Epilogue #2
He buries himself deep and comes with a low, harsh sound, his forehead dropping to mine, his whole body shuddering over me.
For a while, neither of us moves. Then he lowers his weight carefully, not crushing me, just enough that I can feel him everywhere. I wrap my arms around him and hold on.
His breathing is still rough against my neck.
Mine isn’t much better.
After a minute, he lifts his head. “Are you all right?”
I smile tiredly. “Now you ask?”
His mouth curves, but his eyes stay serious. “I always ask.”
“I’m all right.”
He studies me like he doesn’t fully trust that until he sees it for himself. Then he kisses me, slower this time.
Outside, snow keeps falling over the mountains. Inside, he pulls the blanket from the couch and covers us both without leaving me. I rest my head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat settle.
We suddenly hear small whimpers coming through the baby monitor.
“Your daughter is awake,” Viktor murmurs against my shoulder.
I laugh softly, still trying to catch my breath. “She has terrible timing.”
“She gets that from you.”
I turn enough to give him a look. “Careful.”
Viktor lifts his head and listens for half a second. “Complaint cry.”
“You’re proud of knowing that.”
“I earned it.”
That makes me smile.
Eight months ago, I would never have imagined this version of him. Viktor Sokolov, dangerous enough to make grown men lower their voices, now able to identify our daughter’s mood from one sleepy little sound.
Eight months since the wedding that never happened.
Since the gunshots, the hospital, the kidnapping, and the night Viktor carried me back with blood on both of us and a silence in him I didn’t understand until much later.
He told me some of what happened to Maksim.
Not all.
Only that Maksim had hurt me, had crossed a line there was no coming back from, and Viktor had dealt with it. He said it simply, one night when I woke shaking from another nightmare and asked whether Maksim could ever come for us again.
No, Viktor had said. He’s gone.
I didn’t ask how. Part of me already knew.
And all I felt was grateful. I still don’t know whether that makes me weak or wise.
Viktor gets up from the rug and pulls on his trousers. “Stay there.”
“I’m not lying naked on the floor when you bring Mila down.”
“Mila is a baby. She has no opinion on nudity.”
“I have an opinion.”
He gives me a faint smile and heads upstairs.
Mila.
Our daughter’s name still does something soft to me every time I hear it. Mila Sokolov. Tiny, fierce, impatient, and far stronger than anyone expected when she came into the world too early and too loudly.
She spent six weeks in the NICU.
Six long weeks of alarms, tubes, doctors, weight checks, whispered prayers, and Viktor standing beside her incubator like he could threaten death itself into keeping away from her.
When we finally brought her home, she was still small enough to scare me, but she looked at the world with the same severe little frown as her father.
Yuri’s around less now, at least physically.
He calls twice a day, sends men I pretend not to notice, and has opinions about the mountain cabin’s security that he expresses with deep personal suffering.
He doesn’t trust quiet places. He trusts controlled places.
Viktor lets him complain because Yuri has earned that much.
Camille disappeared from our lives almost completely after the wedding collapsed.
London, last I heard. Maybe Paris. Maybe some carefully managed version of exile paid for by her family.
The official story became mutual incompatibility, which is a polite way of saying too many people knew too much and nobody wanted the full truth printed anywhere.
Ethan went away too. Rehab first. Then somewhere private. Not prison, not freedom either. Viktor never discusses the arrangement in detail, and I don’t ask often. Ethan wrote me one letter months ago, full of apologies that sounded half-sincere and half-coached. I haven’t answered it.
Maybe someday I’ll be kind enough to.
Not yet.
As for Alina, she’s not in our life.
I don’t know where she is now. Europe, probably. Somewhere polished and expensive, with enough distance to pretend she chose it. I don’t hate her. That surprised me at first. I thought I would.
Mostly, I feel nothing.
Maybe that’s worse.
Anna is gone too, and I don’t know the full story there. Viktor never told me all of it, and I learned not to ask questions he wasn’t ready to answer. All I know is that she left with Mikhail Voronin, his rival, the day of the wedding, or close enough to it that the difference doesn’t matter.
I don’t think he has forgiven her. Sometimes her name comes up in a call, or Yuri mentions something in Russian and Viktor’s face goes still in that particular way of his. Not angry exactly. Worse. Closed. Like a door he refuses to open because he already knows what’s behind it.
But he hasn’t gone after them. That surprised me more than anything.
Maybe because he loves her. Maybe because he knows chasing Anna would only push her deeper into the choice she already made. Maybe because, after everything that happened, he decided our home needed more peace than revenge.
He has never said which one it is.
And I have never asked him.
Viktor comes back downstairs with Mila against his bare chest.
She’s wide awake, dark eyes blinking seriously at the room, one tiny fist pressed to his skin as if she owns him.
She does.
He brings her to me and sits on the rug. “Someone demanded her mother.”
“She demanded food.”
“She can be complex.”
I take her, settle her against me, and she latches with the dramatic relief of someone who has suffered terribly for ninety seconds.
Viktor watches us like he always does. Quietly. Like he still can’t believe we are both here.
“She looks like you when she’s annoyed,” I say.
“She looks like me all the time.”
“She has my mouth.”
“And my stubbornness.”
“That’s not something to brag about.”
“It kept her alive.”
That quiets me.
He reaches out and brushes one finger over Mila’s cheek, careful as ever. The room softens around the three of us. Firelight. Snow outside. His hand on my thigh. My daughter warm in my arms.
This is not the life I imagined for myself.
It’s stranger. Riskier.
Far less clean.
But it is mine.
After a while, Viktor says, “Marry me.”
I look at him. “That was abrupt.”
“No. I’ve been thinking it for months.”
“That makes it less abrupt for you.”
His mouth curves, then the humor fades. “I know what my life is,” he says. “I know what it asks of you. I know I can’t promise simple. But I can promise that you and Mila come first. Always.”
My throat tightens.
He looks at our daughter, then back at me. “I want us to be a family in every way you’ll allow.”
For a moment, I can’t speak.
Mila makes a sleepy sound against me. The fire shifts softly. Outside, snow falls over the mountains like the world has finally learned how to be quiet.
I think about everything it took to get here.
The plane.
The wedding.
The hospital.
The lies.
The blood.
All the people who tried to pull us apart because of fear, pride, jealousy, or love turned rotten.
Then I look at Viktor. This dangerous, impossible man who still gets up at three in the morning when Mila cries. Who kisses my scar when he thinks I’m asleep. Who has never once made me ask whether he wants us.
“Yes,” I say.
His eyes hold mine. “Yes?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
For once, Viktor looks completely undone. Then he leans in and kisses me carefully, mindful of the baby between us, his hand warm at the back of my neck.
It isn’t a hungry kiss. Not this time.
It feels like a promise.
And this time, I believe him.
The End.
P.S. If you enjoyed Mile High Ex’s Dad, then I think you’ll enjoy Mile High Triplets! Swipe to the next page for a sneak peek…