22. Maksim
MAKSIM
It’s been a month since Alexander’s execution, and I’ve taken Aria and Daniel back to the Hamptons estate. The immediate threat is over. Alexander is dead and his network is dismantled.
But the Corsican warning hangs over us like a storm cloud that refuses to break.
“Alexander Morozov’s death will not go unanswered. We’re coming for your families. The Corsicans never forget.”
Nikolai has increased security across all Bratva operations—doubling guards, installing new surveillance systems, and vetting every single person who has access to family members or key facilities. He’s preparing for war.
But weeks pass with no movement. No attacks. No threats beyond that one message.
The silence is almost worse than an actual attack would be. At least with an attack, we’d know what we’re dealing with. This waiting—this not knowing—eats at me. I start to hope that maybe the Corsicans decided the war isn’t worth it and they’ve moved on to other concerns.
Maybe we’re actually safe now.
In the meantime, I focus on what’s really important: my family.
Daniel is recovering slowly from the trauma.
He still has nightmares sometimes and wakes up screaming about not being able to breathe.
Aria and I take turns sitting with him until he falls back asleep, one of us always keeping watch.
He still checks his food carefully, watching who prepares it, and sometimes asking us to taste it first even though we’ve told him a hundred times that he’s safe now.
But he’s laughing again. Playing again. I hear him in the backyard with his soccer ball, practicing drills I showed him. He reads his adventure books, completely absorbed in stories about pirates and treasure again.
And he calls me still calls me “Papa,” which is the sweetest sound in the world.
“Papa, can you help me tie my shoe?”
“Papa, watch this trick I learned with the ball!”
“Papa, will you read me the next chapter before bed?”
Every time he says it, I’m nearly overcome with emotion. This boy—my son—has bonded to me in ways that go beyond blood. He chose me as his father, and I chose him as my son, and that choice means everything.
Other than Daniel, my focus is on Aria. And I’ve been carrying my grandmother’s ring in my pocket for three days now, waiting for the right moment.
The ring is a single diamond set in platinum. It’s elegant and timeless. My grandmother wore it for fifty years, and my mother gave it to me years ago, telling me to save it for someone special.
I never thought I’d find that someone. Why would I ever have wanted the kind of life that includes marriage?
Then Aria Delano walked into my life eight years ago, and everything changed.
One evening, I find her in the estate’s garden. It’s late afternoon, the sun casting everything in golden light. She’s sitting on a stone bench near the rose bushes, reading a book, one hand resting on her swollen belly. I stop and watch her.
She’s in her third trimester and her body has obviously changed. She glows in the sunshine, and I feel possessive pride wash over me. This woman is carrying my child and she’s safe and happy and mine.
She looks up when she hears my footsteps and smiles. “Hey. Where’s Daniel?”
“With his tutor practicing Russian.” I hired a retired professor from Moscow to teach Daniel the language.
He’s picking it up quickly, his young brain absorbing vocabulary and grammar with ease.
He delighted Nikolai last week when they had a brief conversation in Russian over dinner. “We have a few minutes.”
I sit beside her on the bench, suddenly nervous in a way I haven’t been since I was a teenager asking a girl to dance.
“Aria, I need to ask you something.”
She sets down her book immediately, concern crossing her face. “Is everything okay? Did something happen with the Corsicans? Nikolai—”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I take her hand, feeling the familiar warmth of her skin against mine and letting it ground me. “Everything’s right. For the first time in eight years, everything is exactly right.”
Aria’s eyebrows furrow and she eyes me skeptically. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
It will in a few moments.
I slide off the bench and get down on one knee despite the lingering soreness in my left shoulder. It’s still healing from the gunshot wound, and Dr Petrov says it’ll probably always hurt on some level, but I don’t care.
This is more important.
Aria’s breath catches. “Maksim—”
“I know we’ve done everything backwards,” I say, the words tumbling out.
“I found you and forced you to come here. We fell in love while hating each other. We survived assassination attempts and conspiracies and more violence than anyone should have to endure.” I pull out the ring and her eyes are as round as saucers.
“But I want to do this one thing right. I want to ask you properly.”
Her eyes are already filling with tears.
“Aria Delano, will you marry me?” I hold up the ring, my hand steady even though my heart is racing.
