The click of the latch echoed louder than it should have.
Silence settled around us, thick and intimate.
I stared at the empty space where Vanya had been, my heart still racing too fast, like it hadn’t realized the danger had passed.
Then I felt Dmitri’s hands—both of them now—sliding gently beneath my chin.
His touch was barely there, more invitation than insistence.
He turned my face toward him with the lightest pressure, coaxing rather than demanding, waiting to see if I would pull away.
I didn’t.
Our eyes met.
“Maliya,” he breathed.
The word shattered me.
That old endearment—the soft Russian diminutive he’d only ever used in private, whispered against my skin when the world couldn’t reach us—ripped straight through every wall I’d built.
It wasn’t calculated. It wasn’t manipulation. It slipped out of him like instinct, like memory.
I broke.
I collapsed forward into his arms before I could think, sobs tearing free from somewhere deep and feral.
He caught me instantly, holding me against his chest despite the IV tugging painfully at his arm, despite the weakness still trembling through him.
His arms wrapped around me with desperate restraint, like he was afraid to hold too tightly but terrified to let go.
“How could you become so cruel?” I cried into his shoulder, fists curling into the thin hospital gown.
The fabric bunched under my hands as if I could anchor myself there. “You didn’t even give me the benefit of a single doubt. Not one. You punished me—relentlessly, mercilessly.” My voice broke completely. “You made every day feel like drowning. Like I was dying slowly and you were watching it happen.” I sucked in a shaking breath. “And now you ask for forgiveness?”
He didn’t interrupt me.
He didn’t defend himself.
He just held me tighter, one hand cradling the back of my head, fingers threading gently through my hair, the other firm around my waist—steady, grounding, unwavering.
He let me rage. Let me cry. Let me bleed every truth I’d swallowed for years into the space between us.
“I hate myself for still loving you,” I whispered, the words muffled against his neck, raw with shame and grief.
His body jolted like I’d struck him.
His arms tightened convulsively, breath breaking against my hair. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, stripped bare of pride.
“I’ll take your hate,” he rasped. “I’ll live in it for the rest of my life if that’s all you can give me.” His hand pressed more firmly at my back, not trapping—pleading. “Just... let me stay near you. Let me be part of your world again.” His voice dropped to almostnothing. “Even if it’s only as someone you tolerate. Even if I never earn more than that.”
He held me like he was afraid I was already halfway gone.
We stayed like that for long seconds, his heartbeat thundering beneath my ear, strong despite everything.
Then I pulled back just enough that our faces were inches apart.
Neither of us spoke.