13. Amanda
— ? —
Amanda
The cabin feels different now.
Not smaller, exactly. Just quieter. Like the walls absorbed all that desperate energy - the planning, the fear, the countdown to Sunday - and now they don’t know what to do with the silence.
Neither do I.
It’s been two weeks since Julian’s arrest.
Two weeks of lawyers calling with updates I barely process. Two weeks of journalists leaving messages I delete without listening. Two weeks of Roman moving quietly around me, giving me space, waiting for me to come back to myself.
I don’t know how to come back.
I don’t know who I am without the fight.
***
“You haven’t eaten today.”
Roman sets a plate in front of me. Eggs, toast, coffee. Simple things. Things I used to love.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Amanda-”
“I know.” I push the plate away. “I know I need to eat. I know I need to sleep. I know I need to do all the normal human things that normal humans do when they’re not-” I stop. Don’t know how to finish.
Roman sits across from me. Doesn’t push the plate back. Just waits.
“When they’re not what?” he asks quietly.
“When they’re not waiting for the next disaster.” I stare at my hands on the table. They’re still. No tremor. No purpose. “I spent two years in prison planning my revenge. Then I spent weeks executing it. Every moment was focused on one thing - destroying Julian. And now he’s destroyed, and I-”
“You don’t know what to do with yourself.”
“I don’t know who I am without an enemy.”
The words hurt to say out loud.
Roman says nothing for a while.
“Do you remember what you said to me in the visiting room?” he asks. “After your mother died?”
“I said a lot of things.”
“You said you didn’t know if you loved me or if you just wanted them to burn. You said you couldn’t tell the difference.”
My throat tightens. “I remember.”
“Can you tell the difference now?”
I look at him. Really look.
The morning light catches the planes of his face - the strong jaw, the dark eyes, the scar I’ve kissed a hundred times. He’s patient and steady and here, the way he’s always been here, even when I couldn’t see past my own rage.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “That’s what terrifies me.”
He reaches across the table. Takes my hand.
“Then we figure it out.”
“What if there’s nothing to figure out? What if the only thing holding us together was the war, and now that it’s over-”
“Stop.”
His voice is sharp. Sharper than I’ve ever heard it.
“You’re not the only one who’s scared,” he says. “You think I don’t worry about the same thing? That maybe you only wanted me because I was useful? That maybe when the dust settles, you’ll realize I’m just the brother of the man who destroyed you?”
“Roman-”
“I’ve loved you for five years. Five years of watching you belong to someone else.
Five years of telling myself it was enough just to see you happy, even if it was with him.
” His grip tightens on my hand. “And then you weren’t happy.
And then you were in prison. And then you needed me, and I finally got to be there for you, and I told myself - I told myself that when it was over, you’d see. You’d understand. You’d choose me.”
“I did choose you.”
“Did you? Or did you choose revenge, and I just happened to be holding the map?”
The question hangs between us like smoke.
I don’t have an answer.
***
That night, I can’t sleep.
I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and listen to Roman breathing beside me. He’s asleep - or pretending to be - and the space between us feels like miles.
My mother is dead.
Julian is in prison.
The war is over.
And I’m still in the cell.
I can feel it - the walls pressing in, the fluorescent buzz, the endless gray of days that bleed into each other. I escaped the physical prison, but the one in my head is still locked tight.
I roll onto my side. Watch Roman’s chest rise and fall.
He’s beautiful in the moonlight. Strong and scarred and real.
I want him.
Not as a weapon. Not as a partner in crime. Not as the enemy of my enemy.
I want him because of the way he held me in the shower when I was falling apart. Because of the way he never asked me to be anyone other than who I am. Because of the way he looks at me like I’m worth something - not because of what I can do for him, but because of who I am.
I want to feel something other than empty.
I want to feel alive.
I reach out. Touch his shoulder.
“Roman.”
His eyes open instantly. Alert. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I move closer. Press my body against his. “I don’t want to think anymore. I just want to feel you.”
