26. Mira
twenty-six
Mira
T he first thing I register is my body's betrayal.
Deep internal muscles protest with every micro-movement. Hip flexors burn from positions I haven't held in years. The specific soreness between my legs makes me clench involuntarily, feeling phantom sensations of him still inside me.
The walls won't rebuild.
My eyes snap open to industrial beams. Morning light through massive windows that should trigger every defensive instinct. Instead, my body catalogues exits while simultaneously curling deeper into sheets that smell like sex and safety and him .
Eight hours. I slept eight hours in someone else's bed without weapons.
When I stand, my legs shake. Each step down the steel stairs brands last night into muscle memory—bruises on my hips where he gripped too hard, wrists that ache from being pinned, the bite mark on my shoulder pulsing with my heartbeat.
Mine made those marks. Mine.
Then the smell hits me.
Butter melting on hot surfaces. The yeast-sweet promise of rising dough. Something else that tugs at memories so deep I thought they'd been excavated and destroyed.
No. This isn't possible.
In the kitchen, Jax stands at the granite counter surrounded by ingredient chaos. Cottage cheese, eggs, flour, sour cream. A small jar of what looks like berry jam. His hair sticks up at angles that make my fingers itch to smooth it down. Or mess it up worse.
Mark him. Make sure everyone knows he's yours.
When he notices me, his entire body shifts—shoulders squaring then immediately softening, hand running through already wrecked hair.
"Oh! You're—I didn't hear you come down—" His fingers start their nervous tap against his thigh, but slower this morning.
Different. Like he's processing something that makes his usual scattered energy more focused.
"I wanted to make you breakfast. Something special.
So I looked up fancy Russian breakfast stuff online and found like forty different recipes for these things, and I wasn't sure which one was right, so I kind of combined three different versions and hoped for the best, which is probably totally wrong but—"
He indicates the pan where golden circles sizzle. Perfect golden circles that look exactly like—
My knees buckle. I catch myself on the counter, but my hand shakes.
"Shit, are you okay? Your legs—" His face flushes, and I catch his eyes tracking down my body, lingering on the visible bruises. Heat flares in his gaze before concern takes over. "I mean, from last night, are you sore? I was pretty—sorry, I'm making this worse by talking about it—"
"What are you making?" The words come out raw.
"Syr... seer..." He stumbles over the pronunciation, face reddening with determination.
"Syr-nee-kee? I watched like six YouTube videos trying to get the pronunciation right, but Russian is hard as hell, and I probably butchered it anyway—sorry.
I'm nervous-talking again. I just wanted to do something nice.
You know, after everything yesterday, and how you helped me with the anxiety stuff, and then last night was—"
He plates three perfect rounds, drizzles them with jam, sets them before me with the careful pride of a student presenting homework he's not sure he got right.
"I know it's probably not authentic or anything, but—"
The first bite stops everything.
Perfect.
Not close. Not good. Identical to Saturday mornings in Moscow, my mother singing off-key while I danced between the table and stove.
"Доброе утро, малышка. Ты хорошо спала?"
Her voice. Her actual voice, not the memory of remembering but the real sound of it, warm honey over gravel. Good morning, little one. Did you sleep well?
The Russian flows through my mind exactly as she used to say it, with that little lift at the end that made everything a gentle question.
My vision blurs. One tear escapes before I can stop it. My hands shake so violently I have to set down the fork.
"Hey, you okay?" Jax moves closer, that protective instinct flaring. "Did I mess something up? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I have. I'm seeing my mother.
The second bite brings her laugh—that bright, unguarded sound when papa would steal tastes from the pan. My feet shift unconsciously into first position under the table, heels together, toes turned out.
"Papa would pretend he was reading his newspaper," I whisper, and suddenly I'm six again, watching him sneak behind mama.
My arms drift into fifth position without conscious thought, muscle memory fifteen years deep.
"But he'd wait until she turned to the stove, then steal one.
Every Sunday, the same game. She'd slap his hand away and call him ворюга—little thief—but she always made extra. "
My voice breaks on the last word. I can see them so clearly—papa's guilty grin, mama's fake scolding, the way they'd look at each other like they had a secret the whole world wanted.
"They loved each other so much it made the air warm."
