Epilogue
LILA
The shower steam follows me into the bedroom.
Six months here, and this view still gets me every single morning.
Sunrise paints everything gold and pink through floor-to-ceiling windows. The ocean stretches forever. Caribbean blue that looks photoshopped. The yacht rocks gently beneath my feet—our floating fortress slash honeymoon suite slash apparently permanent residence.
I'm awake at sunrise now. Voluntarily. Me: the girl who worked graveyard shifts and thought 2 p.m. was early.
Life is strange.
I pad to the easel by the window. Yesterday's painting sits half-finished. The view from our last island—turquoise water, white sand, palm trees doing their postcard best.
Except we're not near that island anymore. I look outside to a different beach. We moved again as I slept.
How many islands have we visited? I've lost count. Ten? Fifteen? They blur together. One endless honeymoon because Ivan refuses to go back to Chicago.
Not that I'm complaining. This beats serving coffee at 3 a.m. by a significant margin.
He runs his empire from the yacht's office. Video calls with lieutenants. Deals over satellite internet. Orders given while wearing swim trunks and no shirt because he can.
I sometimes walk through the background during his meetings wearing lingerie just to watch him lose his train of thought mid-sentence. To watch his men get uncomfortable trying not to look.
Those meetings always end early.
My phone buzzes. I grab it off the nightstand and smile before I even read Pyotr's daily message.
Boss lady, Chicago boring without you psychopaths. Also I learn make coffee. Is terrible. Also new Starbucks open where your old place was. Is sacrilege.
I set the phone down and move back to the easel. The painting needs work. The light on the water looks wrong. Too flat. Too obvious.
Maybe I should start over with today's view. Except I liked yesterday's island.
The drawer under the easel is open slightly. Metal gleams inside.
My Glock.
Things change. Six months ago, I couldn't serve coffee without spilling it. Now I can field-strip a handgun in under a minute, hit targets at fifty yards, and carry a weapon like it's normal.
Ivan insisted. He taught me himself with the patience of someone teaching a child to ride a bike. Except instead of skinned knees, the stakes were my survival.
I still get nervous thinking about shooting someone, though Ivan makes sure I never have to. I’m so protected that I'd need to actively try to get into danger.
I pick up the brush and study the canvas. Should I fix this or start fresh?
"What are you painting?"
I don't turn yet. Just smile at my husband’s voice in the doorway.
"The sunrise."
"Boring." Footsteps sound behind me. "Paint me."
Now I turn. He's completely naked, still wet from his morning swim. Water droplets catch light on his shoulders.
"You're very confident in your artistic merit."
"I'm very confident in general." He moves closer. "Also, you've drawn me naked approximately a thousand times."
"That was different."
"How?"
"I was fantasizing. Now you're just... here. Available."
"Complaining?"
"Never."
He's behind me now, arms sliding around my waist, mouth finding that spot on my neck that short-circuits thought. The brush trembles in my hand.
"Six months," I say before I can stop myself.
His lips pause. "That's all? Feels like I've been dealing with you forever."
"Wow. Romance lives."
He chuckles, low against my skin. "You know what I mean."
"Yeah," I admit. "Half a year. Feels… longer."
"Want your anniversary gift?"
I twist a little to look at him. "You got me something?"
"Whatever you want. Just name it."
"I already got mine," I say, nodding toward the counter.
He lets go and crosses to it, eyeing the small, wrapped box as if it may detonate. "You're suspiciously calm about this."
"Open it."
He does—carefully—revealing a plain white mug. "Cute. But we have mugs."
"Turn it around."
He does and reads the words before freezing solid.
#1 Dad.
"Lila…"
"Check inside."
His hand shakes as he reaches in and pulls out the pregnancy test. Two perfect pink lines.
He stares. Once at it, once at me, then back again. "When?"
"This morning. Before my shower."
He blinks, still catching up. "And you've known for—?"
"About twenty minutes longer than you."
A change moves across his face—disbelief melting into awe. He moves fast, drops to his knees, and presses his forehead against my stomach. Still flat. Still mine.
He whispers in Russian—quiet, raw, too full of emotion to translate. It doesn't matter. I feel it. Every syllable. Then, softly, "We're really having a baby?"
"Yeah." I can't stop smiling. "We really are."
He laughs. "A mug, though?"
"I was excited. The mug and marker were right there."
He kisses my stomach again, gently this time. "Our baby," he murmurs. "Our impossible, perfect baby."
And I realize—this is what calm feels like, when it's built out of chaos.
