EPILOGUE - Moscow Safe House, Three Months Later #2
“He wanted to come.” I turn slightly, keeping one hand on Mishka’s shoulder while Roman stops a respectful distance away. “He wanted to meet you properly. Not as—” I search for words. “Not as the man from January.”
“The man who took my sister.” Mishka’s voice has gone flat. “The man who put guards on me and didn’t tell me why.”
Roman inclines his head, accepting the accusation without defense. “Da. That man. And the one who should have done it differently.”
Mishka’s eyes narrow. “Should have done what differently?”
“Everything.” Roman takes a single step closer, his left hand visible and empty at his side. “I should have explained. Protected instead of threatened. Earned your trust instead of assuming I had the right to your sister because a contract said so.”
The courtyard goes quiet except for the wind and distant teenage voices, and my heart is pounding in my ears.
“Anya tells me you play chess,” Roman continues. “That you beat her three times out of five.”
“Four out of five.” Mishka’s chin lifts.
“Impressive.” Something shifts in Roman’s expression—genuine interest. “She beat me the first time we played. Twelve moves. I’ve never forgiven myself.”
“Twelve?” Mishka looks at me with raised eyebrows. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“It didn’t seem relevant.”
“It’s extremely relevant.” For the first time, something other than hostility enters Mishka’s voice. “Which opening did he use?”
“Sicilian.” I watch the two of them with my heart in my throat. “He was trying to intimidate me.”
“With the Sicilian?” Mishka actually snorts. “That’s a beginner move.”
“I’m aware.” Roman’s mouth curves just slightly. “Your sister made me aware in considerable detail. While taking my queen with a knight sacrifice, I still can’t fully explain.”
“Bishop to c4 before the sacrifice?”
“Da.”
“Double attack setup. Creates a pin she can exploit three moves later.” Mishka’s posture has shifted, his shoulders coming down from his ears as the chess talk pulls him out of defensive mode. “She’s predictable like that. Always sets traps four moves ahead.”
“I noticed.” Roman looks at me with warmth that spreads in my chest. “She does the same thing in real life.”
Mishka processes this.
“You’re still dangerous,” he says to Roman. “The guards, the glass, the people following me. That’s because of what you are.”
“Yes.”
“And my sister is dangerous now, too. Because of you.”
“Because of choice.” Roman doesn’t flinch from the accusation. “I gave her tools. She decided how to use them. And she chose to become something powerful enough to protect what she loves.”
“Something that kills people.”
“Something that protects her brother.” Roman’s voice stays steady. “Something that would burn the world before letting anyone hurt you. Is that the kind of monster you want to hate, Mishka? The kind that exists because your sister loves you more than her own soul?”
The silence stretches. Somewhere a bell rings, calling students to their next class.
Mishka looks at me. “Do you love him?”
“More than I thought possible.” The words come out steady despite the tears tracking down my cheeks. “He’s not good, Mishka. No on moy. And he would die before letting anything happen to you, not because I asked him to, but because protecting you protects me. That’s how he loves.”
“Through action.”
“Through action,” I confirm. “Through guards and glass and people following you. Through private jets when I miss you and threats when anyone looks at you wrong.”
Mishka turns back to Roman. “Show me.”
Roman blinks. “Show you what?”
“Chess. Your strategy.” Mishka’s jaw sets with a determination that reminds me painfully of our mother. “If I’m going to live in a world with bodyguards and ballistic glass, I want to understand it. I want to be useful, not just protected.”
I open my mouth to protest—he’s fourteen, he should be thinking about exams and girls and normal teenage problems—but Roman speaks first.
“One condition.” He pulls his right hand from his pocket, the tremor visible in the grey winter light, and extends it toward my brother. “You let me earn your trust. Earn it, move by move, the same way your sister earned mine.”
Mishka looks at the offered hand. At the tremor, Roman isn’t hiding. At me. Back at Roman.
Then he reaches out and shakes.
“Game on,” he says, and his smile is finally, finally real.
* * *
We spend four hours at the school.
Roman plays chess with Mishka in the common room while I watch.
Roman’s right hand shakes when he moves the pieces, and Mishka notices. Roman explains without being asked: nerve damage, factory, three months of physical therapy that’s helped but not healed.
“Does it hurt?” Mishka asks after Roman castles queenside with fingers that won’t quite cooperate.
“Sometimes.” Roman doesn’t sugarcoat it. “Mostly it just reminds me that I’m still alive.”
“Anya said you used to play violin.”
