Chapter 167

She hovers, because doting is in her DNA. Her fingers twitch toward Leo’s wayward foot. “Do you need⁠—?”

“You can steal them from me once they’re done.”

She grins guiltily, caught red-handed in Grandma Mode, then nods and slips back down the hall. When the door clicks shut, I exhale slowly. Natalie’s head lolls against my neck, milk-drunk and dreamy. Leo’s grip on my thumb loosens as sleep claims him, too.

The cursor blinks, waiting.

Eventually, I run out of both words and milk. When Mama knocks on the door to check on me, I offer her the children. She scoops them both up with obvious glee and starts singing as she ferries them away.

Time to do some of my other work. The screen is a maze of notifications, mostly from The Phoenix’s Slack channel, where Gina and Lora are tag-teaming updates about our latest story’s impact. Our exposé on Midwest Pharmaceuticals’ price-fixing scheme has exploded. Major networks are picking it up, citing our reporting. My chest swells with pride. Twelve months ago, The Phoenix was a sleazy tabloid printing celebrity nip slips. Now, we’re making corporate giants sweat.

A message from Gina pops up: CNN wants an interview!!!! Call me when the tiny humans release you from boob duty.

I can’t help but unleash a goofy grin, even though I’m all alone in my mother’s den. They’ve been invaluable—Gina’s razor-sharp editing, Lora’s surprising talent for following money trails. Who woulda thought that Lora the Ditz knew accounting so well?

Together, we’ve built something meaningful from the ashes of the trashy rag Sasha bought me.

Speaking of meaningful transformations, there’s a text from Feliks: Latest sweep came up empty. No sign of the Serbian snake anywhere. If he survived, he’s long gone.

My fingers tighten around the phone. Part of me wants to believe Dragan died in that church, crushed beneath that poor, tortured Peugeot that the rental company will never see again. But bodies have a way of turning up —or not—in our world.

Still, six months of silence speaks volumes. I choose to believe he’s gone for good.

I scroll down to find a video in the family group chat from Jasmine. She’s at her new studio in Manhattan bright and early this morning, helping a young student correct their bow grip. The difference between this Jasmine and the one who fled to France is stark. Her shoulders are straight, her smile genuine as she guides small hands into proper position.

First student showcase next Friday, reads her caption. You’re all coming, right?

“Of course we are,” I murmur. Teaching violin might seem like a small thing compared to running from demons, but I know better. Every note her students play is another brick in the wall between her past and present.

I sit back and look around me. The room glows in that fragile hour between dawn and true morning, pale light rinsing everything of colors. But even when I’m this calm, this meditative, I still don’t hear Sasha until his thumb brushes the nape of my neck.

“Ah!”

He laughs and bends down to kiss where he just touched.

He smells like New York in winter—diesel exhaust and snowmelt clinging to his leather jacket—with an undercurrent of the vetiver soap I bought him after Dr. Nguyen suggested we incorporate anchoring rituals into our daily routines. His scar catches the screen’s blue light as he leans over my shoulder, reading.

“Still fictionalizing me as the brooding antihero?” he asks.

“That’s fiction?” I minimize the document before he can spot the paragraph where his hands are described as ‘twin oaks grafted from war and tenderness.’ The last thing he needs is an ego boost. “You’re here early. I thought you said you had Bratva business until noon.”

One shoulder lifts in a half-shrug. Snowflakes float from his collar onto the keyboard. “I figured wife business was more important.”

I pull him down for a proper kiss. “You figured correctly, sir. We’ve got… fifteen minutes, maybe, until Mama needs reinforcements. So…?”

He groans hungrily, but when I reach for his belt, he tucks my hands back in my lap instead of doing what I wanted, which is banging me senseless on the closest flat surface. “You don’t know how bad I want that. But fifteen minutes isn’t enough for me, Ariel. I need so much more time with you. Tonight.”

His palm cups my jaw, guiding my gaze to his. Therapy has sanded some edges off his intensity, but the core remains—that fractured-bright gaze cataloging my every microexpression.

“Fine,” I say, pretending to pout. I can’t be too upset, though. Sasha has never, ever let me down when he’s promised that “later, there will be more.”

I trace the puckered scar along his ribs through his shirt. “Dr. Nguyen said you skipped yesterday’s one-on-one. Everything okay?”

His pulse leaps under my fingertips. “Had a… visitor.”

“Another dream?”

When he hesitates, I thread our fingers together—Dr. Nguyen’s grounding technique #3. His exhale warms my temple.

“It was Moliets-et-Maa again,” he rasps. “You in that alley, Dragan’s knife at your throat. Only when he turned… it wasn’t Dragan. It was Yakov.”

I run my finger through his hair. “You should’ve woken me.”

“Not a chance; you were actually asleep for once.” His forehead meets mine. “My vow stands, moya zhena. Your nightmares take precedence.”

I like when he reminds me of the promise he made me in that garden. Who has to be shadow and who gets to be light. Some burdens in this life can be shared. Some can’t. But that’s okay. We always have each other to lean on.

I let him pull me into the wingback chair, his legs pillowing mine. Dawn pinks the room as I curl into him. As we breathe softly together, just enjoying each other’s touch and company, the muffled notes of Mama’s singing float down the hallway toward us.

“It’s a good life we have, you know,” he murmurs suddenly. “It’s a good, good life.”

The steam from Zoya’s feast rises in swirls, staining the air with the tang of beets and nostalgia. I watch Sasha’s scarred thumb swipe a dollop of sour cream from Natalie’s chin—a gesture so ordinary it steals my breath. Our daughter giggles, smearing borscht across the Ozerov family crest tattooed on his wrist.

“Careful,” I warn the little princess as I pass my husband and claim a seat at his side. “That’s a historic artifact you’re defacing.”

“Not much longer for this world,” he agrees, glancing at the crest again.

Feliks snorts. “You keep saying that and I keep not believing it.”

Bouncing our daughter on his knee, Sasha looks as serious as ever. “I mean it. The Ozerov Bratva has lived long enough. It’s time for it to die. That’s how we make room for now things.”