“Amanda-”
“Please.” I take his face in my hands. “I need to know this is real. I need to know you’re real. That I’m not just a ghost haunting the ruins of my old life.”
He searches my eyes. Looking for what, I don’t know.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure of you.” I kiss him softly. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of anymore.”
He rolls me onto my back. Slowly. Carefully. Like I might break if he moves too fast.
“I love you,” he says against my mouth. “Not the version that fought Julian. Not the one who survived all those years in that cell. You. The woman underneath all of it.”
I close my eyes. Feel the tears slip down my temples into my hair.
“Roman-”
“Stay with me.” He takes my face in his hands. “Don’t go back there. Stay here, with me, in this room.”
“I can’t feel anything.” The words come out hollow. “I’m so empty. I need-”
“Tell me what you need.”
“Make me feel something.”
He undresses me with reverence. Every button. Every clasp. His hands steady when mine can’t stop shaking. The grief sits heavy in my chest, a stone I can’t move, and I need him to reach inside me and shift it somehow.
“I wasted so many years,” I whisper. “On the wrong brother.”
His hands still on my hips. “You see me now.”
“I see you now.”
He’s gentle with the rest - my bra, my underwear - and then I’m bare beneath him, and he just looks at me. Not hungry the way he was before. Something softer. Sadder.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs. “Even like this. Especially like this.”
“I don’t feel beautiful.”
“I see you anyway.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “Let me show you.”
He starts at my hairline. Kisses down my temple. The curve of my cheek. The corner of my jaw. Each press of his mouth deliberate, grounding me in my body when I want to float away.
“Feel this,” he says against the hollow of my throat. “Feel my mouth on your skin.”
I try. I focus on the pressure of him, the soft drag of his lips.
“This is real,” he murmurs. “This is now.”
He kisses lower. The swell of my breast. My ribs, one by one. The soft skin of my stomach that tenses under his attention.
“You’re here with me.” He nips at my hip bone, and I gasp - the first real breath I’ve taken in hours. “There you are.”
“Roman-”
“I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”
He settles between my thighs, spreading them gently, and I feel exposed in a way I didn’t before. This is a slow unraveling, a careful excavation.
“So pretty,” he breathes. “Every part of you.”
The first kiss he presses to my inner thigh makes me shiver. The second makes me reach for him - my hand finding his hair, needing to anchor myself.
“That’s it.” He kisses higher. “Hold onto me.”
When his mouth finally finds my center, I cry out - not from pleasure, not yet, but from relief. From feeling anything other than the crushing weight of grief.
“There she is,” he murmurs against me. “My girl. Coming back to me.”
He works me slowly. Gently. His tongue tracing patterns against my clit while his hands hold my hips steady. The pleasure builds in waves - not the urgent, desperate climb from before, but something softer. Warmer.
“Stay with me.” He eases a finger into me, and I tighten around it, greedy for more. “Don’t drift. Feel this.”
“I feel it.”
“Tell me.”
“I feel your mouth on me.” My voice cracks. “Your hands. I feel - I feel you.”
“Good girl.” He adds a second finger, stretching me gently. “That’s so good. You’re doing so well.”
The praise settles into my chest, right where the grief lives, and something loosens. Just a little.
He brings me to the edge slowly. So slowly. His tongue circling my clit while his fingers curl inside me, finding that spot that makes my thighs tremble. But when I start to tip over, he pulls back.
“Roman-”
“Not yet.” He kisses my hip. “I’m not done with you yet.”
He rises over me, still clothed, and I reach for his shirt with shaking hands.
“Let me see you.”
He lets me undress him. Lets me trace the tattoos I’ve memorized - the compass, the Latin words, the dark shape over his heart that I now know is a memorial for someone he lost. I press my palm flat against it.
“We match,” I whisper. “Both carrying ghosts.”
“Yes.” He covers my hand with his. “But we’re still here. We survived.”
He kisses me, soft and deep, and I taste salt - my tears or his, I can’t tell anymore. When he settles between my thighs, I feel him against my core, and I lift my hips.
“Please.”
