Chapter 16 - Vasily
The flight had never felt so long.
I sat in the leather seat of the private jet, watching the Mediterranean unfold beneath us, and tried to keep my mind from spiraling into worst-case scenarios.
Lucas was dead. The leak was plugged. But the damage had been done—Pankratov knew where I'd hidden her, knew the location of the island I'd believed was impenetrable.
Every minute I was in the air was a minute she was vulnerable.
I'd called ahead three times during the flight, each time receiving the same report: all quiet, no sign of movement, perimeter secure.
But the words did nothing to ease the tension coiling tighter with every passing hour.
I wouldn't believe she was safe until I could see her, touch her, feel her heartbeat against my chest.
The sun was sinking toward the horizon when we began our descent. Through the window, I watched the island materialize from the haze—the green hills, the white cliffs, the sprawling estate that had become both sanctuary and prison. Home, in a way nowhere else had ever been.
Because she was there.
The helicopter touched down on the north pad, and I was out before the rotors had fully stopped. Kirill called something after me, but I didn't hear it. Didn't care. All I could see was the terrace ahead, and the figure standing there, silhouetted against the dying light.
Gabrielle.
She'd been waiting for me. The realization hit me like a physical blow—she'd been watching for the helicopter, had come out to meet me, was standing there with her arms wrapped around herself like she was holding something in.
I crossed the distance between us in seconds. Then she was in my arms, her body pressed against mine, her face buried in my chest. I held her so tightly I worried I might hurt her, but I couldn't make myself loosen my grip.
"You're safe," I murmured against her hair. "Thank God. You're safe."
"I'm fine." Her voice was muffled against my shirt. "Vasily, what's happening? The guards, the extra security—something's wrong."
I pulled back just enough to look at her face. She was pale, dark circles shadowing her eyes, but her gaze was steady. Strong. Whatever fear she felt, she wasn't letting it control her.
"Inside," I said. "We need to talk."
I told her everything.
We sat in the library as darkness fell outside, and I laid out the full scope of what had happened. Lucas's betrayal. The information he'd fed to Pankratov over months. The attack on The Trophy Room. And the worst part—the part that had driven me back to her ahead of schedule.
"He knew about the island," I said. "Lucas had access to enough information to piece together the location. We have to assume Pankratov knows too."
She was quiet for a long moment, processing. I watched her face for signs of panic, of the terror that would be entirely justified given what I'd just told her.
Instead, she nodded slowly. "So we're not safe here anymore."
"We're safe for now. The security has been tripled. No one approaches without clearance. But—" I hesitated, hating what I had to say next. "We may need to move. Find somewhere else, somewhere Pankratov can't reach."
"Where?"
"I don't know yet. I'm working on options." I reached for her hand, needing the contact. "I'm sorry, Gabrielle. I brought you here to protect you, and instead I've put you in more danger."
"You didn't know about Lucas."
"I should have. I should have found the leak sooner, should have been more careful—"
"Stop." She squeezed my hand, cutting off the spiral of self-recrimination. "You can't control everything, Vasily. You can't predict every betrayal. What matters is what you do now."
I stared at her, struck again by how much she'd changed since the frightened woman I'd dragged from that alley. She wasn't just surviving anymore. She was adapting, strengthening, becoming someone I hadn't expected.
Someone worthy of standing beside me.
"There's something else," she said quietly.
I tensed, reading the shift in her expression. She was holding something back—had been since I'd arrived, some secret she was working up the courage to share.
"What is it?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she stood and moved to where I sat, positioning herself directly in front of me. Then she took my hand and pressed it flat against her stomach.
Against her belly.
"I'm pregnant."
The words didn't register at first. I heard them, understood their meaning individually, but my brain refused to assemble them into anything coherent. Pregnant. She was pregnant.
With my child.
"Vasily?" Her voice wavered. "Say something."
I looked up at her face, then back down at my hand on her stomach. Her still-flat stomach, where something impossible was growing. Something we'd created together, that night in my bedroom when the walls between us had finally crumbled.
A baby. My baby.
"When did you find out?" The question came out hoarse, barely audible.
"Yesterday. I took two tests to be sure." She was trembling slightly, though she was trying to hide it. "I wanted to tell you in person. I needed to see your face."
