Chapter 35 Cressida
thirty-five
Cressida
Four months ago, I was chained to a concrete floor, staring into the eyes of a woman I once called a sister while she rode a power trip so high it got her killed.
Four months since fire swallowed the warehouse and her screams went silent.
Since I looked the devil in the eye and watched my husband tear her heart out mid-beat.
Konstantin’s love is not gentle. It’s primal, feral . . . endless. And he gave her a death in the only language he speaks fluently—violence.
But our daughter . . . she gave us life, and today, I’m having her in my living room.
Because apparently trauma makes you weird about hospitals and paranoia runs in my bloodline. Or maybe it’s just Konstantin’s need to control the uncontrollable. He doesn’t trust anyone else to keep me safe, not after everything.
Not after Lucetta.
Not after the warehouse.
Not after her.
That night still echoes in my dreams sometimes.
But this . . . this is noise. Beautiful, terrifying noise.
Sunni is screaming louder than I am, though. “You’re doing amazing, bitch. Don’t die now.”
“Sunniva, shut up,” Konstantin snaps.
“Oh, bite me, Daddy Dagger.”
“I will sedate you myself.”
“Rude.”
Konstantin growls something vicious in Russian, kneeling behind me so I can lean against his chest.
My back bows as another contraction hits, and I snarl at Konstantin. “Your bloody demon child is chewing her way through my vagina.”
“Lettuce pray for the dark queen’s va-jay-jay,” Sunni quips, putting her hands together and bowing her head.
“Almost there, little one,” Lucetta croons, her voice tight but calm.
She’s the only one here who doesn’t sound like she’s about to cry, puke, or break furniture.
She’s seen worse.
She’s survived worse.
Lucetta’s still healing both physically and emotionally.
The kind of healing that happens slowly, one breath at a time, like scar tissue blooming under skin.
The kind of survival that earns you your own quiet corner of the world.
I see it in her eyes sometimes, the hell she went through that she refuses to speak about.
The only thing I know is that it was bad. Really, really bad.
But she’s here.
She’s alive.
And that’s a weight I didn’t know I was carrying until it fell off my chest.
Misha leans against the far wall, arms crossed, his expression unreadable.
He’s a darker echo of Sunniva, just less glitter and more blade.
His eyes scan the room, always cataloging every possible threat.
Quiet and dead-eyed, loyal to his Bratva boss, but watching me like I’m blood.
Not his bosses bonded. Not the Pakhan’s wife.
Just . . . me. Something in the way he shadows me now says it all.
He’s become a brother to me. Not by birth, but by blade.
By war. Just one more person who refuses to ever let me be haunted by the ghosts in this place.
Another contraction hits, and my world splinters as I scream.
“Well, that’s a sound,” Sunniva mutters, wiping sweat from my forehead as I crush her hand in mine. “Very banshee of you. Love the commitment to the aesthetic, dark queen.”
“I swear to goddess,” I growl, “if you don’t shut up.”
“You’ll what? Bleed on me?” she chirps. “Too late, Princess Doom. Already ruined these leggings.”
I let out something between a sob and a laugh, then promptly bit down on a curse as another contraction shreds through me.
“You are doing so good, Lisichka,” he breathes, his lips at my temple. “She is almost here.”
“She’s trying to kill me,” I pant.
“She is my daughter. Of course, she is.”
Sunniva snorts. “Born feral. Like mother, like spawn.”
“She’s not feral,” I hiss, my breath catching. “She’s a queen. A tempest. A Kirovsky.”
“Same thing,” Sunniva says.
I screech as the sudden urge to push overwhelms me. “Bloody hell, it’s finally time to meet the little hellion.”
“Push, Cressida,” Lucetta orders in her now permanently husky voice.
It feels like hours that I push, but it’s worth it when I hear that first sound.
That first, thin, furious cry that says she’s going to rule all our worlds.
Sunniva holds up the furious, perfect little bundle that the midwife passes to her. “She looks like you,” she says, her voice wet with emotion but still grinning like a bloody lunatic. “Poor thing.”
“Give her here,” I demand.
The second she’s in my arms, the bond wraps around us like a second heartbeat. A different thread than the one I share with my monster man. This one is smaller, brighter, like someone rewrote my DNA in fire and satin baby skin.
My daughter curls against my chest, her tiny fist clenching in my hair like she owns me.
“Hello, Calypso Kirovsky. Welcome to the world,” I croon.
