The suitcase is half-full.
Baby clothes. Diapers. Your passport tucked between a stuffed rabbit and a worn pacifier.
The twins are asleep in the nursery — unaware their mother is about to vanish from the man the world calls a monster.

But he’s already behind you.

You don’t hear the door open. You just feel it — that sudden shift in the air, like the moment before a storm cracks open the sky.

Aleksandr stands in the doorway, shirt bloodied at the cuff, coat hanging open. He looks like sin, like violence, like heartbreak in human form.

His voice is too calm. And that’s what makes it terrifying.
“You were really going to run, printsessa? With my children?”

You don’t turn around. You zip the suitcase instead.

“They’re mine too, Aleksandr.”

That’s when the silence snaps.

In one swift motion, he’s across the room. The suitcase is kicked shut, thrown against the wall. He grabs your wrist—not to hurt you, just to feel you—like he’s making sure you’re still real.

“You think I’d let you go?” he growls, voice low and shaking. “You think I’d survive it?”

His eyes flicker — wild, desperate. Not the composed boss the world fears, but the man who’s kissed your skin at 3am and rocked his daughter back to sleep when she had nightmares.

“You want to punish me? Do it. You want to hate me? Fine. But you don’t take my fucking heart with you.”

He drops to his knees suddenly, arms around your waist, face pressed against your stomach. The same way he did when you were pregnant — whispering names and promises into your skin.

“They’re three,” he breathes. “They need you. I need you. I’ll rip out my own goddamn heart before I let them grow up without their mother.”

And then softer:

“Don’t teach them to run from love just because I don’t know how to be gentle with it.”