But the words sit heavy in my chest.
Ada deserves to hold onto this small piece of happiness for now. She has dealt with so muchmelately.
So I swallow the truth, just for today.
And instead, I smile softly and type:
Your secret’s safe with me, babe. Just don’t let him cut off any fingers for you as an act of love.
Please, if he offers me a severed finger, I’m framing it.
With a little brass plaque underneath: “Day one of romance with a Bratva psycho.”
But seriously… thank you. I’m here for you too. Always. Will see you in a couple of days, right before the storm….
I drop the phone beside me on the bed, let it land with a soft thud against the blankets. My fingers are cold, but my skin’s still warm beneath the sheets. There’s something strange about waking up in this house now, this place that once felt like a gilded prison and now feels like… I don’t know. A battlefield waiting for blood? A sanctuary built on ashes?
I pull on the robe draped at the end of the bed, tying the sash tight as I pad barefoot through the quiet hall.
I move softer than I used to. Not because I’m scared, but because I’m still adjusting. To the silence. To the space. To the fact that I can walk these halls now without fear.Without being watched or herded. This place used to echo with threat. Now it just echoes with memory.
It’s still strange.
Stranger still to feel safe inside it.
I follow the low thump of bass-like movement down the stairs. It leads me past the table, past the dining room, into the training room.
The door’s cracked open.
And he’s there.
Back to me. Shirtless. Muscles tense as he curls a heavy weight in one hand, the metal glinting under the overhead light. The scars on his back are no longer covered. The bandages are gone. What’s left behind is raw history, cuts that never fully healed, burns that tell stories I’ll never be able to read in full, and one jagged lash across his lower back that makes my chest tighten.
It’s all still there.
The aftermath.
The brutality.
What they did to him when they thought he wouldn’t survive.
But he did.
And he’s still beautiful.
Even more so now.
Because I know the cost of those scars.
I watch him for a moment, unseen. Let myself take him in. The muscles work beneath his skin. The sweat clings to his neck. The quiet breath through his nose, calm and sharp as always. A weapon in control of itself.
Then my eyes drop.
His chest rises, muscles flexing with another repetition, and that’s when I see it again.
My initials.
Etched into his chest, just below his collarbone and above the crossed star. Inked black and stark against all that bruised, burnished skin.
