Chapter Twenty-Four - Markian
The estate is too quiet for a place filled with children.
I stand in the wide doorway of the old nursery wing, arms folded tight across my chest, shoulders hunched.
The floors shine, polished to a mirror gleam.
The windows spill sunlight across a line of hand-painted rocking horses and a basket of dolls that have not been played with in years.
For the first time in my life, I am nervous. Truly nervous.
The girls are here. My daughters. My blood.
I watch them move across the rug, two small blonde bodies with identical hair and matching frowns.
Liana’s gaze is sharp, assessing the corners and doorways, already trying to map her escape.
Sofia trails behind, bunny clutched in one hand, eyes darting everywhere at once. They look so small in all this grandeur, swallowed by the room’s echo and the high ceilings.
For a long moment, I can only stare. Three and a half years I hunted for them. I waged wars, made enemies, burned cities to ash.
Now that they are here, within reach, they look like ghosts dropped in the middle of a fairy tale that isn’t theirs.
I crouch down, slow and awkward, the way I remember Jessa doing in some long-ago memory: her soft voice, her hands gentle, her body folded to their level. I try to summon that same patience, that same warmth, but my voice comes out clipped and rough.
“Hello,” I say, searching their faces for any flicker of recognition. “Liana. Sofia.” I try to soften it. “You can play with anything you like. No one will tell you no.”
Sofia’s eyes widen. She clings to Liana’s arm, shrinking back. Liana’s chin lifts a little, but she says nothing. The silence is heavy with accusation, fear, uncertainty. My own daughters flinch at the sound of my voice.
Something cracks inside me. I want to curse myself, to curse the world for all the days I missed, for every soft moment stolen by violence and pride. I sit back on my heels, defeated, my hands dropping useless to my knees.
“Papa?” I try again, softer now. “Do you want a story?” I glance at a stack of picture books by the window. “Your mama used to read them to you, didn’t she?”
Liana stares at me, assessing. Sofia hides behind her sister, silent.
I mutter a curse under my breath and push myself up, heart pounding for reasons I do not want to examine.
Seconds later, Lui saunters into the room, sleeves rolled, grinning like he owns the place. He scoops a plush lion from the toy chest and tosses it to the girls, catching their attention instantly.
“Who’s hungry for mischief?” Lui jokes, his Russian rolling off his tongue like a song. “Uncle Lui’s here. Don’t worry, I brought snacks.”
Sofia’s fear evaporates. She giggles, scrambling over the rug. Liana hesitates, then follows, drawn in by the easy charm and the sound of laughter. Within seconds, both girls are giggling, climbing onto Lui’s lap, fighting for space, their heads tucked against his chest.
Something twists deep in my gut. I don’t know what it is, only that it makes me want to break something. They should be coming to me. They are my daughters, but they’re snuggled against Lui like he’s the father they’ve always known. I clench my fists and force myself not to show it.
Lui glances up, his expression softening when he catches the look on my face. He shrugs, mouth quirking. “You can’t scare them. Not on the first day. You have to let them come to you.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m not scaring them,” I snap, too loud, too harsh.
Lui just shakes his head, bouncing the girls gently on his knees. “They’re kids, Markian. They want to feel safe. You stand there like a general at inspection. Try smiling. Or”—he drops his voice—“just sit. Let them bring you something. A toy, a question. That’s how you win them.”
I stalk into the hallway, leaving the nursery behind.
My footsteps echo in the marble corridor, my heart pounding with something wild and wounded.
I pace back and forth, replaying every decision that led me here.
I wanted them back. Demanded it. Fought for it.
But I never expected it to feel like this.
All the years I spent searching, I pictured a reunion with tears and relief, some kind of forgiveness. Instead, the girls search the halls for familiarity, their voices always asking for “mama,” never “papa.” I am a stranger to them. Worse, I am the man who took them from everything they knew.
I lean against the wall, pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to steady my breathing. I hear laughter from the nursery—Sofia squealing, Liana’s voice following, Lui answering with a joke. The ache in my chest sharpens. I have no idea how to reach them. I know how to protect, to threaten, to win.
I don’t know how to love gently, to win trust, to make small girls want to run into my arms.
Lui joins me a moment later, closing the nursery door gently behind him. He watches me in silence, arms folded, not smirking now.
“You don’t have to be their enemy, you know,” he says quietly. “They’ll come around. Kids are like that, but you can’t force them.”
I stare at the wall, jaw clenched. “How do I fix it?”
Lui’s expression softens further. “Be present. Sit with them. Let them talk. Let them see you’re not just the man who took them from their mother.”
I close my eyes. “She hates me.”
He shakes his head. “She’s scared. She’s hurt. You’re both angry, but it’s not about you two now. It’s about the girls. Don’t let them pay for your mistakes.”
I nod, the words hitting harder than any bullet ever has.
