It felt like a dream I was still afraid to wake from, a fragile bubble of happiness that could burst with a single wrong word or memory.
And yet, here I was, leaning back on the chaise at the pool’s edge, feeling the sun warm my skin, watching my family, and daring to believe it was real.
Dmitri lounged beside me, black swim trunks clinging to the sculpted lines of his body.
Water droplets still glistened on his chest from an earlier swim, his dark hair tousled and damp.
He was sin wrapped in sunlight—dangerous, magnetic, entirely, irrevocably mine.
He reached over and brushed a damp strand of hair from my face, thumb lingering briefly on my cheek.
“You really do have a forgiving heart, Penelope,” he murmured, low and rough with awe and something softer,almost reverent. “Otherwise those two evil adults who call themselves your parents would be ten feet under by now. Rotting.”
I smiled, hands brushing the gentle swell of my belly.
Four months along now, and the baby had begun to stir, tiny flutters that felt like butterfly wings dancing inside me.
I laughed softly, a sound I hadn’t realized I’d missed—the pure, light laughter that didn’t hide a tremor of fear.
“I feel death would be too quick an end for my parents’ crimes—against me, and against us...”
I let the words trail off, watching ripples spread across the turquoise water, the sun catching each one like diamonds.
“You bankrupted them. Stripped them of everything they owned. Now they’re poor—powerless, exposed, and forgotten.”
Dmitri’s eyes darkened, a flash of pride and satisfaction igniting beneath the smoldering warmth.
“And you made sure they’re under FBI investigation,” he said quietly. “It’s only a matter of time before they’re put behind federal maximum-security bars, where they’ll spend the rest of their miserable lives.”
Dmitri had been ruthless, and he had been precise.
Within weeks of our return, every offshore account they had hidden had been frozen or drained.
Every property seized.
Every business collapsed under carefully leaked evidence of fraud, embezzlement, and worse.
Dmitri had handed the authorities a dossier so comprehensive that Interpol and the FBI were now jointly investigating.
Their passports revoked, travel impossible. They were trapped in the United States—once untouchable, now paupers running from one cheap motel to the next, waiting for theinevitable knock on the door that would end in handcuffs and a lifetime behind bars.
I traced a finger along my belly, smiling faintly at the life stirring inside me, feeling the protection Dmitri had woven around us, even from the shadows of our past. “You’ve done what I could never have imagined,” I said softly. “You’ve built a fortress around us.”
He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper that warmed my ear. “No one will hurt us ever again. Not your parents, not anyone from the past, not even the world itself. I promise.”
I tilted my head, letting his words wash over me, letting the sun warm my skin, letting the water glitter like liquid sapphires beneath the edge of the chaise.
Dmitri studied my face as though committing the words to memory, something dark and approving flickering briefly in his eyes.
Then he shifted closer, the heat of his body radiating toward me, and sank down onto the warm stone tiles at my feet.
The movement was unhurried, almost ceremonial.
He knelt there like a penitent, like a man before an altar.
Both of his hands spread gently over the curve of my stomach—careful, reverent, as though even the slightest pressure might disturb something sacred.
He leaned forward and pressed his ear against me, cheek warm against my skin, listening with exaggerated seriousness.