My face. What was my face doing? I couldn't feel it, couldn't feel anything except the warmth of her skin beneath my palm and the thundering of my heart in my chest.
A child. A son or daughter who would have her dark hair or my green eyes, who would grow up in a world I'd built on violence and blood, who would need protection from enemies I'd spent a lifetime creating.
The terror hit first—a cold wave that crashed over me, threatening to pull me under.
I wasn't fit to be a father. I was a monster, a killer, a man who'd done things that would make any decent person recoil.
What could I possibly offer a child except danger and trauma and the constant threat of violence?
But beneath the terror, something else was rising. Something I hadn't expected, hadn't known I was capable of feeling.
Wonder. Pure, overwhelming wonder.
She was carrying my child. This woman I'd stolen and claimed and somehow started to deserve—she was giving me something I'd never thought I'd have. A future. A legacy beyond blood and empire. A reason to be better than I'd ever been.
I stood abruptly, my hand still pressed to her stomach. She flinched at the sudden movement, uncertainty flooding her expression.
"Vasily—"
I kissed her.
Not gently, not carefully. I kissed her like I was drowning and she was air, like she was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth. My hands cradled her face, tilting her head back, and I poured everything I couldn't say into the press of my lips against hers.
When I finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
"You're not upset," she whispered. Half question, half statement.
"Upset?" I laughed, the sound foreign in my own ears. "Gabrielle, you've just given me something I never knew I wanted. Something I don't deserve. How could I possibly be upset?"
"I don't know what kind of mother I'll be. I don't know how to do this. My own mother died when I was nineteen, and my father—"
"Your father was a fool who couldn't see what he had." I cupped her face in my hands, forcing her to meet my eyes. "You are going to be an incredible mother. Kind and strong and fierce. Everything our child needs."
"Our child." The words seemed to hit her, making them real. "We're having a baby."
"We're having a baby."
She laughed then—a watery, overwhelmed sound that was half sob. I pulled her against my chest and held her while she cried, my hand stroking her back, my lips pressing kisses to her hair.
A baby. Our baby.
Whatever came next—Pankratov, the danger, the uncertain future—we would face it together. All three of us.
***
Later, in my bedroom, I undressed her slowly.
Not with the desperate urgency of our first time, when need had overwhelmed everything else. This was different. Reverent. I peeled away each layer of clothing like I was unwrapping something precious, something sacred.
Because she was. Sacred. The mother of my child.
"Vasily." She shivered as my fingers traced down her spine, finding the zipper of her dress. "You don't have to be so careful. I'm not fragile."
"I know you're not fragile." I lowered the zipper inch by inch, watching the fabric part to reveal the smooth expanse of her back. "But tonight, I want to take my time. I want to worship every inch of you."
The dress pooled at her feet, leaving her in nothing but simple cotton underwear. I drank in the sight of her—the full curves of her breasts, the soft swell of her hips, the slight roundness of her belly that might have been my imagination but felt like a miracle.
"You're beautiful," I murmured, my hands skimming up her sides. "So beautiful it hurts to look at you."
"You say that a lot."
"Because it's true." I unclasped her bra, letting it fall away. "Every time I see you, I'm struck by it all over again."
She reached for me, her fingers working at the buttons of my shirt.
I let her undress me, watching her face as she revealed my scars, the evidence of a life lived in violence.
She traced each one with her fingertips—the knife wound on my ribs, the bullet scar on my shoulder, the dozen smaller marks scattered across my torso.
"You've survived so much," she said softly.
"I survive because I have something worth surviving for."
I lifted her and carried her to the bed, laying her down on the sheets with a gentleness I hadn't known I possessed. She looked up at me with those dark eyes that had haunted me since the first moment I'd seen her, and I felt something crack open in my chest.
I wasn't ready to name it. Wasn't sure I'd ever be ready. But it was there, growing, impossible to ignore.
I stretched out beside her, propping myself on one elbow. My free hand traced patterns on her skin—down the column of her throat, across her collarbone, circling her breasts without quite touching them.
"Tell me what you want," I said. "Anything. Everything."
"I want you to stop teasing me."