Page 63 of Bound By the Bratva

"Are you telling me this because you think I'm supposed to be happy now?" I ask, and I can't keep the note of challenge out of my voice. "Like checking items off a list—son adopted, father saved, wife secured?"

Rolan chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest where I'm pressed against him. "No,ptichka. I'm telling you because it's done, and because I wanted you to know that whatever happens between us, he's protected. Forever."

The endearment—little bird—should annoy me. It should remind me of the cage metaphor, of all the ways he's tried to control me. Instead, it sounds like love. Like the kind of nickname that develops between two people who've seen each other at their worst and chosen to stay anyway.

"I want a real wedding," I say suddenly, the words surprising me as much as they clearly surprise him.

"What?"

"A real wedding. With a dress I choose and flowers I pick and music I like. Not the sterile contract signing we had, but something real. Something that feels like choosing you instead of being chosen by you."

His face goes very still, and for a moment I wonder if I've pushed too far. Then his mouth curves into a smile that transforms his entire face, making him look like the boy he must have been before violence and power changed him.

"The world is yours," he says, and his voice is soft with wonder. "Anything you want, Anya. Everything you want."

"I want white roses," I continue, warming to the theme, letting myself imagine it for the first time. "Lots of them. And I want the ceremony in the garden, not inside. I want Nikolai to beour ring bearer, and I want my father to walk me down the aisle even though we're already married."

"Done."

"I want a photographer who captures real moments, not posed shots. I want a cake that tastes like something other than cardboard and frosting. I want to dance with you to a song I actually know the words to."

"All of it." He turns to face me fully, his hands framing my face like I'm something precious. "Every single thing you want and anything else you can think of. We'll tear up the old paperwork and start fresh if you want. Make it legal and binding and real in a way that matters to you."

I study his face, looking for the catch, the condition, the price I'll have to pay for this gift. But there's nothing there except love and a kind of desperate hope that breaks my heart.

"Why?" I whisper.

"Because you deserve to choose." His thumb traces my lower lip, and I see years of regret in his eyes. "I took so much from you, Anya. Your freedom, your safety, your chance to fall in love on your own terms. I can't give those things back, but I can give you this. I can give you the wedding you dreamed of when you were young and still believed in happy endings."

"And if I want to invite people? Real people, not just your men and their wives?"

"Invite whoever you want. We'll fly them in from anywhere in the world."

"What about security? Won't it be dangerous to have that many people here?"

"Let me worry about security. You just worry about being happy."

The simplicity of it undoes me. After years of calculating the cost of every choice, of weighing the danger in every decision,he's offering me the luxury of pure want. The freedom to choose beauty over strategy, joy over survival.

"I used to dream about my wedding when I was little," I admit, leaning into his touch. "I would plan it in my head during the long nights whenBatyawas out gambling. White dress, white flowers, white cake. Everything pure and perfect and untouched by the ugliness of the world."

"You can have that," he says fiercely. "All of it. We'll make it so perfect that even the ugliness of how we started won't be able to touch it."

"And after? After the wedding and the cake and the dancing, what then?"

"Then we live." He kisses my forehead, soft and reverent. "We raise our son and drive each other crazy and fight about little things and make up in ways that make the fighting worthwhile. We grow old together if we're lucky, and we make sure Nikolai never has to choose between love and survival the way you did."

"You make it sound so simple."

"Maybe it is. Maybe love is supposed to be simple, and we just made it complicated."

Below us, Nikolai's laughter rings out again as he successfully catches the red ball. He holds it up triumphantly, looking around for approval, and when he spots us on the balcony, he waves with the uncomplicated joy of a child who knows he is seen and celebrated.

"Look,Batya! Mama! I caught it!"

Batya. The word still sends a shock through me every time I hear it. Not because it's wrong, but because it's so completely right. Rolan raises his hand to wave back, and I see the wonder in his face, the kind of awe that comes from being trusted with something infinitely precious.

"He's going to be taller than you," I observe, studying the long lines of my son's growing body.

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