Chapter Twenty-One - Zoe
The storm slams against the windows, rain lashing like angry hands. Thunder cracks so loud it rattles the glass panes. I sit up in bed, heart pounding, but I don’t know if it’s the storm or the silence inside me that’s louder.
I can’t sleep.
I’ve been tossing and turning for hours, the sheets twisted around my legs like vines. My body feels too tight, too aware—like I’m waiting for something to happen. Like I already know something has.
Earlier, I saw Lukin leave the house. He had looked right at me and then moved down the hallway without a word. Shortly after he left, I heard one of the maids whisper what I already feared. An attack in one of Lukin’s warehouses. A serious one. Men dead. Blood spilled.
Now the image won’t leave me. I keep seeing him lying somewhere in that chaos, surrounded by smoke and bullets. And I hate myself for thinking it. For feeling this… this ache. I press a hand to my stomach, palm warm over where a life is growing. His child. Ours.
What if he doesn’t come back?
The thought slashes across me like a blade. I try to breathe through it, but all I taste is panic. I close my eyes, and another memory takes shape—uninvited.
Another storm. Another house.
I was a girl then. Curled beneath the dining table, heart in my throat, while gunshots rang through the hallway. My parents’ screams. The silence that followed. The blood on the marble floor, bright and shocking.
I open my eyes. I can’t do this.
Not again. Not alone.
I shove off the blanket and stand, arms wrapped tight around myself.
My feet move before my mind does—out of the room, down the hall, past the flickering sconces.
I take the stairs one at a time, barefoot and quiet, the air thick with the smell of rain and old wood.
Rather than be alone tonight, I’ll go to the hall where the house staff are usually gathered. I need the company of people.
I’m halfway down the stairs when the front door swings open with a crash of wind and rain.
Lukin steps in like a storm himself—soaked to the bone, blood at the corner of his mouth, bruised knuckles, a scrape on his cheek.
My breath catches when he looks up and sees me.
He looks a mess, but that doesn’t stop that maddening grin from taking up his face.
For a second, we just stare. Me frozen on the stairs in my robe, him dripping water on the marble. “Well,” he drawls, voice rough but cocky, “looks like you were worried about me.”
I blink. The nerve of him. “You wish,” I say, arms crossing over my chest like armor.
He chuckles low in his throat, but it’s not playful. There’s something darker beneath it, something that tightens the air between us.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he murmurs, shrugging out of his coat. The fabric hits the floor with a heavy splat. “You couldn’t sleep, could you?”
I should turn away. I should go back upstairs and pretend he doesn’t affect me. That I didn’t pace half the night imagining him dead in a warehouse somewhere.
But I don’t move.
And he notices.
The silence stretches, thick and slow like honey. His eyes stay on me, sharp and unreadable, like he’s trying to figure something out. Like he already knows.
The rain still hammers the roof above us, thunder rumbling deep through the floorboards. I wrap the robe tighter around myself, even though I don’t feel the cold.
He turns without another word and starts up the stairs, moving past me like I’m just another piece of furniture in this oversized mausoleum of a house.
But then I see the stain. Darker than rainwater. Thicker. Blooming across his side, soaking through his shirt.
“Wait—” I catch his arm before I can stop myself. He winces, barely, but it’s enough.
I tug at the fabric, and he exhales like I’ve annoyed him. Like I’m the inconvenience here.
“What the hell, Lukin?” I breathe, peeling the shirt back. My stomach flips. “You were stabbed?”
“It’s fine,” he mutters, already trying to twist away. “It looks worse than it is.”
“It looks like you’re bleeding out on the staircase!” I snap.
But I don’t give him a choice. I hook my fingers around his wrist and start dragging him—up the stairs, down the hall, into the bedroom I never planned to share with him.
He grumbles under his breath, something about stitches and being capable, but I ignore him. I open the drawer in the bathroom and pull out the first aid kit, tossing it on the bed as he sits down with a reluctant sigh.
He starts to undo the buttons of his shirt, but I swat his hands away and do it myself, careful but fast. His skin is warm, solid beneath the damp fabric. The wound is deep—angry, red, the kind that should’ve knocked him off his feet hours ago.
“Jeez,” I mutter, grabbing a clean cloth and pressing it to the wound. “Lukin.”
His jaw tightens. But he doesn’t make a sound.
