Epilogue
Artyom
One week later…
The morning light spills across the studio floor in a long pale streak that catches on the metal frames leaned against the far wall, and even though the room looks exactly the same as it always does, I feel different, wired from the decisions that dragged me out of bed before dawn and pushed aside every instinct that told me to stay with Kira for a few more minutes.
I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours, and while she was lying warm and quiet against me, breathing in that steady way that always calms something in my chest, I was already planning this meeting, thinking about the phone calls I had to make, already choosing this room over anywhere else because I wanted my father and Boris to understand, without a single word, that the balance has shifted and we are doing this on my ground, not theirs.
I called my father earlier, told him to come to my office, and he didn’t question it, which tells me he already sensed something was coming.
I called Boris next, keeping the same tone, making sure he heard exactly what I wasn’t saying, because after what he did in the park, he doesn’t get to assume he’s safe just because he’s injured.
The knock on the sliding metal door comes exactly when I expect it, and a moment later Vladimir steps inside with that familiar controlled posture of his, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders set in that quiet authority he carries like a second skin.
Boris follows half a step behind him with his arm in a sling and his jaw still bruised from where it met the bench, his expression tight with the mix of humiliation and stubbornness.
I don’t offer either of them a seat and I don’t bother pretending this is a polite conversation.
“I want you both to listen,” I say, leaning back against the edge of my desk, my arms crossed over my chest. “And I want you to understand that what I’m about to say isn’t a negotiation.”
Vladimir’s eyes sharpen, but he stays silent. He knows the power has shifted.
Boris doesn’t know better. He shifts his weight, jaw ticking. “What reason could you have for dragging us all the way—”
“For the future of our families,” I cut in, not raising my voice, because I don’t need to. “And for the alliance you two nearly destroyed last week.”
Boris stiffens. Vladimir glances at him, the smallest flash of irritation crossing his face. I let the silence stretch long enough that they both feel the weight of it.
Then I say it. “Mikhail will marry Irina.”
Boris reacts first, his shoulders relaxing in a long breath, the kind men exhale when they think the world has just fallen neatly into their hands. He nods once, like it’s what he expected all along. Vladimir watches me more carefully, his expression unreadable.
“I see,” he says.
“You’re going to keep the alliance with their family,” I continue, “and you won’t touch Kira again. You won’t bring up her name. You won’t look in her direction. You won’t even breathe in her direction.”
Vladimir’s jaw shifts. “I told you I wouldn’t interfere again.”
“And I’m telling you what that means,” I answer.
Boris scoffs quietly under his breath, barely audible, but loud enough that I catch it. I turn my head and look at him, slowly, and his smirk dies.
“If you ever raise a weapon near her again,” I say, voice low, steady, “you won’t get another chance to regret it. I want the alliance to stay exactly as it’s always been, but neither me, nor my brother, are getting involved in your human trafficking operation, understood?”
His throat tightens. His eyes flick to my father, but Vladimir doesn’t move.
I straighten off the desk, stepping closer to them so they both have to shift their weight, even if neither wants to show it.
“I don’t care about your opinions,” I tell Boris. “And don’t attempt to manipulate anything,” I tell Vladimir. “I’m giving you a solution because at least one of us cares about preventing a pointless war over your fragile egos.”
My father narrows his eyes, not sharply, just enough that the lines at the corners deepen the way they do when he’s trying to measure how deeply a decision has rooted itself in me, and for a moment he looks like he wants to test the edges of what I’m willing to tolerate, but the memory of what happened in the park hangs between us like a quiet warning and he finally exhales through his nose and lets it go.
“If this is your decision, then the alliance will hold,” he says, clasping his hands behind his back again, shoulders settling into a posture that pretends he had any part in choosing this outcome.
“It will,” I reply, keeping my voice steady while I shift my weight slightly, shoulders squared, one hand resting on the edge of the drafting table behind me as I make it clear I’m not moving and I’m not bending. “But you don’t speak to Mikhail. I do.”
Vladimir’s jaw tenses for a brief second, the smallest tightening under the skin. “And when will he be told?” he asks, his gaze flicking briefly toward the window as if calculating timelines and consequences.
“When he returns from Italy,” I say, straightening slightly, my fingers tapping once against the wood before I still them, refusing to let him see anything that looks like hesitation.
Vladimir looks down for a moment, then lifts his chin slightly, studying me as though he’s trying to understand where this version of me came from.
“I hope he agrees with you,” he says.
“He will,” I say. “Because I will give him every reason to.”
“And if he refuses?” Boris mutters under his breath, adjusting his sling like the weight of it suddenly grew heavier.
I look at him again, holding his gaze long enough for him to read what’s behind mine. “He won’t.”
Vladimir exhales, slow, controlled. “Then it’s settled.”
I step forward and reach for the handle of the studio door. “You can leave.”
Boris moves first, shoulders rigid, muttering something under his breath that he doesn’t have the courage to say clearly. Vladimir steps past me slower, calmer, but the tension in his spine tells me he didn’t expect to walk away from today without a fight.
They step into the hallway.
“Father.”
He pauses.
“I don’t want to see you in my home,” I say. “Unless I send for you.”
He doesn’t turn fully, only shifts his head enough that I see the profile of a man who suddenly understands he has lost access to something he always believed was his.
“I understand,” he says, walking away.
I shut the studio door behind them. The silence afterward is different from the one that filled the room before they came, full of things I can’t control yet.
I rub a hand along the back of my neck, exhaling slowly, trying to let the tension leave my body, but something cold stays lodged under my ribs.
A slow, tight breath leaves my chest. I look at the window, the pale morning sun cutting across the concrete floor of the studio, and for the first time since the park, I feel something that isn’t anger or exhaustion or decision.
I feel dread. Mikhail is supposed to be home in two months.
Their love is sealed. Their future finally within reach. But as Artyom and Kira step into the life they fought for, another story quietly begins to take shape—one tied by blood, family, and a different path forward.