Chapter 42 Sima
SIMA
My head is still spinning.
I’m tucked against Petyr’s chest, my cheek pressed to the hard planes of muscle. His skin is warm, slick with sweat, and I can feel the slow thud of his heartbeat under my ear. Every breath he takes lifts me and grounds me when everything else still feels unreal.
His hand moves lazily down my back, tracing small circles with one finger. If I wasn’t completely spent, I’d be shivering from the touch. Instead, I just sigh and let him draw whatever shapes he wants there.
It’s strange. Quiet moments like these used to make me tense. I’d wait for the sharp edge, for Petyr’s ruthlessness to come out the second our bodies weren’t the ones doing the talking anymore.
Now, it just feels… safe. All of it. In a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
He looks down at me and asks, “You okay?”
I laugh, still levitating halfway out of my body. “More than okay.” My limbs feel like melted wax. Soft, stretched, and aching in the best way. I don’t think I could move even if I tried.
It’s not just the physical part that overwhelms me. It’s what it means. That I let myself want him. That I didn’t stop wanting him, not even for a moment. That some part of me wanted to be seen, touched, claimed.
Petyr grins at my words. That quiet grin that pulls at one side of his mouth, so rare and precious.
But then his expression shifts. He looks down at me, gaze intense. His thumb brushes a lock of hair off my forehead.
“I know marriage to me wasn’t what you ever planned for,” he says. “I just need you to know I’m grateful. For all of it.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” I protest. “I—”
“Yes, I do, Sima.” His tone is firm, but not unkind. “You’ve made this house into a real home. Gave me a beautiful daughter. You stayed, even when you had every reason to walk away.” He presses a soft kiss on the top of my head. “So thank you.”
Petyr doesn’t talk like this. He gives orders, threats, the occasional compliment that feels worth marking the calendar for. Gratitude isn’t in his vocabulary.
Or at least, it wasn’t. Maybe things really have changed.
I reach up and touch his chest. “You don’t have to thank me,” I whisper. “You’ve given me things, too.”
His brow lifts. “Like what?”
“A life that doesn’t feel like I’m running anymore.”
For so long, survival was all I knew. Every day was about staying ahead of danger, not letting myself be seen. Living under a name that wasn’t mine.
And now, somehow, I’m here. I’ve built something. Even if it started as a cage, it doesn’t feel like one anymore.
It feels like home.
Petyr doesn’t say anything. Speeches were never his specialty, after all. He just exhales slowly and pulls me closer.
I can feel his lips press into my hair. It’s not a kiss, not exactly. More like a promise he doesn’t know how to put into words.
But that’s okay. He doesn’t need to. I can hear everything he’s trying to tell me.
My hand rests on his chest, his heartbeat steady beneath my palm. I think about everything that’s brought us here: the lies, the fights. The way we tried to destroy each other before we started trying to heal each other.
I don’t know what comes next. If we’ll ever have a normal life.
But for the first time, I’m not afraid of tomorrow.
“Is there anything you want?” Petyr asks a little while later. “Anything at all.”
I blink at him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugs, leaning back against the headboard. “You never ask for anything. I want to give you something. So, tell me. What do you want?”
I laugh softly. “You already give me everything.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Everything?”
“Pretty much,” I say with a smile. “You make sure I have my own money. That I can make my own choices without having to ask. You treat me like…” I pause and search for the right word. “Like your equal.”
“You are my equal.”
That simple answer makes my chest ache. For a man who’s spent his whole life commanding others, he sounds like he means it.
“I never thought I’d have this,” I admit quietly. “A home. A family. Someone who doesn’t make me feel like I’m one wrong move away from losing everything.”
He watches me closely. “Then there’s nothing else?”
I hesitate.
I have everything I want. It’s true. I do.
But there’s an empty space in my heart that’s been there since I was twelve. I’ve learned to heal around it, build my life away from it. And yet, I can still feel it. That hole where something used to be.
No—someone.
“There is one thing,” I admit quietly.
“Tell me.”
I follow the ink on his arm with my fingertip, stalling for time. “My sister. Lara. Sometimes, I still think about her.”
Petyr stays quiet and waits for me to find the words.
“She was six years older, but she always looked out for me. When my father started yelling, she’d pull me into her room and put on a movie. She’d turn the volume up so I couldn’t hear him. She told me we were hiding from monsters.” I smile faintly. “She was the only one who ever made me feel safe.”
He nods. “I remember.”
Of course you do. Petyr isn’t the type to forget something like that. When I opened up to him about it, I gave him another piece of me, and he knows it. Even at his worst, he’s never treated that piece with anything less than absolute kindness.
I guess if anybody knows what it’s like to lose a sibling you love, it’s him.
The fact that he got Dimitri back was a miracle. And maybe I’m expecting too much, but sometimes, I wish I could have that, too. A small miracle of my own.
“Did you ever find out where she went?” Petyr asks, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “After I ran, I never heard from her again. I don’t even know if she’s alive. I like to think she made it out. Maybe she has a family somewhere. People who love her.”
Petyr reaches over to touch me for reassurance. “You want to find her.”
“I just want to know she’s okay.” I swallow around the knot in my throat. “Even if I never get to see her again, I just…”
He looks at me for a long moment. Then he tips my chin up and says, “We’ll find her.”
The certainty in his voice stuns me. There’s no hesitation, not a trace. It’s a promise. A vow.
If there’s one thing Petyr doesn’t take lightly, it’s vows.
I exhale slowly. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do anything for you.”
It should sound cliché, but it doesn’t. Because Petyr doesn’t say a word he doesn’t mean. Not ever.
And for the first time since I was twelve, I let myself believe in miracles again.