“Will you be my wife—not because I’m forcing you, not because of our children, but because you choose me and I choose you?
Because I love you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone, and I want to spend the rest of my life proving that to you every single day? ”
She’s nodding before I even finish, laughing shakily through her tears. “Yes, of course yes. I choose you, Maksim. I choose you and this life and our family. Yes.”
I slide the ring onto her finger and pull her into my arms, my cheeks hurting from smiling so wide. She’s laughing and crying at the same time, her hands in my hair, her face pressed against my neck.
“I love you,” she tells me between kisses. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.” I hold her close. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure you never regret choosing me.”
“I could never regret this.” She pulls back to look at the ring, turning her hand to catch the light and she gasps softly. “It’s beautiful, Maksim. Where did it come from?”
“My grandmother’s.” I tell her, capturing her hand in mine as I kiss her knuckles, feeling the diamond scratch softly against my cheek. “My mother gave it to me years ago and told me to save it for someone special.” I press a kiss to her forehead.
“Why didn’t she give it to Nikolai?” Aria asks, smiling softly at me. “That to me screams an eldest child thing.”
I snort. “Our mother knew that Nikolai was destined to be a perpetual bachelor, even from the time he was a child. I was her quote ‘only hope’ unquote, so she gave it to me. I never thought I’d find that special someone.
” I cup her face and smile tenderly at her.
“Then you walked into my life and changed everything.”
She kisses me again, and I forget about everything else. Right now, there’s just this woman who chose me and is going to be my wife.
We tell Daniel that evening over dinner.
I don’t know why I’m so nervous. Daniel loves both of us, but asking for his approval still feels important.
“Daniel, we have something to tell you,” Aria starts.
The boy looks up from his steak immediately, his eyes going wary. Trauma has made him alert to “we need to talk” moments. His fork freezes halfway to his mouth.
“Nothing bad,” I say quickly. “I promise. It’s actually something good.”
Daniel relaxes slightly and sets down his fork. “Okay,” he says slowly, glancing at us.
“I asked your mother to marry me today.” I reach across the table and take Aria’s hand so Daniel can see the ring. “And she said yes.”
Daniel blinks and I can literally see his brain processing this information. “Y-you’re getting married?” he asks in wonder. “Like, for real married? With a wedding and everything?”
Aria smiles. “Yes, sweetheart. For real married. With a wedding and everything.”
“Does that mean we’re a real family now?”
The question hits me harder than it should. “We were already a real family, solnyshko. But yes, it makes it official. Your mother and I will be married, and you’ll officially be Daniel Sokolov instead of Daniel Mitchell.”
Daniel is quiet for a moment, his face serious in that way children get when they’re thinking hard about something important.
Then he gets up from his chair and walks over to me, climbing into my lap.
I’m surprised and the noise Aria makes shows she is too.
Usually Daniel is too grown-up for such things, but right now he’s just a child seeking comfort and connection.
“Papa?”
I’ll never get sick of hearing that. “Yes, solnyshko?”
“I want to tell you something.”
My throat tightens. “What is it?”
Daniel takes a breath. “For a long time it was just me and Mama. We didn’t have a lot of money and we moved around a lot and sometimes I was scared. Scared we wouldn’t have enough food or that Mama would get sick or that we’d have to move again and I’d lose my friends.”
I can see Aria out of the corner of my eye, her hand pressed to her mouth.
“I always worried about Mama,” Daniel continues, his small voice steady. “About whether she was happy. She tried to hide it, but sometimes I’d hear her crying at night when she thought I was asleep. And I wanted to make things better and I didn’t know how.”
“Daniel,” I start, but he shakes his head.
“Let me finish, Papa.” He takes another breath.
“But then we met you, and even though some bad things happened I’m glad we found you.
Because now we’re safe and I don’t worry about food anymore or whether we’ll have a home.
And Mama is happy. I can tell because she smiles all the time now and she doesn’t cry at night anymore. ”
My vision is blurring. I’m trying not to break down. I need to hold it together for my son.
“And I have the best papa in the world.” Daniel looks up at me with those gray eyes that mirror my own.
“A papa who stayed with me in the hospital when I was sick and teaches me things and plays with me and makes me feel safe.” His small hand touches my face.
“I’m glad you found us, Papa. I’m glad we’re a family. ”