50. Fifty
FIFTY
ARROW
The pain in my chest was a dull, persistent ache that never quite went away.
I shifted in my chair, feeling the pull of scar tissue beneath my shirt—four raised ridges that mapped the trajectory of bullets meant for my wife. The doctors had called it a miracle that I survived. I called it stubbornness and spite. Death could wait. I had too much to live for.
“The shipment arrives Thursday,” Orion said, spreading a map across my desk. “We’ll need to move it through the northern route. The Feds have been watching the docks.”
I nodded, studying the routes he'd marked in red. Orion had always been meticulous—a trait that made him invaluable in this business. Where I was the hammer, Orion was the scalpel.
“What about the Albanians?” I asked, my voice flat and controlled. “They’ve been quiet since Giovanni’s death. Too quiet.”
“They’re regrouping,” Orion confirmed. “Word is they’re looking for new leadership. Someone who can unite the fractured families.”
I leaned back in my chair, ignoring the sharp twinge that shot through my ribs.
The wounds had healed, but they’d left their mark, both physically and mentally.
Sometimes I still felt the impact of those bullets, the way my body had jerked with each shot, the warm spray of my own blood across Harlowe’s face.
Worth every goddamn second of it.
“Let them regroup,” I said coldly. “We’ll be ready when they make their move.”
I absently touched my chest through my shirt, fingers finding the ridge of the highest scar—the one that had come closest to my heart. The doctors said another inch and I would have bled out before the ambulance arrived.
Another inch and I would have left Harlowe alone.
Another inch and my son would have grown up without a father.
“You good?” Orion asked, his sharp eyes catching the gesture.
“Fine.” I dropped my hand. “Continue.”
He was about to speak when I heard the sound of the front door opening, followed by the bright, clear voice of my son echoing through the foyer.
“Daddy! Daddy, we’re home!”
Everything in me shifted.
The cold calculation, the strategic planning, the ruthless focus that made me dangerous—all of it softened at the edges. My attention diverted from the map, from the shipment routes, from the threat of the Albanians.
Because nothing in this world mattered more than the two people who had just walked through my door.
“We’ll finish this later,” I said to Orion, already rising from my chair.
He smirked, gathering the maps. “Yeah, I figured.”
I walked out of my office and into the foyer just as Luca came barreling toward me, his small legs pumping as fast as they could carry him. His dark hair was windswept, his gray eyes—so much like mine—bright with excitement.
“Daddy!” He crashed into my legs, wrapping his arms around my knees.
I crouched down, ignoring the protest from my healing body, and scooped him up into my arms. He was getting heavier every day, growing faster than I could keep track of.
“Hey, little man,” I said, my voice gentler than it had been moments ago. “Did you have fun with Mama?”
“We saw Uncle Luca!” he announced proudly. “I picked flowers and made a wish!”
My chest tightened—not from pain, but from something deeper. “That’s good, buddy. What did you wish for?”
He pressed his small hands against my cheeks, his expression suddenly serious. “Can’t tell. It won’t come true.”
“Smart kid.” I kissed his forehead, breathing in the scent of strawberry shampoo and sunshine.
Then I looked up and saw her.
Harlowe stood in the doorway, still wearing the black dress from the cemetery, her sunglasses pushed up into her hair. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face pale, but she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
She’d killed her father to save me.
I’d taken bullets to save her.
We were bound by blood and violence and a love that had been forged in the darkest parts of both our lives.
“Hey,” she said softly, her voice still rough from crying.
“Hey yourself.” I shifted Luca to one hip and crossed to her, pulling her against me with my free arm. She melted into my side, her head resting against my shoulder.
“How was he?” I asked, watching her fingers absently tracing the edge of Luca’s shirt.
“Perfect,” she said.
“Just like his mother.”
She looked up at me, and I saw everything in her eyes—the grief, the love, the determination to build something better than what we’d been given. I leaned down and kissed her, slow and deliberate, tasting salt from her tears.
When I pulled back, Orion was standing in the doorway of my office, watching us with an expression somewhere between amusement and respect.
“I’ll see myself out,” he said dryly.
“Good,” I replied without looking away from Harlowe. “Lock the door on your way.”
He chuckled, shaking his head as he grabbed his coat. “The Romanov prince has gone soft. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“No,” I said, finally meeting his eyes. “I’ve just found something worth being soft for.”