"Mira." His voice drops, worried now. Something dangerous flickers in his expression—not alarm, but the kind of protective fury that makes people disappear. "Talk to me."
The third bite unlocks something deeper. The feeling of being loved without condition. Of being safe without vigilance. Sensations I didn't know I'd lost because Mikhail's conditioning didn't just steal them—it made me forget they ever existed.
"He took them from me." The words slip out before I can stop them.
"Who took what?"
My body shifts, feet sliding into second position—wider stance, still turned out. The movement automatic, fifteen years deep.
"My handler. Mikhail." I take another bite, letting the sweetness coat my tongue. "He didn't just train me to kill. He systematically erased my capacity to remember being loved."
Jax goes completely still. That scattered golden retriever energy vanishes, replaced by something colder. Deadlier. His jaw clenches so hard I hear his teeth grind.
"I thought I remembered my parents. Their names, faces, facts." My arms curve overhead in port de bras, the movement pulling at sore muscles from last night. "But the feeling was gone. The warmth. I couldn't hear my mother's voice anymore. Until right now."
"The syrniki."
"She made them on Sunday mornings." My body continues through positions—third, fourth, fifth—each transition smooth despite thirteen years of perversion. "I would dance while she cooked, practicing ballet between bites. She said I looked like a little swan."
The memory should comfort. Instead, darkness creeps in.
"She called me her маленький лебедь—little swan." My voice cracks on the Russian. "Said I was too serious for six years old. That I practiced my positions like the world would end if my feet weren't perfect."
I demonstrate a développé, leg rising slow and controlled despite the deep ache between my thighs. The position holds, rock steady despite everything.
"After they died, Mikhail said the same thing. Called me little swan." The words taste like ash. "But when he said it..." My leg trembles, the position wavering. "It meant something else. It meant I was graceful enough to kill beautifully. That I could make murder look like art."
Something breaks in Jax's expression. His hands clench into fists against the granite.
"He stole her words. Made them ugly." My leg drops as the position becomes impossible to maintain. "Now when I dance, I hear his voice, not hers. 'My little swan, so beautiful when she kills.' He turned my mother's love into his weapon."
"Jesus fucking Christ." His voice comes out like gravel.
"He told me I murdered with more grace than most people lived. Made it sound like artistic achievement."
"But you're still dancing."
The observation stops my movement cold.
"Right now, in this kitchen, you're not killing anyone. You're just... remembering your mother."
Heat builds behind my eyes again. Different tears this time. Not for what was lost, but for what might still exist.
"Thank you for not trying to fix me, дорогой."
The word slips out before conscious thought can stop it. My hand flies to my mouth.
Дорогой.
The word my mother used when she looked at my father like he hung the stars.
"What did you just call me?" His smile is gentle, curious, but his eyes burn with something deeper.
Heat floods my face. "Dorogoy. It means... dear one. Beloved."
My pulse races so hard I'm sure he can see it in my throat.
"It's what my mother called my father." The admission feels like handing him a loaded weapon. "Every morning. Every night before bed. Even when they argued about business deals that went wrong, she'd still whisper it before they fell asleep. I'd sneak to their door just to hear it."
My chest tightens with the memory of padding down our long hallway in my nightgown, pressing my ear to their bedroom door. Feeling safe because if mama still called papa дорогой, everything would be okay.
His smile grows wider, genuine warmth spreading across his features. Something shifts in his posture—shoulders straightening, that protective energy focusing entirely on me.
"Say it again."
"Dorogoy." Softer this time. Testing the word like a key in a lock I thought was broken.
He moves closer, careful not to crowd. His hand finds mine on the counter, thumb brushing over scratches I don't remember making—crescent marks from my own nails when I couldn't control my hands.
"Wait, wait, wait—" He pulls out his phone, typing frantically with one hand while still holding mine with the other.
His tongue pokes out slightly in concentration, that earnest focus that makes my chest tight.
"I want to say it back but I need to make sure I don't completely butcher it—okay, got it. "
He looks up from the screen, face flushed with determination and something that looks like reverence.
"Moya dorogaya?"
The pronunciation is terrible. Absolutely mangled. But the way he says it—like he's offering me something precious—makes my breath catch.