He stands, and those blue eyes lock on mine, intense enough to make breathing difficult.
"Lila, I fucking love you. You hear that? I fucking love you more than anything in this fucking world."
Then he's kissing me. Deep and desperate and happy. All of it mixes until I can't separate the emotions.
I kiss him back hard. The easel digs into my spine—sharp pressure that somehow makes everything more real. More present. My hands fist in his still-damp hair.
His body presses me harder against the wood. The painting is probably getting destroyed behind me. The canvas shifts. Brushes clatter to the floor.
I don't care. This is better. This is everything.
His mouth moves to my neck. I arch into him. The easel creaks. My breath comes faster.
Then—a knock at the door.
"Mr. and Mrs. Petrov?" The butler's voice cuts through. Overly formal. Overly careful. "My apologies for the interruption. Just wondering about breakfast preferences for this morning? Chef has prepared several options—"
Ivan doesn't even break contact with my skin. He lifts his head slightly and calls out, "Fuck off. I have all the breakfast I need right here."
A pause. "Ah. Of course, sir. My apologies. I'll inform the chef."
"You do that."
Ivan lifts me in one smooth motion. The suddenness makes me laugh against his mouth. Makes joy bubble up unstoppable and uncontrollable.
Footsteps retreat quickly down the corridor. Professional. Probably already mentally cataloging this as another story about the crazy Russians on the yacht.
Stories.
The word sticks as Ivan carries me to the bed. As my robe hits the floor. As he looks at me like he can't quite believe I’m real.
"The mother of my children." His voice cracks on the words. Reverent. Awed. Like he's seeing me for the first time all over again. His hands frame my face, trembling slightly. "Fuck, Lila. I want to see all of you. Every last bit."
His mouth starts at my lips. Slow. Worshipful. Then down my neck. My collarbone. Lower still.
"Just relax," he murmurs against my skin. "Let me take care of you."
His mouth moves down, trailing heat. He pauses at my breasts and takes his time there. His tongue does things that make my back arch off the bed.
"Perfect," he murmurs between licks. "Every fucking inch."
Lower. His hands spread my thighs. Gentle but insistent.
"Want to taste where our baby started."
Then his mouth is there, and thinking becomes impossible.
Heat floods through me. Not just physical—a surge that rewires my entire nervous system. Makes me forget my own name.
His tongue works with precision. Six months of practice. Of learning exactly where to press. How much pressure. When to be gentle and when to be merciless.
My hands fist in his hair. He groans against me. The vibration makes my hips buck.
This man destroyed half a harbor for me. Killed without hesitation. Chose me over everything. Now he's on his knees worshipping me like I'm sacred.
"Ivan—" His name comes out wrecked. "I'm gonna—"
"I know." His fingers join his mouth, curling inside and finding that spot. "Let me feel it."
The orgasm hits like lightning. Makes me scream his name. Makes the world go white completely.
He doesn't stop. He draws it out until I'm shaking. Until I have to pull him up by his hair because I can't take any more.
He kisses me, and I taste myself on his lips. Filthy and perfect.
"I need to be inside you." His voice is destroyed. "Need all of you."
He enters slowly. I feel the restraint coiled in his muscles. The way he's forcing himself to be gentle.
"I'm not glass," I manage.
"You're everything." He moves carefully anyway. "Can't risk you."
I look past him to the endless blue outside. The impossible view that's somehow my reality now.
Six months ago, I was nobody. Serving coffee. Drawing fantasies. Settling for mediocrity because I thought that's all I deserved.
Now I'm Mrs. Petrov, carrying a Bratva heir, and living a life that makes my old romance novels look tame.
The darkness and the light. The blood and the diamonds. The violence wrapped in devotion.
All of it mine.
The rhythm builds. Slow and devastating. His forehead presses against mine. Blue eyes boring into green. Watching every micro-expression.
"Come with me." His voice is strained. Desperate. "I want to feel you fall apart."
His hand moves between us and finds where we're joined. Circles. Presses.
I shatter around him. He follows immediately. Both of us lost in it. Both of us holding on like gravity might fail if we let go.
The sunrise bathes us in gold. The ocean rocks beneath. The world spreads infinitely, and ours.
This is it. The ending I read about but never believed.
Happily ever after.
Not perfect. Never safe. Ivan will always be dangerous. Will always carry violence I'll never fully understand.
But he's mine. And I'm his. And we're having a baby.
And somehow that's everything.
More than everything.
Enough.