He lifts the suitcase easily, as if it weighs nothing. As if protecting me is effortless. As if he’s been waiting for me.
When we leave the room, he doesn’t walk beside me. He walks slightly ahead as if clearing the path so I never have to survive anything alone ever again.
I follow him down the stairs, waiting for the weight of what I’m doing to catch up with me and lodge itself on my back. But it never does. I stop at the kitchen, gathering together all of the things in here that have my grandmother on them. The recipe cards, some small jars that still hold her writing on the label. Just enough to fit in one small crate that used to carry oranges. Then I crouch down and wriggle the floorboard where her diary hides free.
I pull it out of the dusty space and unwrap it rom the teatowel, needing to set my eyes on it. Happy that everything is as it should be, I wrap it back up and place it in the small crate.
Just as I turn to head out, the lock on the front door clicks and it swings open.
Diomid
Elizabeth stiffens beside me. I shift forward, blocking her from view as Lukan barrels across the open hallway, fury carving deep lines into his face.
“What is this?” he demands, voice shaking with outrage. His gaze drops to Elizabeth’s neck, still marked by me, then to the suitcase I’m carrying. Realization hits like a blow. “You—you’re leaving with him?”
“We’re leaving,” I correct, my voice cold and controlled. “There’s nothing more for her here.”
He rounds on me, too blinded by anger to recognize the danger he’s provoking. “You think you can just walk into my home, bed my daughter—”
“I didn’t take anything she wasn’t ready to give,” I say, cutting him off. “She’s not your possession. She made a choice.”
He sputters, grabbing at an argument that slips through his fingers. “She deserves better than this, better than you. A good husband. An honorable—”
“Shedeserves a life she chooses for herself,” Elizabeth says.
Lukan’s head snaps toward her. And there she is. No longer the girl who was betrayed by her own father, but the woman who found her power when she stood over Piotr’s coffin. Her chin lifts. Her shoulders square. She speaks with a steadiness he never nurtured in her.
“Mom would have wanted me to marry for love,” she tells him. “Wanted obsession and devotion and pleasure that didn’t hurt. She would have wanted me with someone who saw me. Who would protect me. Who would never use me as currency. The way she wanted and loved you. ”
A muscle jumps in Lukan’s jaw. “Your mother was—”
“She was killed,” Elizabeth says, voice low and lethal. “And you refused to see the truth, even when I told you exactly what happened.”
He recoils, like the memory is a slap. “Piotr loved her like a sister—”
“Piotr loved control,” she fires back. “He loved having power over people who trusted him. He loved watching your life shrink to fit inside his fist all while claiming my mother promised me to him. It’s all lies. Piotr took what she wouldn’t freely give him, then he killed her. You let yourself believe his lies because it was easier.”
Lukan staggers. For a moment, he looks like a man drowning in guilt.
I set the suitcase down with deliberate calm.
“Listen carefully,” I tell him. “I am not Piotr. I don’t need to force anything. Elizabeth and I are a good match.” I don’t tell him about the pull I felt towards her since the minute she walked into the funeral. I don’t tell him his daughter is responsible for his so-called-friend’s death.
He meets my gaze, and something sharp flickers there. The recognition of a new hierarchy. A new power. A man who isn’t asking for permission.
“I’m Diomid Agapov,” I remind him. “Piotr is gone, and that means I run the business now. So choose your next words wisely.”
His mouth opens, then shuts. The fury in him is real, but it’s warring with the respect he is bound to give me.
Elizabeth steps closer to me, her presence a gravity against my side.
“I survived what you chose to ignore,” she says. “I won’t stay around for another mistake of yours to ruin my life again.”
The draft from the open door catches her hair, lifting it like a banner. She looks like vengeance in cashmere and jeans.
Lukan stares at her as if seeing his daughter for the first time.
“I wanted to protect you,” he whispers, breaking.
