Chapter Twenty-Eight - Dimitri
The silence in the private wing has changed.
It used to be cold. Functional. Four walls designed to keep out the world and every weakness it might press into me.
I built this wing to be untouchable, a sanctuary for the parts of my life I couldn’t risk losing, which until now had been nothing.
I filled it with nothing but order: polished wood, locked drawers, rooms never disturbed.
A man doesn’t miss what he never allows himself to have.
The faint echo of a child’s laughter drifts down the hall, unsteady and bright, warming spaces that had never known joy. I hear the creak of Annie’s steps when she paces at night, her bare feet whispering across marble as though her restlessness can’t be quieted by walls or guards.
Sometimes, when she walks into a room, I notice the change in my own breathing—subtle, heavier, betraying me before I can wrestle it back into discipline.
I see everything. The way her son curls closer to me without hesitation when I lift him into my arms, no fear in his wide eyes, only instinctive trust. The way Annie watches, cautious but softer now, not with the suspicion that used to cut from her gaze like a knife.
She hasn’t forgiven me, not completely. She hasn’t pulled away either. In my world, that feels like grace.
Days bleed into nights, and the estate hums with war outside these walls. My men dismantle factions piece by piece, blood washing streets in the name of order.
Yet inside this wing, time bends. It doesn’t march in cadence with violence and retaliation—it lingers, hushed, as though this place belongs to something else entirely.
One evening, the storm rattles faint against the windows, and I find her in the library.
She’s curled in the oversized chair, wrapped in a blanket, a paperback spread open in her lap. Her hair spills loose over her shoulders, half hiding the crease of concentration in her brow. She doesn’t notice me at first, or maybe she does and chooses not to look up.
Either way, I stand in the doorway longer than I should, watching her. A woman who was once my prisoner, who fought me with every breath, sitting like she belongs in this wing more than I ever did.
When I step inside, the boards shift beneath my weight. Her head lifts, but there’s no tension in her shoulders, no sharpness braced on her tongue. Only quiet.
I lower myself onto the chair beside hers. The leather sighs under my weight. She doesn’t move away. The silence stretches between us—not the silence of suspicion, but of something else. Something harder to name.
After a long moment, I reach for her hand. My fingers close over hers, expecting resistance, ready for the familiar sting of rejection. Instead, she lets me take it.
Her hand is small against mine, cool, trembling faintly before settling into stillness. The simplicity of it cuts deeper than any blade. I’ve taken bodies, territories, fortunes. None of it rooted in me the way this single gesture does.
We sit like that, unmoving, as minutes lengthen into something quieter, heavier. The storm outside fades into background noise, irrelevant. The library breathes only with us.
When she finally speaks, her voice is so low I almost think I’ve imagined it. “I don’t know what this is… but it doesn’t scare me anymore.”
Her words slice through me. For months she’s been fire and fury, hatred sharpened into armor. For months I’ve braced against her defiance, convinced it was the only way she knew how to survive me. Now she sits here, hand in mine, whispering the one thing I never expected to hear.
I hold her gaze, and for once I let the truth rise unshielded to my lips.
“It should.”
The words carry no threat, only honesty. I know myself. I know what I’ve done, what I will continue to do. Men like me don’t offer safety. We offer cages gilded in power, and walls built from blood. Loving me, trusting me, even sitting here beside me.
When she doesn’t pull her hand away, when she simply looks at me with eyes full of quiet wonder instead of fear, something inside me falters. Something I thought I had killed years ago stirs back to life.
Regret.
I sit there with her in the silence, regret coiled like smoke in my chest. Not because I want to let her go. I don’t. Not because I want to change what I am. I can’t. But because she deserves more than this world, more than me, more than the blood-soaked legacy her father left in her veins.
Still. I keep her hand in mine.
Maybe I’m selfish, but even monsters crave warmth when they find it.
The storm whispers against the windows, a low hiss that makes the silence between us heavier. Annie’s hand rests in mine, her thumb brushing once, almost accidental, over my knuckles. I tighten my grip, not enough to trap her, just enough to keep her there.
Her eyes flick down, then up again. “Why do you do that?”
My brow lifts. “Do what?”
“Hold on like I’m going to disappear if you let go.”
I exhale through my nose, slow, measured. “Because you might.”
Her mouth curves, not quite a smile. “You’ve made it very difficult to leave.”
“That was the point.”
She shakes her head, a strand of hair slipping forward. “You cage everything. Even things you don’t have to.”
“I don’t know another way.”
The quiet stretches. She studies me, her gaze sharp, searching. “You could try.”
