The Red Room has one of many mottos that they drill into the girls’ heads.

Love is for children. Love is a weakness.

Yelena grew up with no choice but to believe that love is nothing but an inconvenience in her life. A major inconvenience.

She will not fall in love, no sir. She’s better than that.

She held the thought all the way up until she was freed from his control.

Yelena sought out a lot of things when she was finally free of Dreykov’s control—normalcy, a place to stay, a routine that didn’t involve killing people.

The one thing she never planned on coming to her was the one thing she believed to be a weakness.

Love.

You. A beautiful—a beautiful, normal, civilian who doesn’t know who she is and what she was raised to do.

Blissfully unaware of you who loved Yelena for herself, not because she is capable of protecting you.

God, Yelena is too far gone. Maybe love isn’t a weakness, maybe it’s what she needs.

She doesn’t know.