Chapter 70The Life We’d Choose
The Life We’d Choose
Isabella
The plates are still on the table.
We’ve been together, alone, for days now.
Empty, pushed to the side, the wine bottle half-full and forgotten. Candlelight dances slowly against the walls, melting wax pooling over the lips of old silver holders. It smells faintly of garlic, rosemary, and something sweet, something we didn’t need, but ate anyway.
Neither of us has moved in a while.
I’m curled into the corner of the couch, my legs tangled under me, a throw blanket over my bare knees.
Aslanov is beside me, shirtless under a loose black sweater, sleeves pushed to his elbows, collarbone catching the low light.
His hand rests lazily on the backrest, close to my neck, just barely touching, like even this stillness is a kind of closeness we’ve earned.
There’s a softness in him tonight.
And maybe that’s why I ask.
It slips out before I can second-guess it.
“If you weren’t who you are,” I murmur, “and I wasn’t who I am… if we met differently. No Bratva. No blood. What would your dream life be?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
He doesn’t scoff or change the subject like I thought he might. He just turns his head slowly toward me, like the question deserves real weight.
Like I do.
The fire crackles faintly in the hearth, and his gaze drops to the flames as he thinks.
“I’d live by the sea,” he says after a while. “Not a fancy place. Something quiet. Wind-worn. A house with old shutters and sand in the floorboards. You’d hear the ocean before you saw it.”
I close my eyes for a moment and try to see it through his words.
“I’d restore old cars,” he continues, voice low and steady. “Work with my hands. Things that need patience. Machines that don’t lie.”
That surprises me. But I say nothing.
He exhales, thumb brushing absently along the curve of the cushion behind me.
“I wouldn’t need much,” he says. “Just space. Peace. A place no one could find me unless I let them.”
He glances at me now, and something in his voice shifts. Softens.
“You’d be there.”
My chest pulls tight.
“You’d sit in the garage while I worked. Barefoot. Sunburned from the beach. You’d read poetry aloud just to annoy me. You’d leave coffee mugs everywhere.”
I laugh through my nose. “That’s accurate.”
“You’d play music too loud. And steal my shirts. And fall asleep on the porch swing with your mouth open.”
“Okay,” I nudge him with my knee. “Now you’re just being rude.”
He grins, small, private. Like he’s letting himself imagine it for real.
“And I’d watch you. Every day. Like I didn’t have to keep you alive. Just love you .”
I don’t speak. I can’t. The words are too fragile, too tender, too close to everything I never thought I’d hear from a man like him.
But he reaches for my hand, and I let him.
“What about you?” he asks, thumb running slow circles against my wrist. “Your dream life.”
I inhale through my nose, stare up at the ceiling like it might hold the answer.
“I’d own a bookstore,” I say finally. “Wood shelves. Bad lighting. The kind of place you find by accident.”
He smiles again, but doesn’t interrupt.
“I’d live upstairs. Windows that rattle when it rains. A kettle that takes too long to boil. I’d recommend all the sad books and cry when no one’s looking.”
His fingers tighten gently around mine, and I continue.
“There’d be a cat I didn’t choose but who refused to leave. I’d name him after some dead poet and pretend he didn’t own me.”
“And me?” he asks, quiet.
“You’d come in every Thursday,” I say. “Pretend you’re looking for something literary but end up buying war memoirs and thrillers. I’d tease you for your taste and fall in love with you in chapter titles.”
His expression flickers, something like awe, like grief, like hunger for something just out of reach.
“And we’d grow old,” I add, my voice softer now. “Not fast. Not in pain. Just… eventually.”
Silence falls. But it’s not empty.
It’s full. Of unspoken things. Of maybes. Of aching what-ifs.
I shift against him slightly, shoulder brushing his chest.
“What’s something you have to do before you die?” I ask.
He goes still.
Then: “Build something that doesn’t fall apart when I’m gone.”
I tilt my head. “A legacy?”
“No,” he says. “A life. One that doesn’t depend on fear or control. One I can walk away from without it collapsing. Maybe that’s a house. Or a person. Or…” He glances at me. “A family.”
The breath leaves me slow.
I nod, fingers curling around his.
He doesn’t flinch from the word like I thought he might.
And so I offer mine.
“I want to believe someone can love all of me,” he says, “and stay.”
His thumb brushes against the inside of my wrist.
“I already do,” I murmur.
His eyes search mine for a long moment. Like he’s not sure how someone like him—born in violence, buried in legacy—ended up here, on a couch lit by candlelight, being loved without being feared.
His voice comes quieter now, a rasp against the soft hush of the room.
“I have my last wish already then,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
He doesn’t look away when he says it. Doesn’t hide or soften the truth.
“Someone who loves me. A home. You.”
It doesn’t hit me like a dramatic declaration. It doesn’t need to.
It lands deeper than that.
Like it roots itself in the spaces of me I’ve tried to close off. The parts that still brace for abandonment. For silence. For someone walking out the door without meaning to come back.
But he’s here.
And he’s giving me this, not with fireworks, but with quiet, steady devotion.
He lifts my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to the center of my palm. His lips are warm, a little rough, but careful. Like he’s kissing something he doesn’t think he deserves to keep.
Then he pulls back just enough to meet my eyes again.
“What about you?” he asks. “What’s something you have to do before you die?”
I look at him.
And for once, I don’t think. I just answer.
“Let someone love me without trying to earn it.”
He nods, slowly.
“You don’t have to earn me,” he says. “You already have me.”
I look at him, his face lit by candlelight, worn and scarred and unshakably beautiful.
For the rest of the night, we ask more questions.
What’s your worst fear?
Losing you, he says, without hesitation.
What’s your favorite memory?
He tells me about a night in Saint Petersburg, a boat ride with his mother when he was three. Before everything went dark.
What would you be if you weren’t strong?
He smiles. “Yours.”
Eventually, we fall asleep there, tangled together on the couch, warm from wine and words and things unspoken.
And for once, in a life built on tragedy and trauma—
It feels like a dream we might still outrun.