Orion’s smirk faded into something more genuine—understanding, maybe even approval. He nodded once, then disappeared down the hall.
The front door closed with a soft click.
My eyes tracked the clock on the wall as I held my family close.
The afternoon light slanted through the windows, casting long shadows across the polished floors.
I’d never imagined this life for myself—a home, a wife, a child.
Before Harlowe, I’d been content with power and violence, with the cold satisfaction of watching my enemies fall.
But she had changed everything.
“Daddy?” Luca’s small voice broke through my thoughts. “Can we have pancakes for dinner?”
I looked down at my son’s hopeful face, at the earnest gray eyes so like my own. “Pancakes for dinner?”
Harlowe laughed against my shoulder, the sound warming something cold inside me. “He’s been asking since we left the cemetery. His Uncle Luca loved pancakes, too.”
The mention of her brother made something tighten in my chest. I’d never be able to go back in time and choose to save Luca Virelli, but sometimes I wondered what he would think that his sister married a Romanov, or that he had a nephew named in his honor, and a family built from the ashes of two warring houses.
“I think pancakes for dinner sounds perfect,” I said, pressing a kiss to the top of Luca’s head.
Harlowe’s fingers found mine, squeezing gently. “We’re okay,” she whispered, as if she could read my thoughts. “We’re all okay.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice. The physical wounds had healed—the bullet holes, the broken ribs, the mangled fingers that still ached when it rained. But some scars went deeper than bone.
She had killed her father to save me.
I had watched her face as she drove the knife into his chest. I’d seen the horror, the relief, the terrible freedom of that moment. She had ended her bloodline with her own hands, and I had been powerless to stop it.
But I had been powerless to stop the man with the gun, the bullets meant for her, the way my body had moved without thought to shield her from harm.
Four bullets.
Four chances for me to die.
Four reasons why every breath I took now felt like a gift.
I’d spent months in the ICU, and when I woke, Harlowe was four months pregnant with our son. A child we’d never planned for. Another reason for me to fight. Another reason for me to live.
“Arrow?” Harlowe’s voice pulled me from the memories. “Where’d you go just now?”
I looked down at her, at the woman who had killed for me and almost died for me. The mother of my child. My wife.
“I’m right here,” I said, pulling her closer. “Always right here.”
She smiled, and even with her eyes red from crying, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The sunlight caught the diamond ring I’d placed there on our wedding day, which felt like a lifetime ago.
“I love you,” she whispered, her fingers tracing the scars on my chest through my shirt.
“I know,” I said, because saying “I love you” still felt like exposing something raw and vulnerable. But she knew. She’d always known.
Luca wiggled in my arms, impatient with our adult emotions. “Pancakes now, Daddy?”
“Pancakes now,” I agreed, setting him down gently. He immediately grabbed Harlowe’s hand and started pulling her toward the kitchen.
As I followed them, my body still aching in places that would never fully heal, I thought about the doctors who had told me I wouldn’t survive. The specialists who had warned about permanent damage, about limited mobility, about a life defined by pain and restrictions.
They didn’t know me.
They didn’t know what I would endure to come back to Harlowe.
They didn’t know what it meant to have something worth fighting for.
In the kitchen, I watched Harlowe lift Luca onto the counter and help him pour flour into a bowl. His small hands were clumsy, spilling more than he measured, but Harlowe didn’t scold him. She just laughed and wiped his cheek with her thumb, leaving a streak of flour across his skin.
I leaned against the doorframe, memorizing this moment. The afternoon light. The sound of their laughter. The way Harlowe’s eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled at our son.
“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help?” she asked, catching me watching.
“Just appreciating the view,” I replied.
Her smile turned softer, more private. “Come here.”
I crossed the kitchen, and she pulled me down for a kiss, her flour-dusted hands framing my face. Luca giggled between us, and I felt something warm and dangerous and fragile all at once expand in my chest.
This. This was what I had almost lost.
This was what I had fought to keep.
I kissed her harder, pouring everything I couldn’t say into the pressure of my lips against hers. I love you. I need you. I will burn down the world to keep you safe.
When we broke apart, Luca was making exaggerated gagging noises.
“Yuck,” he declared, though he was grinning.