The silence wraps around us again, thick and crackling. I feel it in my bones. His eyes haven’t left my face since I pressed the cloth to his skin, and now his voice breaks the silence—low, rough around the edges.
“Why are you doing this?”
I pause and look up at him, needle and thread in my hand. His expression isn’t cold, not like usual. It’s something else. Tired. Worn. Maybe even… haunted.
“Why do you care?” he adds.
The question shouldn’t catch me off guard, but it does. My throat tightens around a hundred answers I can’t name.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Maybe it’s the baby. We’re having a child together. I don’t want you hurt.”
He exhales, slow and bitter, like the words taste like ash. “This is exactly why I didn’t want this life for you.”
I blink. “You didn’t what—?” The way he pursued me says otherwise.
“Not for you, Zoe.” His voice is quiet but sharp. “None of this. But the circumstances left no choice.”
He raises his eyes to the ceiling, as if the truth is etched up there in the cracks. When he speaks again, it’s quieter. Rawer.
“My first wife… she died because of me.”
I continue stitching the gash, willing my hand not to shake.
“She wasn’t supposed to be in that car,” he says.
“My car was the target. They couldn’t get to me directly, so they sent a message.
She got in before I could stop her. And that was it.
Fire exploded. She was gone because I failed to protect her. ”
The air in the room thickens. He isn’t looking at me anymore, like it’s easier that way. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
The words settle in my chest like lead. He shifts his gaze back to me. Serious now. Cold with reality.
“The next few days might get worse. That warehouse hit? It was a message. And you—” He stops. Looks at me fully. “You’ll be under security at all times. You don’t get to argue about it. Deal with it.”
I roll my eyes at his words, and Lukin doesn’t like it. His hand shoots up, firm but not rough, fingers wrapping around my jaw as he grabs my face and pulls me toward him. His eyes pin me in place, daring me to flinch.
“Watch the attitude,” he murmurs, voice low and dark.
My heart jumps, but I don’t look away. We’re too close now. His breath brushes my lips. His thumb rests just under my cheekbone. His gaze drops to my mouth—and suddenly, I can’t think. He leans in. Almost.
But then the sky cracks open, releasing a thunderclap so loud it shakes the windows. I jump without meaning to—body reacting before I can stop it—and my hands clutch his shoulders, tight.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t laugh. Just looks down at me like he can read everything I’m trying not to say.
I pull back fast, embarrassed. Grab the first aid kit and shove everything back into it, the silence between us hot and pulsing.
“Take a shower,” I mutter, avoiding his gaze as I stand. “You smell like blood and smoke.”
I don’t wait for his response.
I walk out of the bathroom and close the door behind me, heart thudding so loud it drowns out the storm.
I’m still shaking when I slip under the covers, dragging them up to my chin like they’ll protect me from the storm pounding against the windows.
Every rumble of thunder feels like it’s inside my chest, cracking me open from the inside.
I curl in on myself and squeeze my eyes shut.
Then I hear the bathroom door creak open.
Lukin steps out in a black robe, hair wet, chest still damp, and something unreadable in his eyes. I expect him to walk away. Maybe disappear into his study like he always does. But instead, he comes to my side of the bed and pulls the covers back.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice tight.
He doesn’t answer. Just climbs in beside me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His arm slides around my waist, firm and warm, pulling me into him.
“Shh,” he whispers into my hair. “I can tell you’re afraid of the storm. Let me hold you tonight.”
Then he kisses me. A soft press of his mouth to my hairline—and it feels like something inside me breaks open. I should pull away. Tell him not to touch me. That I don’t need his comfort. But I don’t speak. Thunder cracks again, and I flinch hard. He feels it.
“Why?” he murmurs. “Why are you so afraid?”
My throat tightens. I try to swallow it down, but the memory rises anyway.
“There was a storm,” I say quietly, barely above a whisper.
“Years ago. The night my parents were murdered. Someone broke into our home… my parents made me hide under the dining table, but I saw. He shot them right in front of me. I was just a kid. I—I still hear it sometimes, the way my mom screamed.”
His arm tightens around me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice rough and low. “I’m so damn sorry, Zoe. I’ll protect you from now on.”
I don’t say anything. But I let him hold me. And when the thunder rolls again, I press closer into his chest, and this time… I am not alone.