Page 113 of Ruthless Bratva Pakhan

I hadn't fixed him. That wasn't how healing worked—I knew that better than anyone. But I'd given him something he'd been missing. A reason to let go. A place to rest.

The same thing he'd given me.

I thought about the woman I'd been when he walked into my office. Guarded. Controlled. So afraid of being hurt that I'd stopped letting myself feel anything at all. I'd built a life designed to minimize risk, and in doing so, I'd minimized everything else too.

Now I felt everything. The fear and the joy and the love and the uncertainty—all of it, tangled together, impossible to separate. It was messy and complicated and nothing like the careful existence I'd constructed.

It was also the most alive I'd ever been.

Rodion stirred in his sleep, his hand finding mine even in the darkness. His fingers curled around my palm, holding on without waking. A reflex. A habit. A testament to the months we'd spent learning to reach for each other.

"I love you," I whispered, too soft to wake him.

His hand tightened on mine anyway.

The baby kicked one final time, then settled. Outside, the city hummed with its endless energy—a million lives unfolding, a thousand stories being written, the great machine of humanity churning on whether we participated or not.

But in here, in this bed, there was only us. Only this. Only the quiet miracle of two broken people who'd somehow found a way to make each other whole.

I closed my eyes and let sleep take me, my hand still wrapped in his, our daughter safe between us.

Whatever tomorrow brought, we would face it together.

*****

THE END