Chapter 68I’ll Be Still, If You Stay
I’ll Be Still, If You Stay
Aslanov
I sit at the long oak table in the den, shirtless, barefoot, my laptop glowing in front of me like a weapon.
Half the screen is encrypted channels—Russian, Turkish, Latin proxies running in loops.
The other half is Brighton Beach, street by street, mapped down to sewer grates, rooftop access points, hidden alleys, and unregistered maintenance corridors.
Sawyer delivered the maps last night. Just like I told him to.
He was thorough. Each zone marked with colored overlays; kill zones, fallback routes, blind corners that turn into traps with the right sniper in place. I told him to know Brighton Beach like it was home. He made it a hunting ground.
I tap my finger once against the side of my coffee mug, black, untouched, cooling fast, then pick up the burner.
It connects after two rings.
“You up?” Sawyer’s voice cracks through on the other end. He sounds like he hasn’t slept. Good.
“I’m looking at your maps,” I say, straight to the point. “They’re clean. You did well.”
“Is that a compliment from the Devil himself?” he mutters. I hear wind in the background—he’s outside, probably checking perimeters in person. “You want the current numbers?”
“Tell me.”
He exhales, short and clipped. “Malik’s men are in place.
Three shooters stationed, two more rotating with heat scopes on the rooftops west of the dock.
We’ve got our own embedded at the old Orthodox church, and Dominik’s flipped Bratva ghosts are checking in every hour.
Quiet, disciplined. No chatter unless it’s code. ”
“And the alley routes?”
“Rigged to funnel. If anyone deviates, they’re exposed. We’re letting them believe Brighton is open air, but they’re walking straight into the rib cage.”
I nod, even though he can’t see it. “And if they try to flee?”
“They won’t.”
“If they do,” I repeat, colder, “they won’t make it past the perimeter.”
A beat of silence.
“Got it,” he says. “What about you? Still planning to come in through the back like a fucking ghost?”
“Like death,” I correct. “They won’t see me until it’s far too late.”
I end the call without ceremony, tossing the burner on the table beside my laptop.
It buzzes once more, an encrypted text from Dominik. A single photo. Another alley. Another window. Another route.
I forward it to Ada. She’ll update the surveillance algorithm before the hour’s out.
We are close now. The structure is tightening. The teeth of this machine are locking into place.
And soon, it will bite.
My thoughts drift back to last night. She was trembling when I carried her from the bathroom.
Not from the cold. The water had long since run hot, turned lukewarm, then cold again, but she didn’t flinch. She hadn’t moved in minutes. Her body was soft and limp in my arms, not from rest, but from the kind of exhaustion that comes when the soul’s been scraped raw.
I wrapped her in a towel and tucked her against my chest as if I could keep her from falling apart by sheer proximity.
She didn’t speak. Her fingers pressed lightly against my sternum, not to hold on, but like she needed to confirm I was real.
Like she was afraid if she let go, she’d vanish again into the memory of blood and loss and everything she never got to grieve out loud.
The bedroom was quiet. Dim. The shadows were longer than usual, like even the walls wanted to shrink back and make room for the weight she carried.
I laid her down carefully, smoothing the sheets around her body like armor she didn’t have to earn.
I didn’t ask if she wanted me to stay. I didn’t need to.
She reached for me before her eyes closed, her palm sliding across the mattress until her fingers touched mine.
I stayed beside her, not touching her at first, just watching. Listening to the way her breath shivered, the way her eyelids fluttered like she was fighting sleep even though her body was already giving in.
And when the tremors started again, soft, but unbearable, I didn’t wait. I pulled her toward me, fitting her against my chest like she’d always belonged there. She curled into me without a word, cheek pressed to my collarbone, one hand fisting weakly in the fabric of my shirt.
She didn’t cry again. She didn’t need to.
Her pain had already hollowed her out.
And I held her like she was all that was left of something holy in this godless world. A godless world where only the Devil rules. I sometimes fear for her when she is around me, something so pure against something so evil.
Eventually, her breathing evened out. Her hand relaxed. Her brow softened. And when I was sure she had finally slipped under, when I’d counted every breath twice over, I eased myself out of the bed with the kind of quiet you only learn in war.
The hallway was cold. Still. The kind of silence that makes your ears ring.
