ELENA

His voice is the first thing I feel.

Not the room.

Not the soft sheets beneath me.

Not the ache behind my ribs from crying.

Just him.

“Open your eyes, kotenok.”

I do.

Luca is sitting beside the bed, elbows on his knees, silver eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them. Something in him looks… ruined. And I tell myself I shouldn’t care anymore. I tell myself distance is safer.

But my heart is stupid. And he’s still Luca.

“Where am I?” My voice is barely a whisper.

“My penthouse.” His jaw clenches. “You fainted outside Seraphina’s place after—” He stops. “After everything.”

So Seraphina called him. Of course she did.

I push myself upright. “Luca, we don’t have to—”

“I’m done pretending.” His voice cracks like ice breaking. “No more distance. No more lies.”

My throat tightens. “You hurt me.”

He closes his eyes. “I know.”

“You broke me.”

“I know.”

“You walked away when I needed you the most.”

This time he opens his eyes, and the pain in them makes me want to look away.

“I left because I loved you,” he says. “And I thought loving me would kill you.”

A laugh tears out of me — sharp, bitter. “So you destroyed me to protect me?”

He flinches, and I should be proud of that. I should stand up, walk out, shut the door on this chapter forever.

But I stay.

“Say it,” I whisper. “If you really believe that, say it without shaking.”

He tries.

He fails.

He stands abruptly, pacing the room like a caged animal. Fingers dragging through his hair, breath jagged.

“Every day without you has felt like a punishment,” he spits. “Every man who looked at you, every rumor about who you were seeing, every fucking smile that wasn’t mine—”

His voice fractures.

“I died. I died when I left you.”

My eyes burn. “Then why didn’t you come back?”

He turns — and the truth is written all over him.

“Because I didn’t think I deserved you.”

The world stops.

For one second there’s nothing but silence and honesty and the terrifying realization that the man I thought was unbreakable has been bleeding this whole time.

I stand. My hands tremble, but I go to him anyway.

His breath stops when my fingers brush his jaw — the scar I used to trace when he slept.

“You don’t get to decide what I deserve,” I whisper. “I do.”

He leans his forehead against mine, breathing like he’s drowning.

“Elena…” It’s not my name. It’s a prayer. A surrender. A man falling to his knees without moving.

I should pull away.

But I can’t.

“Tell me what you want,” I say. “Not what’s noble. Not what’s safe. What you want.”

For a long moment he’s silent — fighting himself, fighting me, fighting the universe.

Then he loses.

His hands cup my face, desperate, shaking. His voice is a growl against my lips.

“I want you. Even if it destroys everything.”

Something explodes inside me — five years of love, rage, grief, longing, all colliding.

I kiss him.

It’s not gentle. It’s not forgiveness. It’s not healing.

It’s a breaking open.

His mouth moves with mine like he’s been starving. He lifts me like I weigh nothing, pinning me against his chest, and every wall we’ve built turns to dust.

He whispers against my mouth, breathless, raw:

“I will burn this whole world before I lose you again.”

And God help me — I believe him.

Because the monster the world fears has finally chosen a weakness.

Me.