Page 73 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
The storm had passed, and for the first time in days—in years, maybe—I allowed myself to feel safe. Not because the world had become less dangerous, but because I’d found something worth being dangerous for.
Something worth coming home to, no matter how far into hell the job might take me.
In Anya’s arms, with our child growing between us and our chosen family safe around us, I finally understood what my father was trying to teach me all those years ago.
Some things were worth dying for.
But the best things were worth living for.
Epilogue – Anya
Nine Months Later
Spring arrived in Chicago like a benediction, washing away the last traces of the brutal winter that had nearly broken us all. Everything had changed since those dark months when war painted our city in smoke and blood. The tension that used to hum in the air like a live wire had finally dissipated, replaced by something I never thought I’d experience in this world—peace.
Real peace, not the temporary ceasefires between battles that I’d learned to mistake for safety.
From our bedroom, I could hear the sound of birds nesting in the oak tree outside our window, their songs mixing with distant laughter from the park across the street and the gentle whisper of wind playing with white curtains that drifted like ghosts over open windows. The morning light was soft and golden, filtered through fabric that moved with each breath of air, creating patterns on our hardwood floors that shifted and danced like living things.
Lev stood barefoot on the balcony, a warm breeze pushing through his unbuttoned white shirt, revealing the chest I’d mapped with my fingers a thousand times over. His skin carried the history of our war written in faded scars—the deep mark over his ribs where Petro’s blade had found its mark being the most prominent. It was his well-earned souvenir, proof that love sometimes required violence and that some men were worth bleeding for.
His hair moved in the wind, longer now than he used to keep it during the dangerous months when appearance meant survival and every detail could mean the difference between life and death. Now he looked relaxed, almost vulnerable in hiscasual stance against the railing, gray eyes focused on something in the distance that brought the ghost of a smile to his lips.
I was sitting in our bed, propped against pillows that smelled like vanilla and lavender, watching him with the kind of contentment I never knew existed. My arms were full of soft pink blankets and the tiny, perfect weight of our daughter, who had entered this world three days ago with lungs that could wake the dead and a grip strong enough to make her father cry.
She was beautiful in that raw, unfinished way of newborns, her features still settling into what they’d become. Tiny fists waved in the air like she was conducting an orchestra only she could hear, and her little face scrunched into expressions that cycled between curious and vaguely offended, as if she wasn’t entirely pleased with being evicted from her warm, dark sanctuary.
“She has your eyes,” I said, studying the slate-gray color that mirrored her father’s, though the doctors said most babies were born with eyes this shade.
Lev turned from the balcony and walked toward us with the careful precision of someone who was afraid he might wake from a dream he never thought he’d be allowed to have. There was wonder in his expression, mixed with a terror so pure it took my breath away. This man, who had stared down death without flinching, who had walked through hell and emerged bloodied but unbroken, was completely undone by seven pounds of baby girl.
He sat beside me on the edge of our bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, and looked down at our daughter with an expression I’d never seen before. It was reverence mixed with bewilderment, love so fierce it bordered on violence, and a protectiveness that made the air around him shimmer with barely contained emotion.
“She has your frown,” he murmured, reaching out with one scarred finger to touch the tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows. “And your stubborn chin.”
I laughed softly, careful not to wake her. “She has your last name.”
The words carried weight in our world, meaning and responsibility that went beyond simple paperwork. An Antonov daughter would inherit more than money or property—she’d inherit a legacy of power and the enemies that came with it, the burden of choices made by generations of men who chose violence to protect what they loved.
But she’d also inherit the fierce loyalty of people who would die before letting harm come to her, the kind of chosen family that was forged in fire and proven in blood.
“You’re both safe,” Lev whispered, pressing his lips first to my temple, then to our daughter’s impossibly soft forehead. “Forever. No matter what comes, you’re both safe.”
It was a promise I believed completely, not because our world had become less dangerous, but because I’d seen what this man was willing to do to keep his word. The scars on his body were proof of that commitment.
Our daughter stirred in my arms, making the soft mewling sounds that meant she was working up to a full-scale demand for attention. Her needs were simple—food, warmth, the security of being held—but fulfilling them felt like the most important work I’d ever done.
“She’s perfect,” I whispered, adjusting the pink blanket that Sasha had embroidered with tiny roses during the last month of my pregnancy.
“She’s ours,” Lev replied, and those two words contain more joy than I ever heard in his voice before.
***
The afternoon brought visitors, as I knew it would. News traveled fast in our world, and the birth of an Antonov heir—even a female one—was the kind of event that required acknowledgment, celebration, and the political positioning that happened when power structures shifted.
But what arrived at our door wasn’t politics. It was family.
Trev and Sasha came first, holding each other with the easy intimacy of people who had survived trauma together and found healing in each other’s arms. Sasha carried a bouquet of white roses mixed with baby’s breath, the kind of arrangement that belonged in fairy tales or wedding magazines. She moved with more confidence now, the tentative caution that marked her first months of recovery replaced by the quiet strength that came from surviving hell and choosing to trust again.
