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“We couldn’t have gotten through this season without you, Timur. I know you weren’t brought up for this. But what matters is that you stepped up when I…when everyone in our world needed you.”

Quiet again. It’s almost too emotional of a statement, but Timur murmurs thanks and then adds: “Congratulations, Vasily. You’ve kept your empire alive for another day.”

* * *

By the time I reach the lake house, the adrenaline from the construction site has settled into something warmer.

Pride.

I stride through the back entrance and into the kitchen, still wearing my work clothes, and Sofiya, my personal chef, looks up from the counter.

“Prepare dinner,” I tell her. “Something worth celebrating.”

Her blonde brows lift. “How much celebrating?”

“Enough that nobody goes home hungry.”

That earns a smile. Sofiya has always loved a challenge, and she’s never had much of one here in the quiet house of a Bratva leader. The kitchen immediately comes alive around me. Pans appear. Orders are given. Someone pulls a bottle of expensive vodka from storage.

Then one of the staff members looks over as I’m washing my stained hands at the farmhouse sink.

“Should we also start preparing for Ms. Pierce’s departure? Once everything with the trial wraps up?”

I stop.

The question shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does.

If the jury brings this to an end today, Matty will leave.

Once Mikhail is free, there is nothing keeping her here. Her job is in New York. Her life is there. She’ll walk out of this house and return to the apartment, the courtroom, the city. To everything that existed before me.

My stomach tightens. I turn away before anyone can see my expression.

“No,” I say quietly. “Not yet.”

I leave the kitchen before anyone can ask what that means.

Upstairs, I stop outside Matty’s room.

I shouldn’t go in; she’s still in Elizabethtown, waiting for the verdict. If it comes today, she’ll have paperwork to deal with afterward.

I do anyway.

Her things are scattered exactly the way she left them. A book on the nightstand, shoes beside the chair. One of her sweatshirts draped over the end of the bed.

I pick it up. The fabric is soft from being worn, and before I can stop myself, I lift it to my face.

Her scent is still there. I close my eyes, breathing her in slowly, as though I can somehow memorize it. The exact smell of her hair. Her skin. Her clothes. The faint trace of whatever shampoo she uses.

Everything.

Because suddenly I’m terrified that I’ll have to live without it.

Without her.

I ball the sweatshirt up in my fists and stand there in the quiet room. I’ve spent my entire life building a kingdom in the mountains so nobody could take anything from me.

Somehow, the one thing I can’t imagine losing is the woman who was never mine to keep.