Her eyes blink open, a blue as deep as Konstantin’s and as fierce as mine. Konstantin brushes a finger down her cheek, whispering to her in Russian.
The people I love move around us, each of them making their declarations to the new Bratva princess.
Kingston runs a finger over her hand until her tiny fingers wrap around it. Then I get to witness my big brother fall head over heels. “I’ll bury the world for you, princess.”
Lucetta leans over to brush a kiss against Calypso’s forehead. “The day you want to burn it all down, I’ll bring the matches.”
But Sunniva . . . she makes my daughter a crown out of tiny flannels and puts it on Calypso’s head. “All hail the Chaos Princess, Destroyer of Sleep, Empress of Spit-Up, and rightful heir to the Bogeyman Throne.”
Konstantin growls softly. “No throne. She will have empires.”
Sunniva ignores him and carries on. “I’m your fairy chaos-mother. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to set things on fire.”
Konstantin’s head snaps up, and he narrows his eyes.
Sunniva smiles impishly and amends, “Mostly metaphorically.”
And yet, there’s one person missing. I peer around and find Misha still leaning against the wall, watching us as if he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to come closer.
I tilt my head and smile tiredly at him. “You came with him to save me. Come meet the one you helped make safe.”
He makes his way over and kneels next to us. He gazes down at her with a smirk. “She already looks like she wants to stab someone. I approve.”
Healing doesn’t come in a clean line. It bleeds, stutters, and sinks its teeth in just when you think you can breathe again.
But in our house, there is laughter again. There’s warmth. There’s the sound of my husband’s voice humming low Russian lullabies while our daughter curls into his chest like she’s always belonged there.
Calypso was conceived in blood and ruin, but she came wailing into this world wrapped in love and vengeance.
Konstantin climbs to his feet gently and carries her over to the cradle he carved himself, its dark wood etched with protection sigils and her name spelled in Russian along the curve of the frame.
She’s a storm who hasn’t even been in this world for a full day, yet she’s already got grown men wrapped around her tiny, chubby fist.
The hands that have seen so much violence are soft as they lay our sleeping daughter down.
Konstantin worships her, but my big brother has yet to stop pacing. Misha has once again taken his place as guard. Lucetta, pale but steady, rests back on the couch with the scars of her survival hidden under a soft jumper and an even stronger spine.
Sunniva’s currently draped across a pile of baby blankets, wearing glitter horns she procured from somewhere and dictating her new toddler curriculum she’s come up with over the last few hours.
“Okay. What do you think about this? Lesson one: How to weaponize a pout. Lesson two: Mastering the art of the chaos giggle. Lesson three—and this one’s critical, okay—biting is only okay if they deserve it. Or if they touch your snacks.”
“You are not teaching my daughter to bite,” Konstantin deadpans.
“Oh, sweetie, she already knows how, guaranteed. She’s your kid.”
Kingston sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I need a bloody drink.”
“I already drank all the whiskey,” Sunniva adds helpfully.
“Misha? Want to have a drink with me?” he asks, ignoring Sunni.
“I do not drink with children present,” he replies before turning to Konstantin. “If any teenage boys come sniffing around in sixteen years, I will be fashioning a throne from their femurs.”
Konstantin doesn’t even blink. “We will carve her name into it.”
“Subtle,” Kingston remarks.
“Effective.”
“Scarring,” I mutter with a smile. “Better be prepared for their mothers to carry that same energy.”
I laugh when I catch the expressions on their faces. Such double standards in this world. I’ll be sure to teach my daughter to stand up when the world wants to bury her.
Konstantin climbs into the bed with me and wraps me in his arms, brushing his lips against my forehead. “You okay, Lisichka?”
“Getting there.”
I glance over at Sunniva, now arguing with Misha about which glitter shade best reflects feminine rage. Lucetta’s smile is small, but it’s there. Kingston fidgets as if he’s been still too long and he’s ready to bolt.
Konstantin is pressed against me, holding me as if he alone can keep other monsters at bay.
And our daughter mewls from her cradle.
This is my family. One I’ve built. One I’ve stitched together from blood, madness, and the kind of love that scars before it soothes.
We survived the Reaper.
We buried Giselda in fire.
We named our daughter after the storm.
And in the end, it wasn’t death that came for us.
It was life.
A feral, bloody, beautiful life.
And she has her father’s eyes.