I lit a cigarette with a hand that didn’t shake, but only because I’d trained myself too well to show that kind of weakness. The first drag burned in my lungs. I welcomed it. Pain made sense. Pain was familiar. I could live in pain.
But what I felt now wasn’t pain. It was something far worse.
I stepped out onto the porch, shirtless, barefoot, the wind cutting across my chest like a reminder: You’re still breathing.
And I stood there like that, facing the dark, facing the sky, facing the truth I hadn’t been ready for.
She had been pregnant.
With mine.
And I hadn’t known. I hadn’t held her. I hadn’t protected her. I couldn’t be there for her. And she was afraid to tell me the truth.
I let myself come apart.
I cried.
Not loud. Not violent. Just steady, aching, like something inside me had cracked wide open and was leaking out in silence.
I cried because I had sworn I would never create an heir. I had buried that future before I ever met her. But now, standing in the dark while her body slept and her soul bled, I knew with a clarity that tore through me—
If I had known, I would’ve given it all up.
The revenge. The war. The title. I would’ve put it all down.
For her.
For something that could have been ours .
I would try my absolute hardest to be a father figure that we both never had.
I smoked the cigarette until it burned down to my fingers. Then I crushed it beneath my heel, wiped my face with the back of my hand like a soldier hiding a wound, and walked back inside.
Because the world doesn’t stop for grief.
But I would burn it all down to keep her from ever carrying that weight alone again.
Isabella
I wake slowly, the way you do when your body has finally given up fighting sleep but your mind hasn’t stopped running.
The bed is still warm beside me, but empty.
The space where he lay holds the shape of him like a ghost. The room is dim—curtains drawn, quiet but not still.
I roll to my side, hair tangled across the pillow, and reach for my phone on the nightstand.
The screen lights up harsh and blue against my face, but I barely notice.
My inbox hasn’t changed.
At the top, like it always is, is the message I still haven’t answered.
My ‘mother’.
I stare at it, thumb hovering, something in my chest clenching the longer I look. My stomach twists. Maybe it’s the dream still clinging to me, echoes of sharp words, empty plates, long corridors where love was meant to live but never showed up.
The nightmare was hazy, but the feeling it left behind isn’t. I was a child again. Cold. Small. Watching my mother walk out the door with my name still on her tongue, but no intention of speaking up for me.
I think of Dr. Monroe’s voice again; calm, insistent, the way it always was when I wanted to dodge the hard questions.
“You don’t need her to fix it. But you need to tell her the shape of what she broke.”
I let out a slow breath. My fingers move.
I’ll be back somewhere in about a week. Maybe a little more. Let’s talk. We’ll discuss the time and date once I’m back.
I hit send before I can talk myself out of it.
The second it’s gone, my chest tightens, but not from panic. Not quite. More like release. Like something old just loosened its grip on my ribs.
I fall back onto the pillow, letting the screen come to life again.
Then I smile faintly and open another thread, messaging Ada.
You alive?
Her reply comes back instantly, like she’s been waiting for someone to ask.
Ada
Barely. You?
Nervous for what’s going to happen. Sleep was hell. Head’s a mess.
A pause.
Then another message buzzes in:
Same here. Dominik’s at my place.
I blink. Sit up.
Shut up. You two have been seeing each other solely? Is that a date?
The typing dots appear immediately, and my grin grows despite everything.
Maybe. Don’t tell anyone, we’re just having fun together in the midst of this entire mess. Nothing has happened yet, but I like him ;)
I pause, thumb hovering above the keyboard.
A part of me wants to tell her, wants to say I finally told him . That last night cracked open a vault I thought I’d sealed for good. That Aslanov held me while I broke and never looked away. That he said he would’ve given everything up for what we lost.
But the words sit heavy in my chest.
Ada deserves to hold onto this small piece of happiness for now. She has dealt with so much me lately.
So I swallow the truth, just for today.
And instead, I smile softly and type:
Your secret’s safe with me, babe. Just don’t let him cut off any fingers for you as an act of love.
Please, if he offers me a severed finger, I’m framing it. With a little brass plaque underneath: “Day one of romance with a Bratva psycho.” But seriously… thank you. I’m here for you too. Always. Will see you in a couple of days, right before the storm….