We stay like that until Mila falls back asleep. Then I carefully lay her down, tuck the covers around her small body, kiss her forehead.
Lev lingers at the door. "You're good with her."
First compliment in three weeks. The words settle in my chest like treasure.
"I love her." Simple truth.
"I know." He pulls me into the hallway, away from Mila's door. "That's why you're still here. Because she loves you and you'd die protecting her."
"I would. Without hesitation."
He pulls me toward his room. Not for sex this time. Just to hold me.
We lie in his bed in the dark, tangled together, and he strokes my hair with gentle fingers.
"I don't know how to forgive you," he admits. Voice rough. Vulnerable. "Every time I think I'm past it, something reminds me, and the anger comes back. The hurt. The betrayal."
"I know." My hand finds his in the dark. "I don't expect forgiveness. Just... a chance to prove I'm on your side now. That I'll bleed for you and Mila. That I'm worth keeping despite everything."
"You are worth keeping. That's the problem." His arms tighten around me. "I should let you go. Send you somewhere safe. Protect you from the war that's coming. But I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I need you." The confession sounds torn from him. "Need you here. Need to see you with Mila. Need to feel you beside me at night. Need to know you're safe where I can protect you instead of wondering if Patrick found you somewhere I'm not."
"Then I stay."
"Even though I can't promise forgiveness? Can't promise I'll ever trust you completely again?"
"Even then." I press closer. "Because I love you. Because Mila needs me. Because this broken thing between us is still worth fighting for."
He kisses my forehead. My cheeks. My mouth. Gentle kisses that taste like maybe, eventually, we'll heal.
"Promise me something," he whispers.
"Anything."
"Don't leave. No matter how hard this gets. Or how impossible it feels. Stay."
"I promise." No hesitation. "I'm not going anywhere, Lev. You're stuck with me."
"Good." He pulls me impossibly closer. "Because I can't lose you. Can't survive losing someone else I—" He stops.
I wait for him to finish.
He doesn't.
But the almost-confession is enough. Proof that underneath the anger and hurt, something still exists. Something worth protecting.
We fall asleep like that. Holding each other against whatever comes next.
And for the first time since my confession in that basement, I let myself believe we might actually survive this.
That maybe love is enough to rebuild what betrayal destroyed.
That maybe two broken people can heal each other.
Chapter twenty-two
