Page 149

Stas stepped back inside, and Zasha stood, wincing, and nodded respectfully at him, then slipped out. The moment the door clicked shut, Stas crossed to me in three deliberate steps.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, voice softening only for me. “Are you in pain?”

“Only emotionally. You chained me to a bed.”

“For your own good.”

“So you say.”

He sat beside me, took my uninjured hand, and pressed his forehead to mine. For once, I didn’t joke. For once, I just breathed him in—his warmth, his strength, his impossible tenderness—and let myself feel safe. Really, truly safe.

Even handcuffed to a railing.

Especially handcuffed to a railing.

“Well, we sure fucked up this Christmas,” I said softly, and he smiled.

“It’s okay. We’ll have next year to do it all over again.”

I let my eyes drift shut again, the cuff cool against my wrist, and Stas’s hand warm around mine.

Some Christmas this turned out to be—blood, bullets, stitches, and now chained to a hospital bed like a delinquent elf. But everyone was alive. Mostly. The baby was perfect. And Stas wasn’t going anywhere.

Honestly? For me, it was actually a pretty decent Christmas.

EPILOGUE

STAS

9 MONTHS LATER

Chicago hadn’t decided whether it wanted to cling to summer or give in to fall. The air drifting through the cracked window of my office carried warm asphalt, faint exhaust, and underneath it, the barest thread of cold that warned the season was about to turn.

Behind me, the clock on the wall ticked, too loud, too slow, and mocking.

Nico’s voice crackled over the speakerphone on my desk. “The Kansas City expansion stayed stable this quarter,” he said. Papers shuffled on his end. “With the Mancinis gone, their affiliates either surrendered or disappeared. No one’s stupid enough to test us right now.”

The corner of my mouth tugged upward, not quite a smile but close.

“Good.” I scanned the spreadsheet on my desk, columns of numbers that told me exactly who feared me and who should fear me more.

Nico had stepped up so hard it almost rewrote the man.

What had happened last Christmas… it wasn’t something a man like him could walk away from unchanged. He had stood by while Yuriy went in alone. He had hesitated when loyalty demanded certainty. And Arty had died because of it. That one failure cut deep into him, far deeper than any punishment I could have delivered.

Arty had left behind a grown son who struggled to exist in a world that never made room for him. A quiet man, crushed by anxiety that made even simple conversations feel like battles. Arty had been his anchor. His interpreter. The only reason he’d managed as well as he had.

After Arty’s death, Nico stepped in without being asked.

He made sure the man was housed, fed, and protected. He arranged doctor appointments at his home, work that didn’t overwhelm him, routines that made the days survivable. He checked in personally. Learned his silences. Learned when to push and when not to.

It wasn’t just penance. It was Nico doing the one thing he could still do for a man he’d failed. And in the process, he became someone else entirely. Instead of running from that guilt, he’d built himself on top of it.

When we dismantled the Mancini family, he didn’t just follow orders; he anticipated them. He mapped out their safe houses, found the cracks in their alliances, and identified the men most likely to defect versus the ones who needed to disappear quietly. He coordinated our informants, cleaned up every loose thread in Kansas City, and ensured that every surviving Mancini affiliate understood the same thing.

A Zhukovsky flag now flew over that city, and with that assurance, Yelena and Zasha had decided to remain in Kansas City rather than uprooting their lives.

We’d needed a brigadier, a man to hold the new territory, enforce structure, keep the street pipelines from collapsing, and maintain the illusion of continuity while we reshaped everything underneath. Someone decisive, trustworthy, and sharp.