didn’t think,” I admitted, my throat tightening. “I didn’t think about how you would feel. I didn’t think about what it would do to you.”
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.
“I just… I saw you slipping away from me and I panicked.”
My hands trembled at my sides.
“You were leaving me,” I continued, the confession breaking into fragments. “And I thought maybe if I— if I just—”
My voice shattered into quiet, broken sobs before the sentence could finish.
For a long moment, there was nothing.
Just the sound of my breathing and the distant cries of newborns from the bassinets beside the bed.
Then—
Movement.
Maureen shifted slowly.
Before I could even react, her arms wrapped around me.
Tight.
Warm.
The suddenness of it knocked the breath straight from my lungs.
I froze for a moment before instinct took over and I pulled her closer, burying my face against her shoulder like a man who had just been pulled back from the edge of an abyss.
When I finally leaned back enough to look at her, my chest tightened painfully.
Gods.
My Maureen.
Maureen Laskovic.
My little moon.
My everything.
She looked tired—exhausted in a way that only someone who havent had sleep for a while. But she was smiling at me softly, like the storm I had been drowning in had never existed for her.
And I just…
I couldn’t bear it.
The weight of loving her this much was almost unbearable.
I pulled her into another embrace and pressed a kiss to her forehead, my tears mixing with the warmth of her skin.
When I finally pulled back, she let out a small chuckle.
Soft.
Gentle.
The sound nearly unraveled me all over again.
“Well,” she murmured, her voice still weak but filled with quiet amusement, “thank you for choosing me, my love.”
Her fingers brushed lightly against my cheek.
“My everything.”
A breath of laughter escaped me, shaky and full of emotion.
“I’m the honored one,” I said quietly. “That you’re here. That you’re still here.”
I brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
“My sunshine.”
Another quiet laugh slipped from her lips.
Together, our gazes shifted toward the small Cribs beside the bed.
Three tiny bundles slept there, wrapped carefully in soft blankets.
Three small miracles.
Evidence of the life we had built together.
Three children with hair pale as winter snow.
Maureen smiled softly as she watched them.
“You should name them,” she said.
My heart stuttered.
Name them.
Gods.
I stepped closer, leaning over the bassinets carefully.
The smallest of the three stirred slightly, her tiny face scrunching before relaxing again.
“I… uhm…” I hesitated, staring at her delicate features. “I think… I think I’ll call her Lauren.”
The name settled into the room like something sacred.
“She’s beautiful,” I murmured quietly.
Maureen glanced up at me, warmth shining in her eyes.
“Like you,” I added softly.
Her cheeks flushed faintly.
“And him?” she asked, nodding toward the eldest boy.
The child was slightly larger than the others, his tiny fist curled stubbornly beside his cheek as if he already intended to challenge the world.
I hummed thoughtfully, studying him.
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted.
I glanced back at her.
“What do you think?”
She shook her head gently, that same soft smile on her lips.
“No,” she said.
Her hand slipped into mine, squeezing it gently.
“You name him.”
Because she trusted me.
Because she always had.
And standing there between the woman who was my universe and the three small lives that carried pieces of both of us…
I realized something with terrifying clarity.
There was no force in heaven or hell that could ever take them from me again.
Not while I still breathed.
Not while blood still moved through my veins.
Not while my hands could still close around the throat of any man foolish enough to try.
I looked down at the small sleeping faces before me, my chest tightening with something fierce and unbreakable.
“I… uhm… Lucian,” I said slowly, tasting the name as if testing its strength. “Yes. Lucian Kael Laskovic.”
Maureen’s tired eyes softened, the faintest smile touching her lips.
“And the other one?” I asked, turning toward her.
Her fingers brushed against the blanket of the eldest boy.
“Adrian,” she murmured. “Adrian Kael Laskovic.”
I nodded once, the names settling into place like pieces of a destiny finally written.
“Lauren,” I said quietly, glancing at our daughter.
“Lucian… and Adrian.”
Our babies.
The words felt almost unreal.
For a moment we simply stood there together, staring at them as if the world itself had shrunk to this small room, this fragile moment of peace.
Then I pulled Maureen toward me and kissed her.
