17. Sofia
SOFIA
Iwake slowly, surfacing from a sleep deeper than anything I’ve had since returning to Russia.
The first thing that registers is a solid warmth that surrounds me. Then it’s a scent that feels so familiar, I find myself breathing it in deeply. It sinks into my lungs and settles low in my belly, stirring memories of last night that make my skin flush even before I open my eyes.
When I finally do, I find Rowan is beside me asleep.
The ruthless tension he carries in every waking moment has finally loosened.
His face is relaxed, his mouth no longer pressed into that perpetual hard line.
Dark lashes rest against his cheeks, and his chest rises and falls in slow, even breaths.
He looks younger like this, almost vulnerable.
The man who has killed without hesitation, who stands like a shadow at my uncle’s back, is gone.
In his place is someone I want to protect even though I know he would hate me for thinking it.
My chest tightens painfully.
I take him in greedily, memorizing every detail I’m not supposed to see. The slight crook in his nose from an old break. The faint scar cutting through one eyebrow. The way his hair falls messily across his forehead when it’s not pushed back from his face.
My gaze drifts lower, to the fading remnants of Ivan’s punishment. The swelling is gone now, having faded slowly over the past week. The bruising has turned into faint yellow-green marks along his jaw and ribs. Only the faintest discoloration remains as evidence of the worst of the blows.
Guilt twists deep inside me, so strong I nearly choke on it.
Slowly, carefully, I reach out to him. My fingertips brush the faint mark along his jaw, tracing it with barely-there pressure as if I can erase what caused it… or take responsibility for it. Sneaking out last night was reckless. And bribing Dima for a spare key? Even worse.
Meeting my father in secret, risking everything just to hear truths I wasn’t ready for, was dangerous enough. Being caught by Rowan on my way back felt like the universe’s mercy in disguise. If it had been anyone else, the consequences would have been catastrophic.
And if Rowan hadn’t kissed me back? If he hadn’t lost himself with me in that moment of mutual, desperate surrender?
I swallow hard.
Honestly, I don’t even want to think about it.
Now that morning is here, the fantasy of last night is beginning to dissolve.
Reality is creeping in like cold fog, surrounding me from all sides.
I know Rowan. He won’t let what he saw last night go.
He won’t pretend nothing happened, nor will he accept the cheap trick I used last night to dodge the truth.
He’ll want answers, and he won’t stop until he gets them.
My fingers tremble as they continue their gentle exploration, brushing over the healed split in his lip.
He stirs slightly but doesn’t wake. What I really should be doing is slipping out of this bed before he opens his eyes and the walls slam back into place.
But I can’t. Not yet. Not when he looks like this, peaceful and unguarded and mine in a way he’ll never allow when he’s awake.
Rowan’s bedroom is sparse and minimally furnished.
My eyes scan the space to take it in the way I couldn’t last night after we left the kitchen and ran upstairs to continue for a round two.
There is very little in the way of personal artifacts in here and nothing from what I can see that speaks to who Rowan is as a person.
When his eyes finally flutter open, I stiffen instinctively, ready for the inevitable return of the guard I know so well.
But instead he slides an arm around my waist, then another behind my shoulders, and pulls me against his chest. His heartbeat is steady in my ear.
His fingers, those brutal, disciplined hands that have ended so many lives, thread softly through my hair.
For one breathless moment, I let myself sink into it, allow his warmth to wrap around me like a security blanket. I feel myself drifting, lulled toward the illusion that this is safe. But Rowan ruins all of that with a single devastating murmur.
“Where did you go last night, Sofia?” His fingers never falter in my hair, even as the question hangs in the air. “And how the hell did you sneak out of the estate without triggering a single alarm? You need to stop doing that.”
I ignore the second half because the answer will incriminate Dima who never asked to be involved in this to begin with. It’s not his fault I can be quite convincing when I want something. Rowan only needs to know the bigger scope when it comes to the truth, anyway.
“I went to meet my father,” I say.
This time, Rowan’s fingers do actually still.
“Explain,” he says.
So I do.
I tell him how I hired a private investigator in secret days ago after getting into contact with the police and when my suspicions first began to take shape. How we exchanged careful emails and about finding my father and his possible whereabouts until I was connected to him directly.
It wasn’t until last night that my father asked to meet me in a neutral location, a rundown diner at the edge of the city that is open twenty-four hours.
Rowan listens in silence, his body tenser the longer I talk.
He resumes stroking my hair, but I feel the restraint in it now, the effort it takes not to tighten into a fist.
“He told me things about my mother.” I swallow around the words, finding it hard to get them out. “About what really happened.”
He shifts, sitting up just enough to look at me. His gray eyes are stormy, searching my face with an intensity that makes my heart stutter. “What could he possibly say after all these years that convinced you to risk everything to meet him?”
Tears well hot behind my eyes because I know what I’m about to say will unravel something inside him too.
The last thing I want to do is hurt him. But sitting on this information and withholding the truth from him are more cruel than revealing it.
“He told me my mother didn’t die in a random attack. She didn’t crash by accident. She was killed. And the person behind it was my uncle.”
For several long heartbeats, he simply stares at me, gray eyes darkening. The hand that was gentle in my hair moments ago now rests heavily on my shoulder, fingers flexing once instinctively before going still again.
I wait for denial or anger to follow. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he called me a liar and pushed me away in order to defend the man who has spent the last decade and a half raising him like his own.
Rowan’s jaw works. His gaze drops to the sheets between us, but I see the storm raging behind them. The years of loyalty and blood spilled in Ivan’s name must be immeasurable.
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes lift to meet mine again, his voice a near whisper when he asks me, “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”