I fall to my knees like I’ve been shot. The weight of it crushes me. A fucking daughter. I’ve killed men for less than looking at Cressida the wrong way. What the hell am I going to do when some fucker tries to date my little girl?
Terror and joy tear through me like twin hurricanes.
“I am fucked,” I murmur. “Absolutely, completely fucked. A daughter? In this dangerous world?”
She laughs softly, her fingers brushing over my hair. “She’ll have an entire Bratva empire at her back and the Bogeyman wrapped around her finger. I think she’ll be fine.”
“That’s ours,” I whisper, my voice wrecked. “That’s our girl.”
She’s crying now too. We’re a goddamn mess and neither of us care.
Misha, silent as a ghost pulls the door closed quietly, keeping the world out to give us this moment.
“She’s perfect and you already love her.”
“I’m still terrified,” I confess. “Terrified I will never be enough. That I will fail you both.”
When she speaks, her voice steadies me, sharp and soft all at once. “Konstantin, you are her father. You will scare the worldinto leaving her untouched. You’ll burn it down for her, the way you burn it for me. And she’ll never doubt that she’s loved.”
I lift my head and meet her eyes through the blur. “Calypso.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Her name,” I say firmly. “Calypso. She will rule with glitter and tiny fists. She will own me before she even breathes her first breath of this air.”
Cressida laughs through her tears, pressing her forehead to mine. “Calypso Kirovsky. Our girl.”
There’s a moment, quiet and full, where everything else fades. No enemies, no war, just us.
My palm rests against her belly as I little girl dances underneath it.
“I love you,” I tell her, the words raw and jagged in my throat.
She smiles softly, her hand cupping my jaw. “I know. I love you too, monster man.”
I kiss her slow and reverent.
I don’t deserve this, but I’ll fight for it every day until I die.
Outside the room, I hear Misha say something to someone and then Sunniva yelling back at him.
“What the hell do you mean, no more hot Cheetos? You tell that little soulless snack robot . . .”
Their voices fade as they drift farther away.
Sunniva, surprisingly, was not as injured as she appeared. Neither of the girls were. Lucetta, however, is still missing and I have my men scouring the city for her.
Cressida chuckles against my mouth, pulling back. “They’re going to be such a bad influence on each other and our daughter.”
I smile, but it fades slowly.
Giselda is gone. The threat is ended. But the scars remain, and in this moment, this quiet breath after the storm, I realize something.
The world can fucking burn.
I’ve already walked through hell, but I’ll walk through it again and again if it means coming back to her.
To them.