Not hurried.
Not desperate.
Just slow and certain.
\---
By four in the morning the world felt colder again.
The prison corridors were damp and silent, the torches burning low against the stone walls. The kind of silence that belonged to places where hope had long ago died.
The guards dragged Cassian from his cell.
Chains rattled with every step.
His hair hung over his face, his body bruised and filthy from days in confinement. Yet even like that there was something defiant about the way he held himself.
He kept his gaze down as they forced him to kneel before me.
I had no desire to begin my morning like this.
But some endings could not be delayed.
“What a pleasant surprise,” Cassian muttered hoarsely without lifting his head. “The great Vuk Kael Laskovic visiting a rat in his cage.”
He slowly raised his eyes then, a crooked smile forming on his lips.
“Have you come to kill me?”
“Yes,” I answered simply.
“I’ve come to kill you.”
I didn’t raise my voice.
Didn’t threaten.
Didn’t posture.
I simply glanced toward the guards.
One of them stepped forward carrying a glass cup filled with dark liquid. He placed it in Cassian’s chained hands.
“Drink.”
Cassian stared down at the cup.
Then he laughed.
A harsh, broken sound.
“You should kill me like a real man!” he snarled suddenly, jerking forward and smashing the cup against the stone floor.
Glass shattered.
The poison spilled across the ground.
“Not like this!” he continued, breathing heavily. “Not like some coward hiding behind a drink!”
I didn’t move.
Didn’t even blink.
Truthfully, I was tired.
Bone-deep tired.
My wife was still asleep. My children had just been born. I had spent nights without sleep and days drowning in blood and decisions.
All I wanted was to go back to them.
“Bring another one,” I said calmly.
“A bigger bowl.”
The guards hesitated only a moment before obeying.
When they returned with a heavy metal bowl filled to the brim, Cassian’s bravado faltered.
“No,” he said quietly.
Then louder.
“No! I refuse to die like a rat!”
Something inside me snapped.
“YOU ARE A RAT, CASSIAN!”
My voice echoed violently through the stone chamber.
“Below us. Beneath contempt. It irritates me to even think we breathe the same air.”
I stepped closer until I was standing directly in front of him.
“If it were possible,” I continued coldly, “I would have you buried in the deepest hell imaginable.”
His eyes burned with hatred.
“Then fight me!” he roared, struggling against the chains. “Challenge me, Vuk! Face me like a man!”
“There is no challenge between us.”
My voice dropped into something quieter.
Something final.
“You are fallen.”
I leaned down slightly so he could see the truth in my eyes.
“Forever below.”
For a moment he stared at me.
Then suddenly—
He started laughing.
Not a sane laugh.
Not even an angry one.
It was wild. Broken. Hysterical.
When the guards forced the bowl into his hands, he didn’t resist this time.
Instead he lifted it slowly.
Still laughing.
Still staring at me.
“You think you’ve won,” he rasped. “You think this is justice.”
He raised the bowl higher.
“But you forget something, Vuk.”
His smile twisted into something ugly.
“Men like me don’t die quietly.”
Then he drank.
All of it.
The bowl clattered to the floor as the poison began tearing through his body.
He laughed again.
Louder.
Harder.
Until suddenly his legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees.
His hands clawed against the stone as his body trembled violently.
But even then his eyes locked onto mine with burning hatred.
“I die today,” he choked.
Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth.
“But I curse you.”
His voice rose again with terrifying intensity.
“For taking what could have been mine!”
His fingers slammed against the floor.
“My hard-earned slave!” he spat. “My possession! My property!!”
“You stole her from me!”
His breathing became ragged, his body shaking uncontrollably.
“You destroyed my life, you selfish bastard!”
His eyes widened wildly as the poison reached his heart.
“You think you’re the hero,” he gasped. “But you’re worse than I ever was.”
His voice dropped into a venomous whisper.
“Born of Lucifer himself… you are evil.”
His head tilted back as another broken laugh escaped him.
“You didn’t save her, Vuk.”
His final words came out barely louder than breath.
“You simply stole what belonged to me.”
Then the laughter stopped.
His body collapsed forward.