Chapter Thirty-Nine
Aleksei
I find Stella in the kitchen, sitting alone at the island counter.
Steam rises from the teacup clasped between her hands, dissolving in the warm light.
Outside, rain lashes against darkened windows, the steady drumming amplifying the silence inside.
The normalcy of the scene— woman with tea, evening rain— is a fucking joke after the insanity we’ve just lived through.
Sofia is stabilized in the Left Wing guest suite. Malhotra’s team has treated a minor head wound where the bullet grazed her, pumped her full of sedatives, and promised to return in the morning. For now, at least, no one is actively dying. My fucking father got that out of the way hours ago.
Stella doesn’t look up when I enter, though her shoulders tense slightly.
The kitchen smells of chamomile and honey, with lingering traces of the dinner no one finished— Polina’s bottle drying on the rack, a half-eaten sandwich Bobik abandoned when Maria took him to bed.
A picture of domesticity that I can hardly believe has become my world.
“The doctor says she’ll recover,” I say, breaking the silence. My voice sounds rough, strained. “Physically, at least.”
Stella nods, still staring into her tea. “Thank you for bringing her here instead of the hospital.”
I move to the opposite side of the island, palms pressed against the cool marble. The distance between us feels calculated — a space filled with unspoken questions and implications neither of us has fully processed.
“Stella,” I say finally, cutting to the chase. “What did you mean in the forest? About needing to explain things.”
She looks up then, her gaze steady and clear despite the red rims of her eyes. Whatever emotional storm raged earlier has settled into something harder, more certain.
“Aleksei, Sofia is my sister. My biological sister.”
The word “sister” hangs in the air like gunpowder. Sofia— the woman who threatened my family, who tried to put a bullet in her own brain— is Stella’s blood? I stand frozen, mind scrambling to reconcile this information with everything I thought I knew.
Chto za khuynya?
“That’s impossible,” I say finally, though the conviction in her eyes suggests otherwise.
“It’s not.” She takes a sip of tea, the spoon clinking against ceramic as she sets it down.
“My parents gave up their firstborn child— sold her, essentially— to the Novikov family. They were struggling financially, could barely feed themselves, let alone a baby. So, they made an impossible choice. They gave her up, hoping she’d have a chance for a better life. ”
“Adoption,” I repeat, shaking my head as I try to absorb this clusterfuck of information.
“Sofia is my big sister. Originally named Boyana.” She says this with a hint of wonder, as if still processing it herself.
I grip the counter harder, knuckles whitening as I anchor myself against the vertigo of this revelation. “And you’ve known this how long?”
“I learned about it before the confrontation with Gianni,” she admits. “Then I forgot during my memory loss, aside from some flashes. But seeing Sofia in the forest, hearing Polina cry— it triggered everything. All the memories came flooding back at once.”
“Sofia. Your sister. Blyad .” I run a hand through my hair, unable to formulate a more coherent response. The kitchen suddenly feels too small, too warm.
“I know it’s difficult to believe.” Her voice remains steady, matter-of-fact. “I’ve had a bit longer with the information, though not much.”
“How can you be certain?” The question comes from the pragmatic part of my brain still functioning.
“First, my uncle Igor mentioned it. When I was still a child. It was Christmas and he was drunk. He let it slip how Boyana, my parents’ firstborn, was given up for adoption.
My parents were horrified, got him out of there.
Never spoke of it again.” She sets down her cup with a definitive click.
“And since then, I’ve been talking to ‘Boyana’ my whole life— my imaginary friend who wasn’t imaginary after all. ”
“Your imaginary friend?” I frown. Maybe she hasn’t fully recovered from that concussion.
Stella looks slightly embarrassed, a flush creeping up her neck. “Since childhood, I’ve had conversations in my head with someone I called Boyana. I thought I’d made her up. Turns out, I was connecting with a sister I didn’t consciously remember.”
“And you’ve confirmed this? Beyond recovered memories and drunken uncle stories?” My tone sharpens with skepticism.
Stella nods. “Hannah… my friend’s been helping me. Discreetly,” she says. “Birth records, adoption papers. It’s all there. Sofia Novikova was born Boyana Larkina and later adopted and brought to the U.S.”
“Hannah?” I frown at her, the name unfamiliar.
Stella shifts uncomfortably, fingers tightening around her cup. “She was my roommate. And my best friend. She umm… works in the Secret Service.”
My mouth drops open. I snap it shut. “She what ?!”
“I know, I know.” She pulls a face, nose scrunching. “It probably sounds crazy.”
“Crazy wouldn’t cover half of it, Stella.” I wave an arm, gesturing around the room. “You brought a Secret Service agent into this? My world?”
Pizdets!
“Well, I didn’t actually bring her here,” she says quickly. “She did it as a favor to help me figure out what I’d gotten myself into. She was also the one who told me about… you. And what happened to my dad.”
I stay silent, jaw clenched so tight my teeth might crack. This fucking Hannah woman would be looking at a shallow grave if she wasn’t Stella’s best friend.
