Epilogue – Barbara #2
The table near the gazebo was already set up, and it was perfect.
Finger sandwiches arranged in neat rows, lemonades sweating in glass pitchers, ice slowly melting in the heat.
And the cupcakes—Jesus, the cupcakes. Blue frosted ones with little teddy bears on top, and pink ones with tiny roses, sitting side by side like they were hedging bets.
Just in case the doctor had been wrong. Just in case Jack turned out to be a Jacqueline.
I didn’t care either way. Boy or girl, this baby was ours. This baby was proof that something good could come from the ashes. That people like us—people with blood on our hands and violence in our pasts—could still create something beautiful.
The air smelled like fresh grass and honeysuckle, with vanilla buttercream drifting from the cupcakes. No copper tang of blood. No acrid smoke from gunfire. No fear. No adrenaline. No survival instinct screaming at me to run.
Just this. Just peace. Just home.
“You’re doing it again,” Hailey said, bumping my shoulder gently. “That thing where you space out and look all contemplative.”
“I’m appreciating,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“Appreciating what? The cupcakes?”
“Everything.” I gestured broadly at the yard, the decorations, the two of them. “This. Us. The fact that we’re standing here planning a baby shower instead of a funeral.”
Illyana’s expression softened. “We earned this, Barbara.”
“Did we?” I asked, and I wasn’t being rhetorical. “After everything we did? After everyone we—”
“Yes,” Illyana interrupted firmly. “We did. We fought. We survived. We protected each other. That counts for something.”
Hailey nodded, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “We’re not those people anymore. We’re better. And this?” She gestured at my belly. “This is proof.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to point out all the blood, all the bodies, all the choices that had led us here. But looking at them—at their faces, their smiles, their genuine happiness—I couldn’t. Because maybe they were right. Maybe we did deserve this.
Maybe survival wasn’t just about living. Maybe it was about learning to live with what you’d done.
I moved to the gazebo where Kirill stood, a glass of whiskey in his hand despite it being barely ten in the morning.
He was staring out at the fields, at the rolling green that stretched endlessly, bordered by white fencing that looked like something out of a movie.
A life I’d never thought I’d have. A life I’d killed for.
“You’re thinking too hard,” I said, stepping up beside him.
He glanced at me, and his eyes softened immediately. That was new too—the way he looked at me now. Like I was something precious. Something worth protecting. Something he’d die for without hesitation.
“I’m thinking about how we got here,” he said quietly.
“Blackmail and bloodshed,” I said lightly, but the weight of it sat heavy between us like an uninvited guest. “Murder and mayhem. The usual love story.”
“Barbara.”
“Kirill.”
He set the glass down on the railing with deliberate care, then turned to face me fully. His hands found my hips, pulled me close despite the belly between us. “I do not regret it.”
“Which part?” I asked, even though I knew. Even though I could see the answer in his eyes.
“Any of it.” His voice was firm, certain, carrying the weight of absolute conviction. “Every choice that led to this moment. To you. To our son. I would do it all again. Every kill. Every risk. Every moment I thought I might lose you.”
My throat tightened. “Even the parts where we almost died?”
“Especially those parts,” he said. “Because we didn’t. We survived. And now we have this.”
“Jack,” I said, grinning despite the emotion clogging my throat.
His jaw tightened, but his eyes danced with that familiar amusement. “We aren’t finished discussing this.”
“Oh, we’re finished,” I countered, wrapping my arms around his neck as best I could with the belly in the way. “You just don’t know it yet.”
He studied me for a long moment, his gaze searching mine like he was trying to memorize every detail. And I saw it there—the shift. The transformation from what he’d been to what he was now.
The man who would burn down half of Chicago to keep me safe. That man was still there, buried beneath the surface, ready to emerge if anyone threatened what was his.
But right now? Right now, he was just a man. My man. The father of my child.
“Dance with me,” he said, voice low and rough.
I blinked. “What?”
