Chapter 14
PENELOPE
Five months had slipped by like warm honey—slow, sweet, and almost too perfect to trust.
Each morning I woke with a quiet gasp, half expecting the dream to shatter, half afraid to move lest it vanish entirely.
Five months of laughter, of soft touches, of stolen kisses that didn’t sting with fear or guilt—five months that somehow, impossibly, felt like a lifetime of peace.
We had left Greece only five days after that reckless, unforgettable afternoon in the clinic ward.
Dmitri had collapsed that day not from weakness, but from the weight of guilt and fear he’d carried for years.
And in that frail, exposed state, he had bared himself to me—like the boy I had loved first, stripped of walls and armor, pleading for forgiveness.
Ruslan had stood at the gates as Dmitri’s private jet waited on the tarmac, arms crossed, face unreadable except for the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Luck,” he’d said simply, voice carrying over the wind. “You’re going to need a lot of it.”
Dmitri inclined his head, a subtle gesture of respect and restraint, the kind that had once been his signature even in boardrooms filled with threats.
I hugged Ruslan fiercely, pressing my gratitude into his shoulder.
He had been a judge, a jailer, a savior—without him, we might never have arrived here. And yet, even now, I saw that glint of calculation in his eyes, as if the man never fully trusted anyone’s loyalty, even my own.
We’d boarded the jet with Vanya sandwiched between us, clutching a stuffed bear Ruslan had handed him with a faint wink.
Dmitri had squeezed his shoulder gently, murmuring something in Russian that made the boy giggle, and I’d felt a surge of warmth so intense it made the clouds outside the window shimmer.
Now the three of us—four, if you counted the tiny heartbeat fluttering beneath my skin—lived in a sprawling villa Dmitri had quietly purchased months earlier, long before he ever believed forgiveness was possible.
The villa was a monument to subtle luxury, every detail meticulously planned but never ostentatious.
It felt like a dream I was still afraid to wake from, a fragile bubble of happiness that could burst with a single wrong word or memory.
And yet, here I was, leaning back on the chaise at the pool’s edge, feeling the sun warm my skin, watching my family, and daring to believe it was real.
Dmitri lounged beside me, black swim trunks clinging to the sculpted lines of his body.
Water droplets still glistened on his chest from an earlier swim, his dark hair tousled and damp.
He was sin wrapped in sunlight—dangerous, magnetic, entirely, irrevocably mine.
He reached over and brushed a damp strand of hair from my face, thumb lingering briefly on my cheek.
“You really do have a forgiving heart, Penelope,” he murmured, low and rough with awe and something softer, almost reverent. “Otherwise those two evil adults who call themselves your parents would be ten feet under by now. Rotting.”
I smiled, hands brushing the gentle swell of my belly.
Four months along now, and the baby had begun to stir, tiny flutters that felt like butterfly wings dancing inside me.
I laughed softly, a sound I hadn’t realized I’d missed—the pure, light laughter that didn’t hide a tremor of fear.
“I feel death would be too quick an end for my parents’ crimes—against me, and against us...”
I let the words trail off, watching ripples spread across the turquoise water, the sun catching each one like diamonds.
“You bankrupted them. Stripped them of everything they owned. Now they’re poor—powerless, exposed, and forgotten.”
Dmitri’s eyes darkened, a flash of pride and satisfaction igniting beneath the smoldering warmth.
“And you made sure they’re under FBI investigation,” he said quietly. “It’s only a matter of time before they’re put behind federal maximum-security bars, where they’ll spend the rest of their miserable lives.”
Dmitri had been ruthless, and he had been precise.
Within weeks of our return, every offshore account they had hidden had been frozen or drained.
Every property seized.
Every business collapsed under carefully leaked evidence of fraud, embezzlement, and worse.
Dmitri had handed the authorities a dossier so comprehensive that Interpol and the FBI were now jointly investigating.
Their passports revoked, travel impossible. They were trapped in the United States—once untouchable, now paupers running from one cheap motel to the next, waiting for the inevitable knock on the door that would end in handcuffs and a lifetime behind bars.
I traced a finger along my belly, smiling faintly at the life stirring inside me, feeling the protection Dmitri had woven around us, even from the shadows of our past. “You’ve done what I could never have imagined,” I said softly. “You’ve built a fortress around us.”
