Page 74 of Sold to the Bratva
“Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” he says, his voice warm.
I let the silence stretch, my hand moving to rest on Kira’s back, still pressed to Isaac’s chest. She shifts slightly, letting out a tiny sigh in her sleep, and something tightens in my throat.
“It’s been a year,” I say suddenly. “Do you ever think about it?”
He doesn’t need to ask what I mean. He just nods.
“All the time,” he says.
My gaze falls to the floor. “I know I’ll have to talk to him someday, hear it all from his own mouth, but I still haven’t found the will to pick up the phone.”
“You don’t owe them anything.”
I nod, but the ache doesn’t go away. “He used me. My own father. My mother would’ve been furious.”
“She would’ve sided with you.”
“She would’ve burned the world for me,” I whisper.
Isaac reaches for my hand, threading our fingers together. “I almost did.”
My eyes sting, but I blink the tears away before they fall.
After the attack, once I’d recovered from giving birth and had time to process everything, I told Isaac he could do whatever he wanted with Viktor and Oleg. I expected him to kill them and honestly, I wanted him to.
But instead, he branded them. He literally inked their treachery into their skin and sent them out of the city. They’re alive, as far as I know, but forever marked.
“I didn’t want their blood on your hands,” he told me that night, sitting at my hospital bedside as I cradled Kira.
And I loved him more for it.
“I still think you should have killed him,” I say absentmindedly.
“He died the day he chose Oleg over you,” Isaac grumbles. “Actually killing him would have been too kind after what he did. He deserves to live with the weight of his betrayal for the rest of his miserable days.”
My voice is barely a whisper. “Maybe. I just wish our daughter could have known a grandparent. I wish she could know that my father wasn’t always a monster.”
Isaac steps closer, slips his free arm around my waist, and presses a kiss to my hair. “She’ll know you. And you’re the only good thing Viktor ever managed to do.”
We stand like that for a long time, just breathing, just being. The light has shifted again, turning pink as the sun begins its descent.
Eventually, I pull away and glance at the painting again.
“I’m thinking about turning this into a series,” I tell him. “It felt so cathartic to let my feelings explode onto the canvas and not worry about what it looked like in the end.”
“It reminds me of resilience,” he murmurs.
“That could be a good name for it.” I smile. “Or maybe the theme of the whole art show.”
We laugh softly, and Kira stirs. Her tiny eyes flutter open, big and blue and still uncertain of the world.
“Hi, baby girl,” I whisper, cupping her cheek. “You awake now?”
“She always knows when you’re talking about her,” Isaac says, grinning.
“I think she likes hearing her name.”
“She’s going to rule this house one day. I can feel it.”
