Epilogue - Keira
Six months later
The baby kicked.
I pressed my hand against my stomach, feeling the flutter of movement beneath my palm.
Seven months along now, and I still hadn't gotten used to the sensation—that strange, wonderful reminder that I wasn't alone in my body anymore.
That someone else was in there, growing, becoming, waiting to meet the world.
"Active today?" Rodion asked from across the kitchen.
"Very. I think she's practicing kickboxing."
"She?"
"Just a feeling." I smiled, watching him pour coffee into two cups—regular for him, decaf for me. "Dr. Jackson offered to tell us at the last appointment, but I wanted to wait."
"Until when?"
"Until it doesn't matter anymore. Until she's here and we can see for ourselves."
He crossed the room and handed me my cup, his free hand coming to rest on the swell of my belly. The baby kicked again, as if responding to his touch, and I saw his expression shift—that softening I'd come to recognize, the wonder he still couldn't quite hide.
"She knows her father," I said.
"Or she's telling me to back off."
"Also possible."
We stood there for a moment, connected through the life growing between us. Outside the penthouse windows, Manhattan sparkled in the early morning light—the same view I'd stared at six months ago, feeling trapped and terrified and utterly alone. Now it looked different. Now it looked like home.
A lot had changed in six months.
The security breach had been traced to one of the junior guards—a man named Pavel who'd been on Petrovic's payroll for over a year. Rodion had dealt with him personally. I didn't ask for details, and he didn't offer them. Some things were better left unspoken.
The penthouse had been overhauled from top to bottom.
New codes, new systems, new personnel vetted by Yegor and Gleb together.
The place was a fortress now, though you wouldn't know it to look at it.
The same clean lines, the same expensive furniture, the same stunning views. But underneath, everything had changed.
I'd changed too.
The woman who'd sat in that guest room six months ago, counting the ways her life had fallen apart, felt like a stranger now.
I still did my video sessions—Julia, Benjamin, Patricia, and a handful of others who'd stuck with me through my mysterious "family emergency.
" I still baked when I was stressed, still walked when I needed to think, still found comfort in the small rituals that had always grounded me.
But I was different. Softer in some ways, harder in others.
More willing to trust, more capable of violence.
I'd learned to shoot in the past few months—Yegor's idea, Rodion's reluctant agreement—and discovered I was good at it.
Better than good. Something about the focus, the precision, the control.
It felt like therapy, in its own dark way.
I'd learned other things too. How to read a room for threats. How to identify exits. How to carry myself like someone who belonged in this world, even when I still felt like an imposter.
And I'd learned how to love without holding back. How to let someone in completely, without keeping one foot out the door. It was terrifying and exhilarating and nothing like I'd expected.
"What time is Amber coming?" Rodion asked, interrupting my thoughts.
"Noon. She's taking the train in from Connecticut."
"Do you want me to send a car?"
"She'd hate that. She's already overwhelmed by—" I gestured vaguely at the penthouse, the view, the life I'd somehow stumbled into. "All of this."
"She hasn't seen all of this yet."
"She's seen enough. The wedding photos, the address, the security detail that picked her up the one time she tried to visit unannounced." I shook my head. "She thinks I've joined a cult. Or married a drug lord. Or both."
"Close enough."
"That's not funny."
"It's a little funny." He kissed my forehead. "I'll make myself scarce when she arrives. Give you two time to talk."
"You don't have to disappear."
"I'm not disappearing. I'm being tactful." He smiled, that real smile I'd learned to treasure. "Your friend is coming to make sure I haven't kidnapped you and stolen your identity. The least I can do is let her conduct her investigation without my hovering presence."
"She's going to interrogate me."
"Of course she is. That's what friends do." He headed toward the study, pausing at the door. "Call me when she's ready to be convinced I'm not a monster. I'll come make small talk and be charming."
"You're always charming."
"Exactly."
He disappeared into the study, and I stood alone in the kitchen, my hands wrapped around my coffee cup, trying to quell the nervous flutter in my stomach that had nothing to do with the baby.
Amber was coming.
My best friend, my oldest friend, the woman who'd known me since graduate school—she was finally coming to see what my life had become. And I had no idea how to explain it to her.