He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper that warmed my ear. “No one will hurt us ever again. Not your parents, not anyone from the past, not even the world itself. I promise.”
I tilted my head, letting his words wash over me, letting the sun warm my skin, letting the water glitter like liquid sapphires beneath the edge of the chaise.
Dmitri studied my face as though committing the words to memory, something dark and approving flickering briefly in his eyes.
Then he shifted closer, the heat of his body radiating toward me, and sank down onto the warm stone tiles at my feet.
The movement was unhurried, almost ceremonial.
He knelt there like a penitent, like a man before an altar.
Both of his hands spread gently over the curve of my stomach—careful, reverent, as though even the slightest pressure might disturb something sacred.
He leaned forward and pressed his ear against me, cheek warm against my skin, listening with exaggerated seriousness.
“Is it speaking yet?” he asked, voice low and hopeful, threaded with the faintest tease.
I laughed, the sound soft and unguarded, threading my fingers through his damp hair. “It’s four months, Dmitri. The baby is barely the size of an avocado. You won’t feel kicks for another month or two.”
He didn’t move. Just closed his eyes and stayed there anyway, breathing slowly, like the act of listening grounded him—like I was oxygen and this moment was the only place he could fully exhale.
Watching him like this still stole my breath.
Three weeks after we’d settled into the villa, I’d stood alone in the bathroom at dawn, sunlight barely creeping through the shutters, staring down at the pregnancy test with shaking hands. Two pink lines. Clear. Undeniable. My knees had nearly buckled.
Terror and hope had collided inside me so violently I’d had to grip the sink to stay upright.
I’d rehearsed the words a hundred times in my head—how I’d tell him, how I’d soften it, how I’d brace myself in case joy wasn’t his first reaction.
Dmitri wanted children, yes—but wanting and being ready weren’t always the same thing. Not after everything we’d survived.
But the man who’d woken beside me every morning since Greece had not been the same man who once ruled my life through fear and distance.
This Dmitri was quieter. Watchful. Almost... devotional.
Sacrificial in ways that still stunned me.
Once, barely a month after we arrived, he’d been deep into negotiations over an eight-figure arms deal—numbers scrolling across a screen, lawyers and brokers filling the room—when the buyer made an offhand remark about “keeping women in line.” The words were said casually, like a joke.
Dmitri hadn’t raised his voice. He hadn’t argued.
He’d simply stood, shut his laptop, and walked out.
By nightfall, the man was blacklisted across every Volkov channel worldwide. Contracts voided. Access erased.
Dmitri came home late, dropped to his knees in front of me without being asked, and pressed his forehead to my thighs.
“I’m sorry,” he’d said hoarsely. “I should never have done business with anyone who thinks like that. Ever.”
Another time, an old associate from his New York days—too drunk, too stupid—had laughed and asked if I was “still putting out after everything.”
Dmitri had broken his jaw with one clean punch.
No hesitation. No warning.
But when he came home that night, his hands had been shaking—not with rage, but with fear. Fear that I’d see him as the monster again.
I’d held him on the couch, his face buried in my neck, until the tremors faded and his breathing evened out.
And the jealousy... God.
The way his hand tightened around mine when other men looked too long.
The way his jaw locked, eyes darkening, until I leaned close and whispered, “I’m yours,” just to feel him relax.
Or the night at the charity gala when a waiter smiled at me a second too long, and Dmitri pulled me into an empty hallway—pressed me against the wall, kissed me until my lipstick smeared and my knees went weak, murmuring “mine” over and over like a vow carved into stone.
Possessive. Yes.
But never cruel. Never controlling.
So when I finally showed him the test—heart in my throat, fingers trembling—he didn’t pause. Didn’t question. Didn’t hesitate for even a heartbeat.
He lifted me off the ground despite my startled protest about my weight, spun me once in a slow, dizzy circle, and buried his face in my neck like he needed to anchor himself to something real.
“Vanya’s going to have a sibling,” he’d rasped, voice thick and undone. “And we can have as many as you want after this one. As many as you’ll give me.”
I’d cried into his shirt, clutching him like he might disappear, happier than I’d ever been—happier than I’d believed myself capable of being again.
Now, here by the pool, I wore only a simple black bikini top and high-waisted bottoms that cradled my bump.
My body had changed—fuller breasts, softer hips, the gentle swell of new life—and Dmitri looked at me like I was still the most exquisite thing he’d ever seen.