He’d needed someone eliminated. I made it happen.
He told me if I ever needed a favor—really needed one—he’d deliver.
So I called it in.
Rothman picked up on the second ring. I told him everything. What I’d found. What I hadn’t. What I needed.
He didn’t interrupt. He just listened.
“Send me everything,” he said. “Photos. Records. Every scrap you’ve got.”
I kept every photo of her. Dozens. Small, worn at the edges, creased from being folded and unfolded too many times. They followed me from the orphanage to the streets, through gangs, safehouses, wars, and flames. Everything else in my life burned or broke. Those didn’t. They were my evidence that she had existed—and that I hadn’t gone insane.
I sent them all.
Then I waited.
And waited.
And tried not to fall apart.
Every night, going to bed with Kira wrapped around me like a second skin—my mind spun itself to pieces. Her father haddestroyed entire generations, and I was lying next to the proof of it.
Kira. Mila. Me. Thousands of kids who never had a chance. I kept my mask on—cold, obedient, lethal. But it was slipping. I’d done unspeakable things and lived with it. I thought I’d already crossed every line there was. Then I saw those files. Saw the system. Saw the scale of it. That was worse than any battlefield. Worse than any blood on my hands. I thought my heart was dead. Turns out it was just buried. And now it was clawing its way out, screaming.
I couldn’t afford to break down.
But I was close.
Closer than I’d been in years.
Kira was the only thing keeping me upright.
If not for her, I might’ve already snapped and shot everyone in that house just to make the noise stop. She didn’t know it—didn’t see how every night with her stitched something back together inside me.
One night after a day that scraped me raw, I went to her door and knocked like I owned the place.
“I brought you milk,” I announced solemnly while opening the door. “For my little girl.”
The look she gave me could’ve drawn blood.
“Say something like that again,” she said sweetly, eyes narrowing, “and I won’t hesitate to use the gun you gave me.”
I grinned, voice low and cocky. “You signed up for this, Malaya—big dick, filthy mouth, and a terrible sense of humor.”
She rolled her eyes, but the smile tugging at her lips gave her away.
I revealed what I’d been hiding behind my back—a bottle of wine and a single glass. “This is what I actually brought.”
She snorted. “Who are you and what have you done with Maksym?”
With a crooked smile curling at the corner of my mouth, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a small bottle of vodka, letting it dangle from two fingers like a secret I was proud of.
She laughed, shaking her head, and climbed back onto the bed as I followed. “God, you’re ridiculous. I love it.”
We sat there like that—her with her wine, me with my vodka. I was leaned back against the wall while she stretched along my chest, her head resting just under my chin. My hand slid into her hair, fingers threading through the strands as I slowly massaged her scalp the way I knew she loved. She made that soft little sound again, a soft murmur against my chest, almost like a kitten purring.
“One day,” I said, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head, “I’ll take you on a real date.”
