Chapter 159 Anya
The cabin smelled of pine smoke and healing wounds.
Three months had passed since that night in the woods. Three months of hiding, waiting, watching over Nikolai as his body slowly put itself back together. The bullet wound in his leg had healed into a thick, ugly scar. The cuts on his hands had faded to thin white lines. But the shadows in his eyes remained.
He sat by the window now, staring out at the endless trees, his hand resting on the arm of his chair. Viktor had left two weeks ago, returning to Moscow to handle the remnants of Nikolai's empire. Nadia called once a week with updates. Alexander was still out there, somewhere, rebuilding. But he had gone quiet. Too quiet.
"Nikolai," I said, walking up behind him. "You have been sitting there for hours."
"I have been thinking."
"About what?"
He turned to look at me. His face was thinner than it used to be, the lines deeper, the gray in his hair more pronounced. But his eyes were still the same. Still fierce. Still burning.
"About the future," he said. "About what comes next."
"You mean running?"
"I mean stopping." He took my hand and pulled me onto his lap. I went willingly, curling into his chest, feeling his heart beat beneath my ear. "I have spent my whole life building an empire my father started. Killing for power. Taking what I wanted. Burning anyone who stood in my way."
"And now?"
"Now I have you. I have a chance at something different. Something real." He kissed the top of my head. "I do not want to be Nikolai Markov, the Pakhan, anymore. I just want to be your husband."
I pulled back and looked at him. "You mean it?"
"I mean it."
The next morning, he made the calls.
Viktor arranged the meeting. Five families. Five bosses who had once answered to the Markov name. They gathered in a warehouse on the outskirts of Moscow, the same warehouse where Nikolai had once conducted his bloodiest business.
I stood in the shadows, watching.
Nikolai sat at the head of the table, his leg still stiff, his body still healing. But his voice was steady. His eyes were clear.
"I am dissolving the Pakhan system," he said. "Effective immediately."
The room erupted. Shouts. Arguments. Threats. One man, a fat boss with gold rings on every finger, slammed his fist on the table.
"You cannot do this! Your father built this empire! Your grandfather died for it!"
"My father built it on corpses," Nikolai said. "My grandfather died because of it. And I have spent my whole life cleaning up their mess." He stood up, leaning on his cane. "You want to govern yourselves? Go ahead. You want to fight over territory? That is your choice. But I am done. The Markov throne is empty."
Some called it weakness. One boss spat on the floor and walked out. Another shook Nikolai's hand and wished him well. The rest argued among themselves, already carving up the pieces of the empire Nikolai had abandoned.
But Nikolai did not look back.
He kept his personal holdings. Enough money to live comfortably for the rest of our lives. Enough connections to stay safe. But the power, the throne, the endless hunger for more—he gave it all away.
"I am free," he said that night, lying beside me in our small cabin bed. "For the first time in my life, I am free."
I kissed his chest and held him close.
The months that followed were quiet. Peaceful. We moved from the cabin to a small house on the outskirts of a village, far from Moscow, far from the violence. The neighbors knew us as Ivan and Anya Sokolov, a retired businessman and his wife. No one asked questions. No one came looking.
I learned to bake bread. Nikolai learned to chop wood. We walked through the forest every evening, holding hands, watching the sunset paint the sky in shades of gold and red.
And then, on a cold winter morning, I felt the first kick.
I was in the kitchen, stirring soup, when a flutter moved through my belly. Small. Delicate. Like butterfly wings.
"Nikolai," I called.
He came running, thinking something was wrong. His face was pale, his hands already reaching for a weapon that was not there.
"What is it? What happened?"
I grabbed his hand and pressed it to my stomach. "Wait."
A moment passed. Then another.
The flutter came again.
Nikolai's eyes went wide. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Is that...?"
"Our daughter," I said, smiling through tears. "She is saying hello."
He dropped to his knees right there on the kitchen floor, pressing his face against my belly, whispering words I could not hear. His shoulders shook. His hands trembled.
When he looked up, there were tears on his face.
I had never seen Nikolai Markov cry. Not when Mikhail died. Not when his empire crumbled. Not when Alexander shot him and left him bleeding in the grass.
But now, kneeling on the worn wooden floor of our small kitchen, holding the curve of my belly where our daughter grew, he wept like a child.
"I did not know," he whispered. "I did not know I could feel this."
"Feel what?"
"Hope."
Our daughter was born on the first day of winter.
The snow fell thick and fast, blanketing the world in white. The midwife arrived just in time, a kind woman from the village who asked no questions and demanded no explanations.
And then, with one final cry, Irina Nikolaevna Markov came into the world.
She was small. Smaller than I expected. Her skin was pink, her eyes were dark, and her lungs were powerful. She screamed her displeasure at the cold, at the light, at the indignity of being born.
But when Nikolai took her in his arms, she stopped.
She looked up at him with those dark, serious eyes, and he looked down at her with something I had never seen before. Awe. Terror. Love so fierce it seemed to crack him open.
"Hello, little one," he whispered. "I am your father. And I will spend every day of my life making sure you never have to be afraid."
He held her for an hour, not moving, not speaking, just staring at her tiny face. The midwife left. The fire crackled. The snow fell.
I watched them from the bed, exhausted and aching and fuller than I had ever been.
"Irina," I said. "After your mother."
Nikolai nodded, not looking away from our daughter. "After the only woman who ever loved me before you."
He had told me about his mother once. A gentle woman who had married a monster. She had died when he was twelve, killed by an enemy who wanted to hurt his father. Nikolai had found her body in the garden, roses blooming around her like a funeral wreath.
He had not cried then. He had not cried again until this moment.
"Anya," he said, finally looking up at me. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For saving me. For loving me. For giving me a reason to be something other than what I was made to be."
I reached out and touched his face. His beard was rough, his skin was warm, and his eyes were wet.
"We saved each other," I said. "That is what love is."