I intended to leave as soon as he recovered.
But Lila refused.
Every morning, she carried Bunny into Damian’s study and placed her palm over his chest before breakfast.
He pretended to be annoyed.
She knew better.
One rainy afternoon, I found him sitting near the fireplace with a book on sign language open in his lap.
“You’re holding it upside down,” I said.
He turned it immediately.
“I was testing you.”
“Of course.”
He looked embarrassed.
It was the first time I had seen Damian Volkov embarrassed by anything.
“What are you trying to learn?”
He raised his hands awkwardly and signed, Friend.
The movement was imperfect.
Lila appeared in the doorway and corrected his fingers.
Damian tried again.
Friend.
She grinned.
Then she pointed at me and signed something else.
Family.
Damian’s expression changed.
I looked away first.
That evening, Damian’s mother asked to speak with me.
Her name was Elena.
She had spent eighteen years hiding in Europe, gathering evidence against Mikhail’s network while Viktor secretly protected Damian from within Grayhaven.
“You love him,” she said.
I nearly dropped my teacup.
“No.”
Elena smiled faintly.
“You answer too quickly.”
“He is dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“He terrifies everyone.”
“Not Lila.”
“He belongs to a world I do not understand.”
“He wants to leave it.”
I stared at her.
“Damian?”
“He has transferred every legitimate business into public companies. He is dissolving the rest.”
“He told you that?”
“He asked me how to become someone his mother would recognize.”
The words entered somewhere deep inside me.
That night, I found Damian alone in the chapel.
The broken stained-glass window had been repaired. Moonlight colored the floor blue and red.
“You should not be out of bed,” I said.
“You sound like a nurse.”
“You fired all of them.”
“I kept one.”
“I am not your nurse.”
“No.”
His eyes held mine.
“You are the woman who jumped into freezing water after me.”
“You stood between a bullet and my daughter.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
His answer came quietly.
“Because I would do it again.”
My breath caught.
Damian stepped closer.
“I have spent my life believing affection was another form of leverage. Then Lila walked into my room and gave me a broken rabbit.”
“It was not broken.”
“One ear was crooked.”
“She loved it anyway.”
His gaze softened.
