46. Chapter 37
X iomara
The first thing I register is the silence. A kind of silence that cradles you instead of choking you. It’s warm and soft and still. My body feels like it weighs more than it ever has. Not in pain—but in the strange heaviness that comes after surviving something that nearly ended you.
I blink slowly, staring up at the ceiling of a room I never thought I’d sleep in again.
Zasha’s house.
For a long moment, I just lie there, cocooned in the thick, expensive bedding, letting the fact settle into my bones. I’m here. I’m alive. Maksim is safe. We made it out alive.
The last memory I have before sleep took me was the drive home. Zasha at the wheel. Maksim curled up against me, already snoring, a juice box still clutched in one tiny fist. The way Zasha kept glancing at us through the mirror, protective, unreadable, as if trying to memorize the shape of us.
I push myself upright and glance at the clock on the bedside table.
5:42 p.m.
A gasp flies out of me. I’ve slept nearly twelve hours. It hits me then—how deeply my body must have needed the rest. How deeply my soul did too.
As I swing my legs over the side of the bed, the coolness of the wooden floor makes me shiver, but I ignore it. My heart is already beating faster, not from the chill but from the thought that Maksim might be looking for me. That maybe he woke up, and I wasn’t there.
I tug on the robe laid neatly across the foot of the bed and step into the hallway.
Each step feels like walking through a memory.
I follow the low voices and pause at the base of the staircase, pressing a hand to my chest to calm the tremor building within.
The aroma of something faintly savory hangs in the air—garlic, perhaps. Tomato. Pizza?
I make my way toward the sound of low voices and muffled laughter. As I approach the den, I stop in the doorway.
And there they are.
Zasha is seated on the floor, long legs sprawled out, a toy rifle across his lap. Maksim is crouched in front of him, serious-faced and wide-eyed as he aims his own plastic gun. They’re deep in some kind of battle strategy, whispering and ducking behind couch cushions.
I don’t breathe. I just watch.
My son is laughing. Zasha is smiling. And the sight of it breaks me in a way nothing else has.
I stay silent, but Zasha turns his head anyway, as if he senses me. His gaze meets mine, and the warmth in his eyes nearly burns through me.
“How are you feeling?” he asks gently, voice quiet but firm.
I blink fast, swallowing the knot in my throat. “Better,” I manage. “I didn’t mean to sleep so long.”
“You needed it,” he replies simply.
Maksim notices me then. “Mama!” he cries, scrambling up and launching himself at me.
I drop to my knees, arms open, and catch him against my chest. I press my face to his hair and breathe him in. “Hi, baby. Did you have fun?”
“We played army,” he says proudly. “Zasha says I’m a natural.”
I glance up at Zasha, and the smile he gives me is small but real. “He’s a quick study.”
As I hold Maksim in my arms, I remember the other reason why I came looking for Zasha.
“Is it okay if I go and visit with my parents?”
He looks at me, surprised that I have to ask. “Of course, whenever you are ready.”
And then, as if a light bulb just went off in his head, he tells me that my father has been moved to their own hospital, where their doctor will oversee his treatment, and everything that concerns his transplant is being appropriately handled. Including my mother getting tested again.
Tears well up in my eyes. “Thank you.”
He looks uncomfortable for a second, then changes the subject.
He obviously isn’t used to appreciation.
“Are you hungry?” He asks. Waving off my thanks.
I nod. I didn’t even realize how empty my stomach was until he said it.
“I ordered pizza,” he says with a little smirk. “Maksim’s choice.”
My heart twists again.
Pizza. Filled with warmth and laughter. We aren’t running. We aren’t bleeding. We are here.
And I don’t know what we are now—but for the first time in a long time, I think I want to find out.
I give Maksim one more kiss on the forehead before standing. “Come on, soldier,” I say, ruffling his curls. “Let’s clean up before dinner.”
He marches beside me down the hall like a pint-sized general, and I catch Zasha watching us as we disappear around the corner. There’s something unreadable in his expression, but it lingers on me a little longer than I expect. When our eyes meet again, he looks away first.
I strip off my robe and step under the warm stream of water. It stings a little where bruises lace across my ribs and back, but it’s a clean pain. A healing kind. The scent of the soap—cedarwood and spice—smells like him, and I close my eyes for a moment just to breathe it in.
When I come out, towel-drying my hair, Maksim’s waiting for me with his arms full of pajamas and a bath towel that’s half-dragged along the floor. “Zasha said I should get ready too,” he says proudly.
How many things have Zasha already bought for Maksim in one day?
I kneel and take the bundle from him, brushing his hair back. “Good idea. I’ll run your bath.”