“Dance with me.” He gestured to the yard, the streamers swaying in the breeze, the quiet punctuated only by Illyana and Hailey’s distant laughter. “This is your celebration. Dance with me.”
“There’s no music,” I pointed out, but I was already smiling, already leaning into him.
“There is always music,” he said, pulling me closer. One hand splayed across my lower back, supporting my weight, the other holding mine in a grip that was both gentle and possessive.
We moved slowly, swaying to a rhythm only we could hear. The baby shifted between us, rolling and kicking, and I felt Kirill’s hand press against the movement, felt him smile against my hair.
This was intimacy. This was trust. This was everything we’d built from the rubble of who we’d been.
“Should I change the song to ‘In the Middle of the Night’?” I asked, unable to resist. That song had been playing the first time we’d really seen each other. The first time the masks had come off, and we’d both admitted what this was.
Kirill raised a brow, pulling back just enough to look at me. “You are incorrigible.”
“You love it.”
“I do.”
Two words. Simple. But they carried the weight of everything we’d been through. Every lie. Every kill. Every moment we’d almost lost each other. Every time we’d chosen this—chosen us—over everything else.
I rested my head against his chest, let his heartbeat steady mine. Around us, Illyana and Hailey moved through the yard, setting up the last of the decorations, their voices carrying on the breeze. The sun climbed higher, warming the fields, turning everything golden and perfect.
This was it. This was the life we’d fought for. This was what survival looked like on the other side.
From blackmail and bloodshed to baby showers and blue balloons.
“I’m at peace,” Kirill said quietly, his voice rumbling through his chest. “For the first time in my life.”
I pulled back to look at him, really look at him. His face was open, unguarded, and I saw it—the truth. No masks. No games. No armor. Just Kirill. Just us. Just this moment of perfect, terrifying vulnerability.
“Me too,” I whispered, and I meant it with every fiber of my being.
The baby kicked hard, and we both felt it, both laughed at the same time. The sound was light, genuine, completely free of the darkness that had defined us for so long.
“Jack agrees,” I said.
Kirill sighed, long and dramatic, but he was smiling. Actually smiling. “Jack.”
“See? It’s growing on you.”
“It is not.”
“Liar.”
He kissed me then, slow and deep and thorough, like he had all the time in the world. Like we weren’t standing in the middle of the yard with a baby shower happening around us. I tasted the whiskey on his tongue, tasted the promise of everything we were building, everything we’d become.
When he pulled back, his eyes were dark, warm, full of something that looked dangerously close to devotion.
“This house is your sanctuary now,” he said, and it sounded like a vow. “No one will ever touch you here. No one will ever take this from us. I promise you that, Barbara. On my life, on everything I am, I promise you that.”
I believed him. God help me, I believed him completely.
Because Kirill Petrov didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. And I’d learned that the hard way—learned that when he said something, he meant it with every ruthless, brutal, beautiful bone in his body. He’d proven it time and time again, through blood and fire and chaos.
“Our sanctuary,” I corrected, pressing my hand to his chest, feeling his heart beat strong and steady beneath my palm. “Not just mine. Ours.”
He nodded, something fierce and possessive flashing in his eyes. “Ours,” he agreed. Then he kissed my forehead, lingering like he was sealing the promise into my skin.
“Barbara! Kirill!” Illyana called out from near the cake table. “Get over here and approve this setup before Hailey moves everything again!”
“I moved it once!” Hailey protested.
“Three times,” Illyana corrected.
The moment broke, gentle as the breeze through the apple trees, but the warmth of it stayed. Kirill took my hand, lacing our fingers together, and we walked toward them. Toward the celebration. Toward the life we’d carved out of chaos with blood-stained hands and desperate hearts.
The fields stretched endlessly around us, the white fencing gleamed in the sun, and the apple trees bloomed heavy with the promise of fruit to come. In a few months, we’d be picking apples with our son. Teaching him to walk on this grass. Watching him grow up in peace.
This was ours.
And I would burn the world down all over again to keep it.
***
THE END