Avros
Dead weight has a way of reminding you how much effort life takes to maintain. Muscles slack. Joints useless. The man who once took up space with entitlement and arrogance is reduced to something that fits into a large suitcase in the back of my car, folded and silent.
I don’t rush.
Rushing creates mistakes.
The night air is cool as I drive from the estate, roads narrowing, streetlights thinning out until there’s nothing but darkness and trees. The place I chose is far enough away that no one will find him. It’s been used before. It will be used again, in my line of work.
I stop where the ground dips low and the earth is soft from recent rain.
John doesn’t deserve ceremony. He doesn’t deserve anger either. Men like him thrive on being important to someone, even in death, and I won’t give him that.
I work quickly and efficiently. When it’s done, I wash my hands in bottled water and take a moment to breathe, grounding myself before I get back in the car. The smell of soil and metal fades as I pull away, leaving nothing behind that connects him to Emma. Or to me.
The drive back to the estate is quiet, my mind already moving ahead. She’s alone in the studio now, grieving the only life she’s ever known. I gave her space on purpose. Grief needs room to settle, to be acknowledged, or it turns into something poisonous and bitter.
The first time I saw her dance, it wasn’t the beauty that caught me. It was her discipline.
The way she held herself like the world would collapse if she let go for even a second. The way she paid for every movement with pain she never showed. I recognized it immediately. That same devotion. The same willingness to bleed quietly for something larger than yourself.
That kind of woman doesn’t need to be chased. She needs to be understood.
So, I watched.
From the private box I bought the night I saw her perform Swan Lake. From the wings. From the street. From reflections and shadows and places she never thought to look. I learned her routines, her silences, the way she limped only when she thought no one could see.
I never approached and never followed close enough to frighten her.
Fear would’ve broken the spell I didn’t know I was weaving.
Awareness, though… that slow, persistent sense of being seen, sharpened her. Made her listen to her body instead of ignoring it.
I made sure she was never alone when it mattered. Made sure threats disappeared before they could reach her orbit. John wasn’t the first man I flagged.
The roses were never about romance. They were a marker. A signal. Yellow for devotion. For endurance. For the life she was already mourning without admitting it.
I wanted her to know someone saw her struggle and valued it.
By the time the Pakhan ordered us to secure heirs, the decision had already been made. The timing wasn’t a coincidence, not really. It was alignment.
She was ready, even if she didn’t know it yet.
I pull back onto the property and kill the engine near the barn, taking a moment before going inside. This is the pivot point. The moment where obsession becomes permanence, possession. Where my devotion can show itself to her more fully.
Emma doesn’t need lies. She doesn’t need comfort disguised as freedom. She needs structure. Safety. A future that doesn’t vanish the moment her body fails her.
I step out of the car and head toward the door, already mapping the next moves in my head. Introductions to the family will wait. Tonight is about containment. About letting her rest without feeling trapped.
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about marriage and the future. I’ll make sure she knows this isn’t a demand, but an inevitability she’ll come to understand is already knitted into her bones.
I open the door quietly, slip out of my coat and hang it in the closet.
She’s still here, sitting with her legs up on the sofa. The air shifts when I enter.
John is gone. The world that hurt her is closing behind her. What comes next is mine to build for her, with her. And I won’t fail her.
“You didn’t leave,” I say, even though I knew she wouldn’t.
“I don’t know where I am, or where I’d go,” she answers. “And I find my reaction to this situation more unnerving than the situation itself,” she adds.
“I should be horrified that I know you killed a man I know. Knew…” She shakes her head and swings her legs around into a sitting position. “I should be scared of being here. Wondering if I’ll ever see my family again.”
“If your family can accept your life with me, they will always be welcome and safe.”
She swallows and nods.
“And you’re sure you want me?” she asks, taking me by surprise. “I have no experience with relationships. I struggle to make and keep friends even. Ballet is…was my whole life.”
I drop onto the sofa beside her. “Relationships are easy when they’re with the right person.”
“You don’t know me, but you want a baby with me,” she counters.
“I do know you. I know all the things that matter.”
The living space suddenly feels huge, too huge. I slowly turn to her, cupping her face in my hands.
“I know this is unconventional. I know I’m asking you to trust a stranger who has proven he is dangerous and somewhat unhinged. But I promise you, you are the center of my universe. If you let me, I’ll prove it to you every single day.”
Being so close to her has my blood running too hot. I want to kiss her, devour her, mark her and make her mine.
“What if you change your mind?” she asks, lifting her hands to mine. It’s the first time she has willingly touched me, and I know I’ll remember it forever. That first connection between us.
The air thickens.
“I won’t.” Without thinking, I lower my mouth to hers.
I kiss her the way I’ve watched her dance, controlled and deliberate. My lips press to hers softly at first, a promise instead of a demand, giving her time to pull away if she wants to.
She doesn’t.
Her breath catches, warm and shaky against my mouth, and I feel it all the way through me. Eighteen months of restraint hums beneath my skin, every instinct screaming to take more, to deepen it, to claim what I already know is mine.
Instead, I stay still long enough for her to decide.
When her fingers tighten against my wrists, when she leans into the kiss instead of away from it, something inside me finally gives.
I part her lips slowly with my tongue, asking without words, and when she lets me in, it feels like crossing a threshold I’ve been standing in front of for far too long. Her mouth is soft and uncertain, responding instinctively rather than expertly, and it does something violent to my composure.
She tastes like salt and strength. She must have been crying while I was gone.
I kiss her deeper then, not harder, but more surely, letting her feel the shape of my intent without overwhelming her. My thumb brushes her cheek, steadying her, anchoring us both in the moment. I feel her relax a little, her body trusting what her mind is still arguing with.
This isn’t just possession or obsession, it’s recognition.
She makes a soft sound against my mouth, barely more than a breath, and it settles low in my chest like a vow. I’ve killed men without hesitation. I’ve dismantled lives without remorse. But this woman undoes me with nothing but the press of her lips.
I pull back, resting my forehead against hers, breathing her in. Her eyes are closed, lashes dark against her flushed skin, her expression open in a way that makes my chest ache.
Her eyes flutter open, searching my face, and I see it there; the confusion, the pull she doesn’t know how to name yet. She doesn’t step back.
“I waited because I wanted you to choose me,” I say. “Not because you are afraid or because you have nowhere else to go.”
“I’m not afraid,” she says. “I’m processing.”
I swallow. Processing is good progress, but takes time.
“I never imagined myself getting married or having kids. It’s a lot to adjust to. Especially so soon after everything else.”
I nod. Of course, it’s a lot to take on board. But my world runs on a different wavelength, and that’s something I know she understands.
“I don’t know what it feels like to be in love. I have nothing to compare to whatever this is.” Her hands tighten on my wrists for a fraction of a second. “It feels like the world is spinning too fast and I’m just trying to hold on. I don’t like feeling so out of control.”
“Then take control, Emma.”