Ten minutes later, he’s in the tub, splashing softly while I sit on the edge, watching the water rise and fall around his small frame.
He looks up suddenly. “Mama? Is this part of our adventure?”
The question feels like someone dropped a stone in my chest. It seems loke ages ago that I made that statement to him.
“Yes.”
He seems satisfied with that. He goes back to floating a rubber duck—another thing Zasha must have ordered just for him.
Once he’s clean and dressed, we return to the living room where the pizza boxes are open on the table. The scent is mouthwatering—cheesy, hot, familiar. Maksim rushes over and grabs a slice like he’s never eaten before.
Zasha lifts a brow at me. “You okay to eat?”
I nod and sink onto the couch beside him.
He hands me a plate, and for a while, it’s quiet—just the three of us eating in peace. Maksim talks with his mouth full, showing Zasha his drawing from earlier. Zasha listens patiently, never once interrupting, always responding like the boy’s words are the most important thing in the world.
Something warm and unspoken forms in my throat.
Later, after brushing my teeth, reading bedtime stories, and humming a lullaby under my breath, I tuck Maksim under the covers in the room I once occupied in this house.
He’s out within minutes.
I stay a little longer, watching him breathe, needing to convince myself this moment is real. When I finally turn to leave, I find Zasha leaning against the doorframe. His arms are folded, his eyes unreadable.
The moment I step out and close Maksim’s door, I know it’s time.
“We need to talk,” he says, his voice low.
I brace myself as he leads me toward the kitchen, where the dim under-cabinet lights cast gold shadows across the marble counters.
This is the part I’ve been dreading, the part where I have to confront the past.
Zasha doesn't speak right away. He pours two glasses of water, slides one toward me, then leans against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed.
I wrap my fingers around the glass, mostly for something to do.
My throat is already dry, but water won't fix what's sitting heavy in the air between us.
He doesn’t look angry. He looks… careful.
Measured in a way I’ve never seen before. His knuckles are tight around his glass, but his eyes stay locked on me.
Just waiting.
I wrap my fingers around the glass, feeling the chill soak into my skin. “You want to ask me about my son,” I say quietly.
He nods once. “I do.”
I swallow the knot in my throat. There is no need to drag this out. “Maksim is yours.”
A flicker passes over his face—something close to pain—but it fades into something deeper. Something unspoken and shaking.
“I knew it,” he breathes. “I saw it the second I looked at him, but I... I needed to hear it.”
I look away because I do not know how to handle the hurt in his eyes.
“You could’ve told me,” he says quietly. The words are soft, but they feel like a blow.
“I didn’t keep him from you out of spite,” I say quickly. “I didn’t want to hold you back because of my pregnancy. Especially when you didn’t want me.”
He looks at me as if I just spoke a foreign language.
“What do you mean by I didn’t want you?”
Against my will, I allow my mind to travel back to that conversation, and I remind him of it. “I heard you on the phone the night I asked for divorce… You said you couldn’t wait to end our fake marriage.”
He jerks upright. “You heard that?”
I nod, chest tightening. “You were in your study. I was coming to look for you when I heard you. And I didn’t wait to hear more. Your voice sounded so frustrated, and I felt like I was just...a burden.”
Zasha drags a hand through his hair, his expression full of pain and disbelief. “Mara, I was on the phone with Viktor and Lev. I told them I couldn’t wait to end the fake marriage because I wanted a real one with you. I was working up the nerve to tell you how I feel.”
The breath rushes out of me.
“I didn’t know you’d heard me,” he says, his voice raw with anguish.
I feel like I’ve been punched.
All this time... “I ran to protect myself, and chose to protect my baby for nothing?”
He walks toward me. “You were pregnant and alone because of something I said—something you misunderstood. That’s on me.”
“No,” I whisper. “It’s on both of us.”
There’s silence between us, aching and thick. Then I look at him, “I wasin love with you, and never stopped loving you.”
“Mara, I love you so much it hurts.” His chest heaves. “I should have come after you. But then you’d told me all you wanted me for was as an exit.”
My hands fly to my mouth. “I said that to get you to agree to marry me.”
We stand there, a storm of unspoken grief swirling between us. But then, something breaks through. He steps forward, and I meet him halfway.
When he wraps his arms around me, it’s not just a hug. It’s a gathering of every shattered piece. A silent vow.
“You and Maksim,” he says against my hair, “are my everything. I never thought you’d come back to me.”
My tears fall fast, hot against his chest. “I thought I’d lost this forever.”
“You didn’t,” he says, pulling back just enough to cup my face. “Thank you for coming back to me.”
Then his lips brush mine—soft, aching, sure.
And for the first time in years, I feel whole.