Page 63 of Broken Crown

"How much I love you."

"That's a good thought." He kisses my forehead. "Have it more often."

I laugh. It still surprises me how easily it comes now. How natural it feels.

We eventually extract ourselves from bed. Daniil makes coffee while I start breakfast, a routine we've fallen into without discussion. He moves around me in the small kitchen like we've been doing this for years instead of months. Like we were always meant to share this space, this life, this quiet brand of happiness.

The security consulting business has taken off faster than either of us expected. Turns out there's significant demand for someone who can think like a criminal without actually being one anymore. Daniil works remotely mostly, video calls with clients who have no idea the calm professional advising them ontheir vulnerabilities used to be the most feared enforcer in the Bratva.

I've started teaching self-defense classes at the community center in town. Women mostly, though a few teenage girls have started showing up too. I don't tell them about my past. Don't explain where I learned to fight or why my reflexes are better than any other instructor they've ever met. I just teach them how to protect themselves. How to be dangerous if they need to be.

It feels like atonement sometimes. Like I'm putting something back into a world I spent so long taking from.

The morning stretches into the afternoon, and we hike one of the trails behind the property, following the creek that winds through aspens just starting to turn gold. Daniil holds my hand like he's afraid I'll disappear if he lets go. I let him hold it because I feel the same way.

By evening we're on the porch, wrapped in blankets against the autumn chill, watching the sun sink behind mountains painted in shades of purple and rose. Daniil's body is warm against mine, and his heartbeat drums steady beneath my palm where my hand rests on his chest.

"I never imagined this," I say softly. "Never let myself imagine anything beyond the end."

"And now?"

"Now I can't imagine anything else." I tilt my head back, finding his eyes. "You're my whole world, Daniil Volkov. My terrifying, gentle, ridiculous, beautiful world."

"Ridiculous?"

"You sang to the tomato plants this morning. In Russian. I heard you."

He has the grace to look embarrassed. "I read somewhere that plants respond to sound vibrations."

"You sang them a lullaby."

"A traditional folk song about harvest. Completely different."

I kiss him because I can. Because he's here, and he's mine, and every day I get to keep him feels like a gift I haven't earned but refuse to give back. The phone rings, and for a moment neither of us moves. Our phones ring very rarely in our new life. We've been careful about who has our number, careful about maintaining the barrier between this life and the one we left behind. The sound feels intrusive. Wrong. Like a door opening that should have stayed locked. I reach for it anyway.

The screen shows a number I recognize. One I haven't seen in a while, since the day we said goodbye outside that restaurant and drove away toward a future we were only beginning to imagine.

Dimitri.

"Answer it," Daniil says quietly, looking over my shoulder. His body has tensed beside me, old instincts surfacing despite the peace we've built.

I swipe to accept and hold the phone to my ear.

"Sofiya." Dimitri's voice is strained. Exhausted in ways I've never heard from him before. "I know I promised to leave you alone. But I need help."

"What's wrong?"

A pause. Long enough I can hear his breathing, hear the silence that means he's choosing his words carefully.

"Things are not going…as well as I had hoped." The words land like stones in still water. "But I’m working on an alliance, something to help me go the final step to solidify power."

I look at Daniil. His eyes meet mine, and I see everything we are reflected there. The peace. The quiet. The life we've fought so hard to build. But I also see curiosity. The knowledge that some calls cannot go unanswered, no matter the cost.

"What do you need from us," I say.

“I need you to come to my wedding.”