***
She arrived at noon exactly, because Amber was nothing if not punctual.
I met her at the elevator, my heart hammering in my chest. The doors opened, and there she was—same warm brown skin, same natural curls, same expression of determined skepticism that I remembered from a thousand late-night study sessions.
"Oh my God," she said, her eyes dropping to my belly. "You're huge."
"Thanks. That's exactly what every pregnant woman wants to hear."
"I didn't mean—" She stopped, shook her head, and then she was crossing the distance between us and pulling me into a hug. Or trying to—my stomach got in the way, and we ended up in an awkward sideways embrace that made us both laugh.
"I've missed you," she said against my shoulder.
"I've missed you, too."
She pulled back, her hands still on my arms, and studied my face with the intensity I remembered from our years as roommates. Looking for bruises, probably. Signs of coercion. Evidence that I was being held against my will.
"You look good," she admitted reluctantly. "Annoyingly good. Pregnancy agrees with you."
"It agrees with my appetite. I've eaten more in the past seven months than in the previous seven years."
"You needed to eat more. You've always been too thin." She looked past me, taking in the penthouse for the first time. "Jesus Christ, Keira. This place is..."
"I know."
"It's like something out of a magazine. Or a movie about oligarchs." She walked further in, her eyes moving over the furniture, the art, the floor-to-ceiling windows with their million-dollar view. "Your husband is rich."
"Yes."
"Very rich."
"Yes."
"Like, buy-a-small-country rich."
"I don't think he's interested in buying countries. But yes, theoretically, he could probably afford one."
Amber turned to face me, her expression shifting from awe to concern.
"Keira. What the hell is going on? Six months ago, you called me out of nowhere to tell me you'd gotten married—married!
—to a man you'd never mentioned. Then you disappeared.
No visits, barely any calls, just vague texts about 'family stuff' and 'complications.
' And now I find out you're pregnant, living in a palace, and—" She stopped, swallowed.
"I've been worried sick about you. I need to know you're okay. "
"I'm okay."
"Are you really? Or is that what you're supposed to say?"
I took her hand and led her to the couch, settling us both onto the soft leather. Her eyes kept darting around the room, as if she expected armed guards to materialize from the shadows.
"I'm going to tell you as much as I can," I said carefully. "But there are things I can't explain. Things that are better for you not to know. Can you accept that?"
"That depends on what you tell me."
Fair enough.
I took a breath and began.
I told her about Rodion—not everything, but the shape of it.
A client who became something more. A connection I hadn't expected, hadn't wanted, couldn't resist. I told her about my father's family finding me, about the danger I'd been in, about the marriage that had started as protection and become something real.
I didn't tell her about the violence. The deaths. The blood I'd seen spilled and the bodies I'd stepped over. Some truths were too heavy to share.
"So you're saying you married a man you barely knew to escape your family," Amber said slowly, processing. "And then you fell in love with him."
"I know how it sounds."
"It sounds insane."
"It was insane. It still is, some days." I touched my belly, feeling the baby shift.
"But it's also the truest thing I've ever done.
I spent my whole life running, Amber. Building walls, keeping people out, making sure no one could hurt me.
And then Rodion walked into my office, and everything I thought I knew about myself stopped being true. "
"That's very romantic. It's also terrifying."
"I know."
"Your father's family—the danger you mentioned—is that over?"
I hesitated. The truth was complicated. Cormac was dead.
Branko was dead. But Milos Petrovic was still out there, still waiting, still a threat that hadn't materialized yet.
Kirill sent updates every few weeks—intelligence reports, movement patterns, warnings about potential operations.
So far, nothing concrete. But the threat was real, and it wasn't going away.
"It's managed," I said finally. "There are people who want to hurt us. But there are also people protecting us. It's... complicated."
"That's one word for it."
"It's the only word I have."
Amber was quiet for a long moment, her eyes searching my face. I saw the war playing out behind them—the protective instinct that wanted to grab me and run, the rational mind that was trying to make sense of what I'd told her, the friend who wanted to trust that I knew what I was doing.
"Are you happy?" she asked finally.
The question caught me off guard, even though I should have expected it.
Was I happy?