Uspokoysya.
Calm down, mudak.
“Anyway, that’s not the point. What matters right now is that Sofia is okay.” Her jaw sets, a stubbornness I’ve come to recognize. “And I plan to keep her that way… with or without your help.”
Fuck.
The irony doesn’t escape me: I killed Sofia’s adoptive father, and now Stella wants me to welcome her into our home. The woman who once believed she would be my wife is actually Stella’s sister. The universe, it seems, has a particularly fucked-up sense of humor.
“ Yebat’ menya ,” I mutter, pushing away from the counter to pace the kitchen. The floor is cold against my bare feet, grounding me slightly. “This is…”
“I know,” Stella says quietly. “It’s a lot.”
That might be the understatement of the fucking century.
My mind races through implications, connections, complications.
Sofia— raised in luxury by Sergei Novikov, a man I recently put in the ground.
Sofia— once engaged to me in an arrangement I broke when I chose Stella instead.
Sofia— who threatened my family out of jealousy that now takes on entirely new dimensions.
Family in our world is both weapon and shield. Adding Sofia to ours could strengthen us or tear us apart completely.
“There’s something else,” Stella says after giving me a moment to process. “I’d like her to stay with us. When she recovers.”
I stop pacing, turning to face her directly. “Stay with us.” The words are colored with disbelief.
Ya blyad’ ne véryu, chto éto proiskhódit.
I can’t fucking believe this is happening.
“Yes.” She gnaws on her bottom lip anxiously, but her gaze is steady. “She needs help, Aleksei. Professional help, certainly, but also… family. She’s lost everything— her father, her identity, her purpose. She tried to kill herself today.”
“This complicates things,” I say, the words pathetically inadequate for the mindfuck of implications.
“I know.”
“She hates me. She hates us.” I gesture sharply between Stella and myself. “She believes you stole me from her, and now she learns you actually are her family— her sister, her blood— but that I’m still in the picture.”
“Yes.” Stella doesn’t deny the complexity. “It’s messy. Probably the messiest thing we’ve faced yet.”
The maturity in her response surprises me. No argument, no emotional plea— just acknowledgment of reality coupled with determination. It’s a far cry from our earlier conflicts, a sign of how our relationship has evolved despite recent strains.
Relationship? If only there was one, instead of this freakish no man’s land we’ve settled on.
“Why?” I ask finally, the question bursting from me. “Why invite this bullshit into our lives when we’re already dealing with so much?”
Stella stares down at her cup, considering her answer. I can see her throat work as she swallows. “To make things right,” she says finally. “To help her. To be a unit. A family.”
The simplicity of her answer catches me off guard.
After everything— after learning I’m responsible for her parents’ deaths, after the trauma of Gianni’s abduction, after the upheaval of my mother’s return and father’s death— Stella still believes in the possibility of making things right. Of healing what’s broken.
Naivnaya.
Naive.
But fuck if it isn’t one of the things I love about her.
“It won’t be easy,” I say, softening slightly. “Sofia is… volatile. Unstable. And she has legitimate reasons to hate me.”
“I know that, too.” Stella meets my gaze directly. “But I also know what it’s like to lose everything. To feel completely alone. She’s my sister, Aleksei. I talked to her in my head for twenty-seven years without knowing she was real. I can’t abandon her.”
I move closer, leaning against the counter beside her rather than across from her. The subtle shift feels significant— no longer opponents but partners facing a problem together. I catch her scent— chamomile, honey, the lingering traces of forest soil and blood.
“We’ll need security protocols,” I say, already thinking practically. “Psychiatric evaluation. Clear boundaries.”
A small smile touches Stella’s lips. “So that’s a yes?”
“It’s a ‘we’ll try,’” I clarify. “One step at a time. First recovery, then psychiatric assessment, then we’ll see about longer-term arrangements.”
She nods, accepting these terms. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I warn. “This could end badly in a dozen different ways.”
She could try to kill you again.
Or me.
Or herself.
Or all of us.
“Or it could be the beginning of something healing,” she counters. “For all of us.”
The optimism in her voice should sound childlike given our reality, but somehow it doesn’t.
Perhaps because I’ve seen Stella’s strength, her ability to forge connections in unlikely places.
With Bobik, with my mother, even with Diana.
Perhaps because I’ve witnessed how family— real family, not just blood— can transform even the darkest circumstances.
Ona ne ponimayet, vo chto my vvyazyvayemsya.
She doesn’t understand what we’re getting into.
“One day at a time,” I repeat, reaching for her hand. She takes it, our fingers intertwining. Her skin is warm from the teacup, slightly damp, familiar in a way that I’m growing to love. Just like the rest of her.
Outside, the rain hammers harder, washing away the last traces of my father’s death day, of Sofia’s suicide attempt, of old identities and assumptions. Inside, in this kitchen, something new begins to take shape— a possibility I couldn’t have imagined this morning.
Family has always been my weakness and my strength. Now, it seems, it’s also becoming my redemption.
Bozhe moy.
God help us all.