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“You bet I remembered the box,” he says, reaching over to squeeze my fingers as he starts the car.

Ten minutes later, we park outside Corvale Memorial Hospital.

The hospital is light and bright, and I carry the box of brownies and coffee cake with both hands while Zevran walks at my side.

We enter a private room and see Demyan and Ruslan propped up in their beds. Demyan is in the bed near the window. Ruslan has the TV remote in his hand, but he smiles and switches the TV off when we enter.

“Miss Cora.” He looks eagerly at the box in my hands, then hastily adds to Zevran, “Boss.”

They’re both looking much better than they were the night I was kidnapped, though they couldn’t look much worse. I was afraid Ruslan was already dead when Troy yanked me out of the car, and Demyan would swiftly follow him. Thankfully the paramedics got to them in time, and after several surgeries each, they’re on the mend.

“Ruslan. Demyan.” I set the box down on the table between their beds and smile at them. “How are you both feeling?”

“Better.” Demyan clears his throat. “We’ll be back on the job in no time.”

“Your temporary bodyguards are taking good care of you?” Ruslan asks anxiously.

“They’ll do,” Zevran tells them as he leans back against the wall and folds his arms with a smile. “Until the best men can get back on the job.”

I open the box and offer it to Demyan. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Healing.” Demyan accepts a brownie, his eyes lighting up. “The doctor says I’ll be discharged in a few days.”

We stay another hour. I cut the coffee cake, and Demyan beats Zevran at three consecutive hands of cards while Zevran curses. I sit in the middle of it smiling, knowing there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

On the way out, in the corridor, Zevran takes my hand, lacing his fingers through mine.

“You look happy,” he murmurs, dipping down so his voice is low and warm against my ear.

“I am,” I say, and for the first time in my life, there isn’t any doubt behind the words. “I was just thinking about the wedding.”

His lips curve into a dangerously beautiful smile. “Yeah? What about it?”

“I think I want it big,” I tell him, resting my good hand against his chest, right where his heart beats fast and strong. “No hiding. No disappearing.”

Zevran dips his head and presses his lips to mine. A slow, promising kiss that seals the deal. When he pulls back, his eyes are burning with that bright, possessive light.

“Whatever you want, printsessa,” he whispers. “You tell me what you want, and your man will make it happen. The world is yours.”

Once upon a time, I thought safety meant running, hiding, and shrinking until I was invisible.

But as I step out into the afternoon sun with my hand in his, I know I don’t need to run anymore. I am staying right here.

EPILOGUE

Zevran

Pyotr Simeon lives well for a man who built his fortune on other people’s suffering.

Three stories of expensive stone. A manicured garden that someone is paid to tend. A house that announces its owner is proud of his place in the world.

I look at the polished facade and see the basement I pulled Cora from. The dirty mattresses on the concrete floor. The stench of human suffering. Women caged like animals.

I think about Cora’s broken wrist and bruised cheek. Emily’s death. Viktoriya buried in a shallow grave.

This house was paid for with their blood and suffering.

Alexei moves beside me through the shadows, silent for a man his size in a way that has always slightly unnerved me. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. A tilt of his head, the slight shift that says I’ll take the left, you take the right. We have our own language that requires no words.