“Are you sure?” He searches my face. “We don’t have to-”
“I need you inside me.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “I need to feel you. All of you. Please, Roman.”
He enters me slowly.
Inch by inch.
Giving me time to adjust. To feel every part of him filling me up, chasing out the emptiness.
My breath catches. His forehead drops to mine.
“Feel this.” His voice is barely a whisper. “Feel me. Feel us. This is real. This is now.”
“It’s real.”
“You’re not in that cell anymore.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re here. With me. Safe.”
He starts to move. Long, slow strokes that light up every nerve. My body responds before my mind catches up - my hips lifting to meet his, my hands sliding down his back, pulling him closer.
“That’s it.” He kisses my temple. “Stay with me. Right here.”
The pace stays slow. Deliberate. Each thrust a reminder that I’m alive, I’m here, I survived. The pleasure builds differently this time - not sharp and urgent, but deep and spreading, warming me from the inside out.
“You’re so good,” he murmurs against my ear. “So perfect. Taking me so well.”
I wrap my legs around his waist. “Deeper.”
He gives me what I ask for. Angles his hips so he hits that spot inside me, and I moan - a real sound, not the hollow echoes I’ve been making all day.
“There she is.” He tips my chin up, makes me look at him. “My beautiful girl. Coming back to life.”
The tears come then. Really come. Streaming down my face while he moves inside me, while the pleasure builds and the grief cracks and everything I’ve been holding back floods out.
“I’ve got you.” He kisses the tears away. “Let it out. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
“I love you,” I choke out.
“I love you.” He picks up the pace, still gentle but deeper, more insistent. “I love every part of you. The broken parts. The healing parts. All of it.”
The orgasm builds slowly. A wave I can see coming from a long way off. And when it finally crests - when I finally break apart in his arms - it’s not sharp and sudden. It’s warm and spreading, pulsing through me in long, rolling waves while I sob against his neck.
He follows me over, spilling inside me with a groan that sounds like my name, and then he holds me.
Just holds me.
The grief doesn’t disappear. But it’s not alone anymore. It lives alongside something else now - love, maybe. Hope.
“I’m here,” he whispers, stroking my hair. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re not alone.”
I wrap my arms around him. “I love you.”
And for the first time, I believe it.
***
After, we lie tangled together.
My head on his chest, his arm heavy across my waist. The cabin is dark and quiet, and I can hear his heartbeat under my ear - steady, strong, alive.
“I want to visit her,” I say.
“Who?”
“My mother. Her grave. I haven’t been there since-” I swallow. “Since before everything.”
Roman’s arm tightens around me.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Yes. But I need to do the hard part alone.” I trace patterns on his chest with my fingertip. “I need to say goodbye. To her. To the woman I was before. To the life I thought I was going to have.”
“And then?”
“And then I figure out who I am now.” I lift my head. Look at him. “With you. If you’ll still have me.”
He takes my face in his hands.
“Always,” he says. “For as long as you’ll let me.”
***
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I almost ignore it - I’ve been ignoring everything for weeks. But something makes me look.
A text from Vivienne.
I stare at the name for a long moment. My sister. The woman who destroyed my life. The woman who’s now raising her son alone, facing her own reckoning, trying to rebuild from the ashes of Julian’s empire.
I open the message.
Thomas took his first steps today. I know you probably don’t care. But I thought you should know. He’s your nephew.
I read the words three times.
Thomas. My nephew. Sixteen months old when I got out. Walking and talking now.
Life moving forward while I stay frozen in the past.
“What is it?” Roman asks.
“Vivienne.” I set down the phone. “The baby took his first steps.”
Roman is quiet. Waiting.
“I don’t know how to feel about that,” I say. “I don’t know how to feel about any of it. She destroyed my life. She let me go to prison. She-”
“She’s also your sister. And she’s raising a child alone while facing criminal charges.”
“Are you saying I should forgive her?”
“I’m saying you get to decide what forgiveness looks like. And it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”
I lie back down. Stare at the ceiling.
Thomas took his first steps.
My nephew exists in the world, and I’ve never held him.
Maybe it’s time to change that.