I let the words sit. They taste impossible on my tongue. Yet her hand remains in mine, warm, steady.
“You trust me now?” I ask finally.
Her breath catches. “I don’t know if trust is the right word.”
“What is?”
Her lips part, close again. She looks away, toward the fire, the light flickering against her cheekbones. “Need. Maybe want. Maybe both. That terrifies me more than any of your cages.”
I shift closer, the leather sighing under my weight. “Need cuts deeper than trust. It binds harder.”
Her eyes meet mine again, steady despite the tremor in her voice. “Then maybe I’m already bound.”
The words strike something buried. My hand lifts before I can stop it, brushing her jaw, tracing the line of her cheek. She doesn’t flinch.
“You should be afraid of me,” I murmur.
“I was.” Her voice is soft, but sure. “And maybe I still am, but not enough to stay away.”
Her blanket slips when she leans forward. The space between us disappears. Her mouth hovers near mine, breath mingling, warm and unsteady.
“This is madness,” I say.
“Yes.” Her whisper is a thread of sound. “So stop me.”
I don’t.
The kiss is slower than before, but no less consuming. Her lips part beneath mine, soft heat drawing me in, her hand sliding up to rest against my chest. I feel the faint tremor of her fingers over my heartbeat, the fragility and the defiance in the same touch.
When we break apart, her forehead rests against mine, her breath uneven.
“This doesn’t make us equals,” I say, voice rough.
“No,” she agrees. “It’s a start, though.”
The fire crackles, the storm thrums, and I hold her hand tighter, knowing I will not let go.
***
Later that night, the house is quiet. Guards stand where they should, the storm has passed, and even the walls seem to breathe easier.
I can’t sleep. The war outside is still raging, and the fire inside me hasn’t burned out. I walk the familiar hall back to my wing, each step steady, though I feel something coiled under my skin.
When I push open the door, I see her.
Annie lies in my bed, the sheets tangled around her hips, her eyes open, waiting. No words. No accusations. Just silence, thick with everything that’s been left unsaid.
I don’t ask why she’s here. I don’t demand answers. I simply move toward her, slow, deliberate, as though each step is permission she can revoke if she chooses. Her breath catches when my hand brushes her face, my thumb tracing the curve of her cheek. She leans into it.
The kiss comes without warning. It isn’t gentle, but it isn’t frantic either.
It’s months of tension finally stripped bare, heat and ache bound together.
She doesn’t stop me. She meets me, her lips parting under mine, her hand clutching at my wrist like she can’t bear the space that still separates us.
I lower myself onto the bed, covering her with the weight of my body, but I don’t rush.
I don’t need to. The world has been waiting for this moment as much as I have.
My mouth trails down her neck, her collarbone, the soft shudder of her breath answering each touch.
My hands find her waist, her hips, pulling her closer until we fit together like we were meant for this and nothing else.
The night stretches long. There are no commands, no games, no chains. Only the slow, relentless rhythm of skin against skin, the sharp exhale of her pleasure, the way her body yields and fights all at once. I take my time. She lets me.
When it ends, when her head rests on my chest and her breath steadies, I wonder how I ever slept without her weight against me, how I ever thought silence could be enough.
We don’t move for a long time. The ceiling fades into darkness, her hand rests splayed over my ribs, and for the first time in years, I feel still.
By morning, something has shifted. Something between us has been claimed, wordless but undeniable.
I don’t dress it up with speeches or promises. Over coffee, I tell her the truth as plainly as a gunshot: the last man tied to her father’s murder is gone.
Her eyes widen, then blink back tears she refuses to let fall. She nods once, steady despite the tremor in her breath. “Thank you,” she whispers.
I only incline my head. I don’t tell her how long I’ve carried Richard Vasile’s name, how deep the weight of it pressed into me, how many nights I thought of her face when I ordered a man’s death.
I don’t tell her that this—delivering vengeance in her name—is the closest I’ve ever come to asking forgiveness.
That night, when we return to my bed, I don’t hesitate. I wrap an arm around her and Henry both, pulling them into the space that was once mine alone. No questions. No conditions. They settle against me like they belong here, and maybe they do.
Now, when I watch her sleep, it isn’t to measure her next move, to guess how she’ll betray me or where she’ll run. It’s to marvel at the fact that she’s still here, choosing this. Choosing me.
I don’t say the words aloud. I don’t need to. They pulse through every gesture, every breath, every glance across a room: she’s mine, and I’m hers. Fully. Irrevocably.
Whatever comes next, whatever blood the war demands, I’ll face it without fear.