Chapter 19
SAMUIL
The moment I open the door, I hear her voice drifting from the living room. It sounds like she’s talking to herself, reading something aloud in a light, elated rush. I follow the sound before I can think better of it.
She’s sitting on the rug beside the coffee table, flipping through a stack of materials she probably used with Anya today.
Her hair is pulled back in a loose braid, and there’s a faint smudge of green marker on the side of her hand.
She doesn’t notice me at first, too busy rereading notes she made, probably planning for tomorrow in that careful way of hers.
She looks steady and happy. It’s the least guarded she’s been since she came here. This work means so much to her, and I hate that I had to pull her away from what she was doing in the classroom. Even so, I can’t regret it. She’s making huge strides in Anya’s life. That matters.
When she finally lifts her head and sees me standing there, she smiles at me. It’s the first genuine smile she’s given me in weeks. Maybe she’s too happy to remember that she’s angry with me.
“Hey,” she says gently. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You looked really focused,” I say in a low voice. It sounds rougher than I mean for it to, and I instantly regret it. “What happened with Anya today was incredible.”
She smiles even wider. Either she didn’t notice my tone or she wasn’t offended by it. Either way, I’m grateful. She’s looking at me with so much warmth and excitement that it nearly knocks me off my feet. I was starting to think she’d never look at me like that again.
“I know,” she says in awe, tears springing to her eyes. “It was just one word, but it meant everything.”
I sit down on the edge of the coffee table, close enough to feel her warmth, but not close enough to scare her off. She holds herself very still, like she doesn’t trust her own reaction to me.
“No one else got through to her,” I say. “No one. Not the therapists. Not the specialists. Not the people who have known her since the day she was born. But you…” My voice trails off, not because I can’t finish the sentence, but because the words feel too big for the room. “You reached her.”
She looks down at her hands like she’s trying to hide the tears before they fall.
“I didn’t do anything special,” she whispers. “I just used my teacher training. Anyone could have done it.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so,” I say quietly.
“You have no idea the effect you have on people. And if just anyone could have gotten through to Anya, they would have by now. She’s been seeing a therapist for nearly a year.
She goes to speech therapy twice a week.
She has an army of highly trained nannies.
It took you only three weeks to get through to her. That’s magic, Molly.”
The words feel truer than anything I’ve said in a long time.
Her breath catches and one tear spills over. She swipes it quickly, embarrassed, like she isn’t willing to be vulnerable in front of me. I can’t take it anymore. I hate this tension between us. I hate that she’s afraid of me.
As happy as I am that things are going well with Anya, I hate that the first time she’s looked genuinely happy in over a month has nothing to do with me. She’s slipping away from me.
Before I can think, my hand lifts. My fingers touch her cheek, slow and deliberate, brushing the tear away with my thumb. She goes absolutely still. Her breath trembles. We both stay suspended in a silent moment, unsure what to do next.
“Can I kiss you?” I ask, feeling ridiculous.
I’ve never once asked a woman if I can kiss her, but this feels too important, too fragile. If I rush her, she’ll run. I wait with bated breath for something. Anything. Then, finally, she nods and meets my eyes.
The moment stretches, warm and delicate, the air thick with everything neither of us has said since that night in the kitchen. I lean in by instinct, not force. Not heat. Just something soft and unguarded that I don’t know how to stop.
She meets me halfway.
The kiss is gentle at first, barely a press of lips, more breath than contact.
She tastes like mint tea and something sweet.
The second she exhales against my mouth, the softness warps into something deeper.
Her fingers tremble as they clutch the front of my shirt, pulling me in with a desperation she doesn’t try to hide.
I cup the back of her head and kiss her properly this time, slow and hungry and full of everything I’ve been trying not to feel.
She melts into me so fast it steals my balance.
Her knees brush against my thigh as she shifts closer and her breath catches in that way she gets when she wants more but is scared to ask for it.
I feel her pulse through her lips, her hands, her body leaning into mine like she’s been starving for this just as much as I have.
Her mouth opens beneath mine and heat rolls through me in a wave so strong it takes every bit of discipline I have not to ease her back onto the rug and lose myself in her.
For a moment, the world feels simple. All my fears about us disappear.
I can see the future with her. I can see us getting married, having this child, having a dozen more.
Everything is so incredibly clear to me in a way that it wasn’t before.
I could have the one thing I never thought I could deserve. I could have a family.
Then she breaks the kiss, and it all vanishes like smoke. But I don’t try to fight her, because I know I don’t deserve that future. I know that I’ve never done anything in my miserable life to be worthy of it, or worthy of her.
