Page 145 of 10 Days to Surrender

“Of course we are,” I murmur. Teaching violin might seem like a small thing compared to running from demons, but I know better. Every note her students play is another brick in the wall between her past and present.

I sit back and look around me. The room glows in that fragile hour between dawn and true morning, pale light rinsing everything of colors. But even when I’m this calm, this meditative, I still don’t hear Sasha until his thumb brushes the nape of my neck.

“Ah!”

He laughs and bends down to kiss where he just touched.

He smells like New York in winter—diesel exhaust and snowmelt clinging to his leather jacket—with an undercurrent of the vetiver soap I bought him after Dr. Nguyen suggested we incorporate anchoring rituals into our daily routines. His scarcatches the screen’s blue light as he leans over my shoulder, reading.

“Still fictionalizing me as the brooding antihero?” he asks.

“That’s fiction?” I minimize the document before he can spot the paragraph where his hands are described as‘twin oaks grafted from war and tenderness.’The last thing he needs is an ego boost. “You’re here early. I thought you said you had Bratva business until noon.”

One shoulder lifts in a half-shrug. Snowflakes float from his collar onto the keyboard. “I figured wife business was more important.”

I pull him down for a proper kiss. “You figured correctly, sir. We’ve got… fifteen minutes, maybe, until Mama needs reinforcements. So…?”

He groans hungrily, but when I reach for his belt, he tucks my hands back in my lap instead of doing what I wanted, which is banging me senseless on the closest flat surface. “You don’t know how bad I want that. But fifteen minutes isn’t enough for me, Ariel. I need so much more time with you. Tonight.”

His palm cups my jaw, guiding my gaze to his. Therapy has sanded some edges off his intensity, but the core remains—that fractured-bright gaze cataloging my every microexpression.

“Fine,” I say, pretending to pout. I can’t be too upset, though. Sasha has never, ever let me down when he’s promised that“later, there will be more.”

I trace the puckered scar along his ribs through his shirt. “Dr. Nguyen said you skipped yesterday’s one-on-one. Everything okay?”

His pulse leaps under my fingertips. “Had a… visitor.”

“Another dream?”

When he hesitates, I thread our fingers together—Dr. Nguyen’s grounding technique #3. His exhale warms my temple.

“It was Moliets-et-Maa again,” he rasps. “You in that alley, Dragan’s knife at your throat. Only when he turned… it wasn’t Dragan. It was Yakov.”

I run my finger through his hair. “You should’ve woken me.”

“Not a chance; you were actually asleep for once.” His forehead meets mine. “My vow stands,moyazhena. Your nightmares take precedence.”

I like when he reminds me of the promise he made me in that garden. Who has to be shadow and who gets to be light. Some burdens in this life can be shared. Some can’t. But that’s okay. We always have each other to lean on.

I let him pull me into the wingback chair, his legs pillowing mine. Dawn pinks the room as I curl into him. As we breathe softly together, just enjoying each other’s touch and company, the muffled notes of Mama’s singing float down the hallway toward us.

“It’s a good life we have, you know,” he murmurs suddenly. “It’s a good, good life.”

The steam from Zoya’s feast rises in swirls, staining the air with the tang of beets and nostalgia. I watch Sasha’s scarred thumb swipe a dollop of sour cream from Natalie’s chin—a gesture soordinary it steals my breath. Our daughter giggles, smearing borscht across the Ozerov family crest tattooed on his wrist.

“Careful,” I warn the little princess as I pass my husband and claim a seat at his side. “That’s a historic artifact you’re defacing.”

“Not much longer for this world,” he agrees, glancing at the crest again.

Feliks snorts. “You keep saying that and I keep not believing it.”

Bouncing our daughter on his knee, Sasha looks as serious as ever. “I mean it. The Ozerov Bratva has lived long enough. It’s time for it to die. That’s how we make room for now things.”

“I know, I know. I get it.” Sighing, Feliks shakes his head. “I’m mostly upset about having to wear a suit to work every day, now that we’re actually legit.”

“I’m not upset about that in the slightest,” cuts in an obscenely pregnant Gina. “Suits are like lingerie for men.” She cups Feliks’s cheek, the light overhead flashing in the depths of the emerald engagement ring she’s been showing off all night. It’s big enough to require its own mining permit.

Feliks picked well. He knows his woman, I’ll give him that much.

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