When Lui goes back into the nursery, I stay in the hallway, staring at the portraits on the walls: men with hard faces and cold eyes, my ancestors, every one of them a stranger to their own children.
Not this time, I promise myself. Not with Liana. Not with Sofia.
***
Later, I’m halfway down the hall, lost in the ache of what I don’t know how to fix, when I see her.
Through the wide arch that opens onto the garden, the sunlight catches in her hair, turning it the color of honey.
She’s crouched in the grass, her back to the window, one arm around Sofia as she tries to wrestle the little girl’s zipper closed.
Liana stands beside them, bunny in hand, head tipped as she watches her mother’s careful hands.
Jessa laughs softly, just a wisp of sound, but it slides through the glass and down the corridors of this house like it belongs here.
That familiar floral scent is in the air again, clinging to the curtains and the carpet, settling on my skin the way it always did.
She’s wearing old jeans and a sweater, hair piled up in a messy knot, but she looks as she always has: out of place and impossibly right, beautiful and sharp, a wildflower pushing up through stone.
For a moment, I forget to breathe. My hands curl into fists at my sides. She’s here—she had to be. The girls are too small to be left alone, too frightened, too uncertain in this place full of strangers and cold marble. It was never a question. If I brought them here, she’d come too.
I hadn’t let myself imagine the reality of her in my house again, her presence so fierce it makes everything else look faded and wrong.
I watch as she leans forward, her voice low, murmuring something that makes Sofia smile. Liana tugs at her sleeve, impatient, and Jessa looks up.
For a split second, our eyes lock across the garden and the long reach of the entry hall. Everything slows. The world shrinks to that thread between us: memory, regret, want, and the white-hot fury that always sits just under my skin when it comes to her.
She breaks the gaze first. Of course she does. Looks back at the child, smoothing Sofia’s hair, steadying Liana’s hand on her bunny. That small act—the turning away—lands like a slap.
I can feel my jaw clench, muscles straining as I force myself to stay still.
I want to go to her. I want to drag her inside, demand she look at me, demand she explain how she managed to slip so far beyond my reach for so long.
I want to shake her for stealing my daughters, for living a life without me, for making me a stranger to my own blood.
I don’t move. I watch her, every nerve alive with the memory of her body under my hands, the way she used to stare at me in bed—afraid, and wanting, and refusing to let go.
I remember her defiance, the way her voice would rise when she thought I was being unreasonable.
She always pushed back, always questioned, always burned with something I could never quite extinguish.
That defiance is still there. Even now, with the weight of this place pressing down on her, she doesn’t bow. She won’t, not for me, not for anyone.
Jessa in my house is a disruption. She’s a crack in the order, a reminder of everything I tried to control and everything I lost. She is danger.
Every part of her—her stubbornness, her fire, her love for the girls—pulls at the threads I’ve tried to weave back together since the moment I forced her into that car.
She unsettles me, shakes the foundations of this empire I rebuilt brick by bloody brick.
Yet, I can’t look away. I stand in the shadow of the arch, heart pounding, unable to step forward and unable to retreat.
She glances up again, just for a second, eyes wide and wary.
The bruise of our history sits between us.
I want to demand forgiveness. I want to make her admit she was wrong to run.
I want to ask her if she ever thought about coming back, if she ever missed the parts of me that weren’t all violence and cold orders.
I watch her lips move. She says something gentle, something soothing as she helps Liana zip her coat. The little girl leans in, pressing her face to Jessa’s shoulder, and for an instant, Jessa closes her eyes.
She’s tired. I see it in the line of her jaw, the set of her mouth. Tired, but here. Because she has to be. Because she loves them. Because, despite everything, I brought her back to the one place she never wanted to return.
I should hate her for that. I should despise the way she turns away, the way she makes me feel less than king in my own house.
I want her closer. I want to unravel every answer she won’t give. I want her to see me—not the Bratva boss, not the monster, but the man who lost everything and clawed his way back for her.
Behind me, Lui clears his throat, a quiet warning that I’m making a scene just standing there, unmoving. I force my hands to relax, force my face to cool into something blank and cold.
“She’s a distraction,” I mutter under my breath, mostly to myself. “She’s always been a distraction.”
Lui only shrugs. “She’s their mother. They need her.” He studies my face, his expression unreadable. “Maybe you do too.”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
Jessa leads the girls back inside, their small hands looped through hers, and for one dizzy second, I let myself imagine what it would have been like if she’d never run.
If this was our home, not a battleground.
If the girls laughed and ran to me, not away.
If Jessa smiled at me the way she does at them.
That world isn’t mine.
She catches my gaze one last time as she ushers the girls through the door, her mouth set, eyes shadowed but steady. She won’t beg. She won’t plead. She’s here because she loves them, not because she forgives me.
I know that’s what makes her more dangerous than ever.
I watch her disappear into the hall, the memory of her laughter lingering in the air, the sharp ache in my chest growing stronger. I will not let her slip away again.
Not this time.