The silence that follows is sharp enough to cut.
“I did.” Roman’s voice is carefully neutral. “I can’t anymore.”
“Because of the hand.”
“Da.”
Mishka studies the board for a long moment, then moves his bishop to a square that doesn’t make strategic sense until three moves later, when it pins Roman’s queen and forces a sacrifice that costs him the game.
“You let me win,” Mishka says flatly.
“Net.” Roman’s smile is tired but genuine. “You won fair. I was distracted.”
“By the violin thing?”
“By how much you remind me of your sister.” Roman tips his king over in surrender. “Also too smart for your own good.”
Mishka shows us his robotics project after that. Roman asks questions that reveal he’s done research, that he’s paid attention to more than just security reports, and my brother’s walls come down brick by brick as he realizes the monster from January might actually be interested in who he is.
We have lunch in the cafeteria, and Mishka complains about the food with theatrical disgust while eating three servings, and Roman tells him about the chef at the Moscow house who makes pelmeni that would make their grandmother weep.
“Bring some next time,” Mishka says, and the words next time settle warm in my chest.
When we leave, Mishka hugs me so tight my ribs creak.
“Come back soon,” he whispers. “And bring the chess monster. I have moves to practice.”
“Two weeks,” I promise. “Maybe sooner.”
He hugs Roman too, brief and awkward and earth-shaking in its significance, and Roman’s expression as he receives it makes my eyes burn with tears I refuse to shed in front of armed guards.
“Take care of her,” Mishka tells him.
“With my life. Always”
* * *
The flight back to Moscow takes five hours, and I spend most of it curled against Roman’s side.
“Thank you.” I press the words against his shoulder. “For being what he needed.”
“I was being honest.” His left hand strokes through my hair with repetitive gentleness that makes my eyes heavy. “He deserved that.”
“You earned something today.”
“The beginning of something.” He tilts my chin up to meet his eyes. “Trust takes time. But I have time now. We have time.”
“We do.” The realization still catches me off-guard sometimes—that we’re not running anymore, not surviving, just living. Building. “What do we do with it?”
“Right now?” His thumb traces my lower lip. “We land in Moscow. We go home. And I keep a promise I made this morning.”
Heat blooms low in my belly. “The one about taking me apart?”
“The one about making you forget your own name.” His voice drops to that register that makes my thighs clench together, low and rough and full of promise.
“I’ve been thinking about it for ten hours, solnyshko.
Thinking about your hands tied to the headboard and your legs over my shoulders and the sounds you make when I’m so deep inside you there’s no space left between us. ”
“Roman—” My voice comes out breathless. “We’re on a plane.”
“I’m aware.” His smile is wicked in a way that makes my pulse quicken. “Which is why I’m only talking. For now.”
The anticipation coils tight in my stomach, hot and liquid and impossible to ignore.
“Tell me more.”
“About what I’m going to do to you?” He shifts closer, his mouth brushing my ear, his breath warm against sensitive skin. “Kiss every scar. Remind you with my hands and my mouth and my cock that you’re mine, that every piece of you belongs to me, that I will worship this body until my last breath.”
I make a sound that’s embarrassingly close to a whimper.
“I’m going to taste you until you’re begging.” His left hand slides up my thigh beneath the blanket covering us, stopping just short of where I need it. “Mark you so thoroughly, everyone who looks at you knows exactly who you belong to.”
“Yes.” The word is barely a whisper. “Pozhaluysta.”
“Not yet.” He withdraws his hand, leaving me aching and desperate. “Two more hours until we land. Use the time to think about everything I’m going to do to you.”
I spend the next two hours in exquisite torture.
* * *
The moment our bedroom door closes behind us, Roman moves.
His hands find my hips and spin me to face him, his mouth claiming mine with hunger that’s been building since this morning, since Belgium.
I kiss him back with everything I have, my fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer because there’s no such thing as close enough with him, because I want to crawl inside his skin and live there.
“Clothes off.” His voice is rough, commanding, the Pakhan voice that makes my knees weak and my cunt clench. “Seychas.” Now.
I step back and strip without ceremony, peeling off layers until I’m standing naked in front of him with my skin flushed and my nipples tight and wetness already slicking my thighs.
He watches with dark eyes, his gaze traveling over every inch of my body. He’s still fully dressed, and the contrast does something to me, makes me feel exposed and vulnerable and desperate for whatever he chooses to give me.
“Beautiful,” he breathes. “Every time I see you like this, I can’t believe you’re real.”