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Gratitude brushes away the darkness, igniting a spark of excitement for the future we’re about to embark on together. “Thank you.”
“For what?” she asks, letting her hand drop back to the bed as if holding up her arm takes too much effort.
“For knowing who I am and loving me regardless.”
“I do. I love you, Alex,” she says with a gentle light in her eyes, giving me the confirmation I crave.
A smile starts in my chest and works its way to my lips. It feels good, this smile that comes from inside. Normally, it’s the other way around. Normally, a smile is nothing but a nonverbal form of communication that my mind dictates in suitable circumstances. But this one comes from the heart. I haven’t smiled like this since my parents’ deaths. It’s been so long I’ve forgotten how a man is supposed to smile.
“What?” she asks, her lips curving in a similar fashion.
Brushing her hair away from her forehead, I take in her beautiful face. “Here we are, in St. Petersburg, only not under the circumstances we imagined.”
“No,” she agrees. “It didn’t exactly turn out the way I expected. Did you call my mom?”
“Not yet. I wanted you to wake up first.” I figure it’s her call to make.
“Good.” She relaxes visibly. “I don’t want her to worry. I’m thinking…”
“Thinking what, kiska?”
“That she doesn’t need to know everything.”
I nod. “I respect your wish.”
She searches my face. “When can we go home? I mean, to New York?”
“As soon as you’re back to normal.”
Her expression turns hopeful. “Do you mean that?”
Another bout of guilt tightens my chest. “Yes. Nothing prevents me from running my business from New York, the way I’d been doing when we met. We’ll have to come back here every once in a while, but I promise you it will be under much more pleasant circumstances, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t interfere with your job.”
Exhaling a breath, she says, “I can live with that.”
I lift her hand to my lips and kiss every finger while I weigh my words. This is hard for me to say, because I’m going to ask something of her I don’t deserve. “Katerina,” I start, my tone serious. “About bringing you here…”
“I forgive you,” she says before I can continue.
I stare at her, processing the gift she offers. There’s only one way I can repay her. Solemnly, I promise, “I’ll never make you sad again.”
She grins. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“One more thing.”
She raises an eyebrow, waiting.
The extreme lack of romanticism in our surroundings isn’t lost on me, yet it feels right. Our relationship started in a hospital, so it seems fitting that I pop the big question in one. “Katyusha, my love, will you wear my ring?”
“You mean become Mrs. Volkova?”
Fuck, that has the perfect sound to it. My voice is hoarse. “Yes.”
Her answer mirrors mine. “Yes.”
I never expected my life to ever turn right again, but here in this room, in this city that held so much misery for me, it’s as perfect as it can get.
Just as well.
Because regardless of her answer, I was never going to let her go.
They say little changes in the so-called sleeping neighborhoods of St. Petersburg. People are much the same. We have an inborn resistance against change. I’m no different. I will never be a good man. Cruelty and kindness will always live side by side in me. But whereas my enemies will always encounter my darkness, Katerina sparks the light I thought I’d long since lost. That’s what I intend to hold on to, to the good memories and the new ones I’m making with the woman I love.
My Katyusha.
Epilogue
Kate
“Kiska,” Alex says, pulling my attention from the gravestones. Interlocking our fingers, he lifts our hands and points in the distance. “There it is.”
The diamond ring on my finger sparkles in the sunlight, the stone seeming to catch and lock the bright rays inside. It’s a princess cut surrounded by rubies—timeless and perfect.
I follow the direction of his gaze. It’s impossible to miss the angel with the broken wing who mourns on the steps of a tomb. Her concrete dress drags on the grass, the hem damp from the sprinklers.
Silence falls between us as we make our way over. As I read the names engraved in the marble, I hold on to Alex’s hand, offering my husband as much comfort as I can.
Viktor Volkov.
Anastasia Volkova.
The Russian Orthodox graveyard in St. Petersburg is beautiful. The grass is a bright green, and colorful iris and canna lilies grow around the trees. The perfume of honeysuckle is sweet in the air. The summer day is pleasantly warm. With the birdsongs and the buzzing of bees surrounding us, it’s peaceful. It’s a good resting place.
Not so long ago, when the graveyard was covered in a white layer of snow and I was recovering from a bullet wound in a private clinic, Alex found the old grave keeper near the gate, frozen to death. It’s just as well. He wasn’t going to stop until he’d made everyone pay for their part in putting our lives in danger.
