The scent of antiseptic still clung to the air, even though the doctors had left hours ago. She lay in the massive bed of their Moscow estate, a thin blanket drawn over her legs, her hands curled protectively over the bandages across her abdomen.

The fight hadn’t even been her war to fight — but when the ambush came, the bullets didn’t care whose name was on them. One had found her, tearing through her womb. The child was gone… and so, the doctors said, was any chance of another.

Konstantin “Staya” Grigoriev sat beside her, his shirt stained with dried blood — hers — his normally controlled composure cracked open by a pain he couldn’t shoot his way out of.

She wouldn’t look at him, her gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the crystal chandelier above them. “They said I… I can’t…” Her voice broke, and she bit her lip until it bled. “No more children, Kostya.”

For a long moment, he was silent. Then he reached out, cupping her face in his rough, warm palm, forcing her to meet his eyes.

"Мой ангел," — My angel — his voice was low, almost a growl of grief and devotion. “You think this changes what you are to me? I didn’t marry you to fill a cradle. I married you because you are my home. If you are sad, I will carry it. If you are broken, I will guard the pieces. And if I cannot give you another life… then I will give you mine, every day, until we die.”

Her tears finally fell, and he pulled her against him, holding her as if letting go might cost him the last thing that mattered. Outside, Moscow’s streets whispered with the rumors of war between the Italian and Russian syndicates — but inside, there was only the quiet, aching heartbeat of two people clinging to each other against the world.