Chapter 22 - Keira #2
"Demyan hated it—said it was women's work.
Kirill did it because he was told to, but his heart wasn't in it.
Mikhail was the only one who actually enjoyed it.
" He smiled at the memory. "He'd make shapes with the scraps.
Animals, faces, abstract things that didn't look like anything. Drove our mother crazy."
"You miss him."
"Every day." He set down the rolling pin, his hands stilling on the dough. "He could have built something different."
"Yes, you said. But so could you. You could still build something different."
"I'm starting to think you might be right." He looked at me, and something in his expression made my breath catch. "I never expected this. Any of this. You, the baby, feeling like I have something worth protecting beyond territory and money and the family name."
"And now?"
"Now I want to survive tomorrow. Not just because I have to, but because I want to see what comes next." He reached out and touched my face, his fingers gentle. "I want to see who our child becomes. I want to see who we become."
I didn't know what to say. The words were too big, too important, too close to things I wasn't ready to name.
So I kissed him instead.
It started soft, tentative—a question rather than an answer. But it deepened quickly, his hands sliding into my hair, my body pressing against his. When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
"The pasta," I said weakly.
"It can wait."
"We spent two hours—"
"I don't care about the pasta."
He kissed me again, and I stopped caring, too.
But we didn't go further. Not tonight. There was something fragile in the air between us, something that needed tenderness rather than passion. When he finally pulled back, his forehead resting against mine, I understood.
"Let's finish dinner," I said. "And then let's go to bed. Together."
"To sleep?"
"To not be alone."
He nodded slowly. "That I can do."
We finished the pasta, boiled it, ate it with a simple sauce of butter and herbs. The food was good—better than good—but neither of us had much appetite. We picked at our plates, made small talk, avoided the subject that hung over everything.
After dinner, we cleaned the kitchen together.
He washed, I dried. Another small domesticity, another moment of normalcy in the midst of chaos.
I found myself memorizing these details—the way he rolled up his sleeves before putting his hands in the water, the care he took with each dish, the quiet rhythm we'd developed without trying.
These were the things I would remember. These small, ordinary moments. Not the fear or the violence or the uncertainty, but this. Two people doing dishes together at the end of a long day.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"That I like this. Being here with you. Doing normal things."
"Is that surprising?"
"A little. I've spent so long being alone. I'd forgotten what it felt like to share a space with someone." I set down the dish I was drying. "I'd forgotten it could feel good."
He turned off the water and faced me, his expression serious. "You're not alone anymore."
"I know."
"I mean it. Whatever happens tomorrow—whatever happens after—you're not alone. You have me. You have my family. You have people who will protect you, take care of you, make sure you and the baby are safe."
"That's not why I'm with you."
"I know. But it's still true." He took my hands, holding them between his own. "You spent twelve years running. Hiding. Surviving on your own. You don't have to do that anymore."
I felt tears prick at my eyes again. I'd cried more in the past few weeks than I had in years. Something about him—about us—had cracked open a door I'd kept locked for so long.
"Come to bed," I said. "Please."
***
Later, after the lights were off and the city glittered beyond the windows, we lay together in the darkness. His body was warm against mine, his arm heavy across my waist. I could feel his breath stirring my hair, his heartbeat slow and steady beneath my palm.
"Rodion," I said into the darkness.
"Yes?"
"Come back to me tomorrow."
He pulled me closer, his lips brushing my hair. "I will."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to trust that tomorrow would end with him walking back through the door, alive and whole and mine.
But I'd learned long ago that promises didn't stop bullets. That the people you cared about could be ripped away in an instant, leaving nothing but silence and grief.
So I held onto him instead. Memorized the feel of his body against mine, the sound of his breathing, the beat of his heart beneath my palm.
Tomorrow he would go to war.
But tonight, there was this. His warmth. His presence. The fragile, precious weight of being held by someone who wanted me to stay.
If this was our last night, I wanted to remember every moment of it.
And if it wasn't—if he came back, if we survived, if we somehow built the life we'd been dancing around—I wanted to remember this too. The moment before everything changed. The last night of not knowing what we might become.
I closed my eyes and pressed closer to him, and eventually, despite everything, I slept.