He looked... broken.
Not the monster I’d built in my mind to survive him. Not the tyrant who’d caged me and crushed my spirit.
Just a man who’d finally run out of armor, stripped down to bone and regret.
“You hurt me,” I said, the words slipping out before I could soften them, before I could decide whether I was ready to say them aloud.
My voice didn’t shake—but it could have. “So much. From the moment you came back to New York. Forcing me into that marriage on my own birthday. Turning every day after intosomething I had to survive instead of live.” My chest tightened, breath catching. “You ruined me, Dmitri. Piece by piece.”
The impact showed instantly.
His throat worked as he swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing sharply.
His eyes reddened, glassy, and then—like something in him finally gave way—a single tear escaped the corner of his eye.
It traced a slow, helpless path down his cheek, disappearing into the collar of the gown.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
The tear didn’t stop him. Another followed. Then another.
“I’m so damn sorry.”
I had never seen him cry.
Not once—not through bloodshed, not through betrayal, not through loss. Monsters weren’t supposed to cry. Men like Dmitri Volkov didn’t fall apart quietly in hospital beds.
Yet here he was. Silent tears spilling without restraint, his face twisted with a grief so deep it looked almost unbearable.
“Even if you forgave me tomorrow,” he went on, voice fracturing, “what I did to you will haunt me until the day I stop breathing. I know that. I carry it with me every second.” His breath hitched. “No one deserves that kind of cruelty. Least of all you.”
He looked at me and there was nothing left in his eyes but devastation.
No dominance. No entitlement. Just a man bracing himself for judgment.
“Tell me to do anything,” he said hoarsely. “Command me. Punish me. Take everything from me. Send me away forever if that’s what you need.”
His voice dropped to almost nothing. “Just... please. If there’s even the smallest chance—just a sliver—that you could let me back into your heart... if we could be a family... if I couldspend the rest of my life trying to make it right...” His breath shuddered. “I’d do whatever it takes. Anything.”
Another tear slipped free. He didn’t wipe it away. Didn’t hide it. He just waited—exposed, dismantled—for whatever verdict I would give him.
I couldn’t hold his gaze anymore.
Seeing him like this hurt in a way rage never had.
I turned my head, blinking hard, staring at the blank wall as if it could anchor me.
Because beneath the broken man in front of me, I could still see him—the boy I’d loved once, the boy who’d kissed me under trees and sworn the world would never touch me.
“Hold me,” I said, barely above a whisper.
The words surprised us both.
His reaction was instant—but restrained.
He moved scarefully, like approaching something fragile and sacred.
His hand closed around my wrist, feather-light, reverent, as if afraid too much pressure would make me disappear.