21. Ruslan
RUSLAN
“Now I think I may have got the wrong man.”
The words sit between us.
Zoya doesn’t move.
For a moment, neither do I.
I can see her trying to understand what I have just said without letting herself show too much. She was always like that when she was scared. Not weak. Never weak. Just careful. She would go still first, then angry, then practical.
Six years ago, I told myself I was saving her.
I told myself a lot of things.
Anton was the simple answer. He panicked at the warehouse. He reached for a gun. Ilya shot him before he could tell us anything more. After that, I let myself believe the rot had been cut out. A dead traitor is useful that way. He can’t argue. He can’t explain.
So I sent Zoya away.
I stood in that hallway with blood drying on my shirt and told her she was free to leave, as if she had been waiting for permission.
She looked at me like I had slapped her.
I still remember that.
Not the blood. Not the bodies. Not the men dragging Anton out.
Her face.
She was young, shaken, and trying so hard not to ask me for anything. I saw the question in her eyes anyway. Stay? Explain? Choose me?
I chose for both of us.
That’s the kindest version of the lie.
The truth was uglier. I was afraid. Not of wanting her. That had already happened. Not of needing her. I was old enough to know when something had become necessary.
I was afraid that if I kept her, someone would learn exactly where to place the knife.
Last night proved I was right. It also proved I may have failed anyway.
For six years, I thought I had pushed Zoya out of my life.
I had not.
She was in my pocket every night.
Are you awake?
I almost laugh at the cruelty of it. The unknown woman who made me answer when I should not.
The woman who sent jokes at midnight, then disappeared for weeks.
The woman who could be tender one moment and filthy the next.
The woman who once told me loneliness was easier when no one could see your face.
Zoya.
All along, Zoya.
I told myself the messages meant nothing because there was no name attached to them. No history. No debt. But I knew her voice even without hearing it.
That’s the part I don’t want to examine.
Zoya crosses her arms. “You’re quiet.”
I look up at her. “I’m thinking.”
“That must be exhausting.”
“It is today.”
Her mouth tightens like she almost wants to respond, then decides not to give me the satisfaction.
From the kitchen, Mila calls, “Mama, Nadia says backup spoons are not real.”
Nadia says, “Because they’re not.”
Mila says, “What if the first spoon gets tired?”
Zoya closes her eyes.
“Are they always like this?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes. “What do you think?” She turns toward the kitchen. “One spoon, Mila.”
There’s a pause.
Then Mila says, “Fine.”
Nadia adds, “Thank you.”
Zoya exhales and looks back at me. “This is my life.”
“I see that.”
“No, you don’t.” She says it flatly. Not cruel. Just true.
She’s right. I know nothing important.
And still, looking at her in this small room, I have the insane thought that some part of me recognizes all of it.
The girls call again, this time together. “Mama!”
Zoya turns her head. “What?”
Mila says, “The milk is too high.”
Nadia says, “It’s on the second shelf.”
“That’s too high for me,” Mila says.
“It’s not too high for Mama.”
Zoya mutters something under her breath and starts toward the kitchen.
I move without thinking. “I’ll get it.”
The second I put weight on my injured leg, pain cuts through me. My knees give out under me.
Zoya reaches for me. “Ruslan, wait—”
I reach for the arm of the couch, miss it, and start to go down.
She catches me. Or tries to.
Her hands grab my shoulders, and for one second it almost works. Then my weight pulls her off balance. She stumbles forward, her knee hitting the edge of the couch, and we both go down onto the cushions.
Zoya lands on top of me.
Everything stops.
Her breasts are pressed against my chest. Her hair falls around both of us, loose and warm. One of her hands is braced beside my head, the other trapped against my shoulder. Her thigh is between mine, close enough that my body responds before reason has time to intervene.
I go hard under her.
Unwelcome. Impossible to hide.
Zoya feels it. I know the moment she does, because her eyes widen.
Neither of us speaks.
The apartment noise fades. The girls are still in the kitchen, arguing softly about milk, but for a few seconds, all I know is Zoya’s weight on me and the heat of her breath near my mouth.
This close, I can see the faint shadows under her eyes. The tiny line between her brows. A small mark near her jaw I don’t remember. She smells like coffee, sleep, and the same skin I have spent six years pretending I had forgotten.
I should move but I don’t.
Her gaze drops to my mouth.
My hand lifts before I allow it. It stops at her waist, not gripping. Just there.
A warning to myself. A mistake already made.
“Zoya,” I say. Her name comes out too low.
Her lips part.
For one dangerous second, I think she will let it happen.
I think she might lower her mouth to mine and burn the last six years down in her own living room while our daughters argue over cereal a few feet away.
Then Mila calls, “Mama, can injured people have chocolate milk?”
Zoya jolts like someone has cut a wire. She pushes herself up at once, but the movement sends pressure through my leg and I curse under my breath.
She freezes halfway off me. “Did I hurt you?”
“Yes,” I say.
Her face changes.
I add, “I mean, not really.”
The concern vanishes behind mild annoyance. “You are impossible,” she says.
“I didn’t ask you to fall on me.”
“You tried to stand on a bullet wound.”
“I was getting milk.”
“You were being stupid.”
“Possibly.”
She gets fully off me, cheeks flushed, hair messy, eyes refusing to meet mine now.
I sit up carefully, pain still pulsing through my thigh. My body has not calmed down. Not even close. I shift the blanket across my lap and hope she doesn’t look.
She looks anyway.
From the kitchen, Nadia says, “Mama?”
Zoya takes a breath, smooths her hair, and calls back, “I’m coming.” Her voice is steady. She turns to me once before leaving the room. “Don’t move again.”
I look at her. Her mouth is still swollen from nothing. From almost.
“I won’t,” I say.
She doesn’t believe me.
She’s right not to.
When she goes into the kitchen, both girls start talking at once, and Zoya answers them like she wasn’t just lying on top of me with her heart beating against mine.
I stay on the couch, leg burning, body aching, mind worse.
Six years ago, I let her go because I thought distance would protect her. Now she’s ten feet away, making breakfast for my daughters, and every dangerous thing in my life is moving toward this apartment.
I got the wrong man.
I let the right woman go.
And I’m beginning to understand that both mistakes may cost more than I know.