“Samuil…” Her voice is so soft I almost miss it.
I’m so lost in my own thoughts, so hurt by the rejection, even though I know it’s completely warranted. Hell, she’s barely looked at me in almost a month since the last time we slept together. She obviously doesn’t want this.
“We can’t…” she continues, and it nearly breaks me open.
She’s right, but I need her. It’s more than a primal desire for her body. She’s become as close to me as a second skin. Without her, I’ll probably fall apart. I’ll become a miserable old drunk, just like my father.
“Not without talking first,” she finishes, and it takes me a moment to pull myself out of my self-loathing enough to process her words.
I keep my hands on her waist, gentle so she knows she can pull away at any moment. I steady my breathing as hope blooms in my chest. I haven’t broken this beyond repair. There’s still a chance.
“I know,” I tell her desperately.
“We keep doing this,” she whispers. “Falling into each other and pretending everything else doesn’t exist. There’s so much we have to figure out.”
“Tell me what you need,” I say.
She exhales shakily and sits back a little, though not far.
“I want to keep working with Anya. That part feels clear.” Her fingers twist together in her lap.
“And I trust you in some ways. I do. But I’m afraid of what’s outside these walls.
And after all this time, there’s still so much I don’t know about you. I don’t know who you are, not really.”
Her voice cracks at the last word. I shift closer, hands resting on my knees so she doesn’t feel cornered.
“If you want the truth,” I say quietly, “I can give you that.”
She lifts her eyes and nods once. Brave. Scared. Determined. So I tell her.
“My mother left when I was still little. I barely even remember her. From what I was told, there was no warning and no goodbye. She just walked out one day on my father, my brother, and me and never looked back.”
Molly inhales sharply, like the thought physically hurts her.
“My father was the pakhan before me,” I continue. “And he was good at the job, but he loved vodka more than he loved anything else. Including us. Including himself.”
Her face softens with heartbreak I don’t deserve.
“My older brother, Pavel, was supposed to take over someday. Everyone knew it. He was smart and wickedly cunning. He was stronger than I ever was, and definitely stronger than our father. He had a lot of ideas to improve the Bratva.” I smile faintly at the thought, though it’s barely a memory now. “He would have been a great leader.”
“What happened?” she whispers.
“A drunk driver, ironically,” I say simply. “Some kid who didn’t know his own limits. Pavel was only twenty.”
Molly covers her mouth like she’s trying to keep the grief inside.
“So after that,” I continue, “it fell to me. A seventeen-year-old kid with no one to guide him and a drunk father who barely remembered his own name. And with Pavel gone, his drinking only got worse. He didn’t give me any guidance on how to do this job, and he left me with a lot of shit to clean up. ”
Her eyes shine again, but she doesn’t look away. “You didn’t have a choice,” she whispers.
“No.” I shake my head. “But I made one anyway. I took it seriously. I still do. Because if I don’t stay ten steps ahead, if I don’t control every moving part around me, people die.”
Her breath trembles. She looks down and rubs her palms together slowly, like she’s absorbing all of it.
“And fatherhood…” My voice trails off because the truth is heavy in my throat. “I want to do it right. Better than the people who raised me. Better than the world I grew up in.”
Her gaze lifts. Soft. Searching.
“I know I can’t give you a simple life,” I say. “I know I can’t protect you from every danger. But I will give you everything I have. Everything I am.”
Silence fills the space between us. For once, it isn’t cold or tense. It gives us both the space to breathe after I’ve laid this all out on the table. She swallows, her lips parting like she’s choosing her next breath carefully.
“Neither of us knows what it means to be truly loved,” she finally says softly, like she didn’t mean to say it. “And maybe we don’t even know how to love.”
I reach out and take her hand carefully, showing her that she can pull away if she wants to. She doesn’t.
“And somehow I still find myself falling for you more every day.”
Her fingers curl around mine as her words land. I look up at her to see her watching me seriously, carefully, with a faint smile on her lips. I lift her hand to my lips, kiss her knuckles once, slow, deliberate.
“You have no idea,” I say softly, “what that means to me.”
She looks like she wants to cry again, but she doesn’t. She just leans closer, resting her forehead lightly against my chest. I wrap an arm around her shoulders.
We sit like that for a long time. Her breath steadies as my hand rubs a slow line along her back, the tension between us shifting into something fragile and warm. She’s the first to speak.
“I don’t know how this ends,” she whispers. “And I still have a lot of fears and concerns. But I’m not ready to give up.”
“Neither am I,” I admit.