For the week I’m stuck in the hospital, Ivan visits me every day. He’d stay all day and all night long if the nurses would let him.
When he does have to leave, he brings Volya to keep watch over me. Volya curls up on the foot of my bed and won’t move an inch. He’s so massive and fierce looking that the nurses wouldn’t dare kick him out. But just like Ivan, he’s a sweetheart.
Dom comes to visit as well, and Efrem and Maks. Even Zima comes to eat all the chocolates everybody else has been bringing me.
I always wanted a brother. Now I have too many to count.
And I have something else—a man who makes my heart clench up every time he walks in the room. A man who makes me desperately want to get the bandage off my shoulder so he’ll stop worrying about me and ravage my body like a wild animal again.
Ivan said we don’t have to talk shop until I’m healed, but of course I’ve been pestering him for every detail of the aftermath with Remizov.
We scheme and plan together for hours.
We’re not giving back one bit of territory to the families who made deals with Remizov. All that belongs to us now.
We’ve given a cut to the Markovs though. And we’ve given the whole diamond district to Alter Farkas.
Loyalty should be rewarded.
The first stories have started to come out in the Gazeta. St. Petersburg is in uproar about it. The governor seems to be wriggling out of trouble, but the commissioner may have to resign.
Nobody seems to have realized the source of the leaks. They probably think Remizov set the information to release in the event of his untimely demise.
I’m enjoying the chaos. I’m no angel myself, but I can still appreciate when villains get their comeuppance.
Still, I’m itching to leave the hospital and get home to the monastery. I tell Ivan that if he doesn’t make the doctor sign me out immediately, I’m going to climb out the window.
Ivan packs up all my things, including the ridiculous number of books and treats he brought for me, and then he whistles for Volya.
Volya stays sitting at the foot of the bed until I give him a pat and say, “Come on, boy.”
“What’s this?” Ivan says in mock outrage to the dog. “You traitor.”
Volya ignores him, trotting along beside me and licking my hand.
“I don’t blame him,” Ivan says, leaning over to kiss me. “I feel exactly the same.”
I walk through the hospital doors, taking a deep breath of the clean winter air.
It’s colder and snowier than ever outside.
Still, I stop and stand under the thick falling flakes, thrilled to be outside again.
Ivan wraps his arms around me to keep me warm.
The snow settles in his dark hair, on the shoulders of his wool coat.
The street has that incredible silence that only comes from a thick blanket of snow.
Ivan presses his lips against mine, his mouth warmer than a summer’s day, even in the dead of winter.
“Come home, my love,” he says.
As we drive up to the monastery, it does feel like home. More than any place I’ve lived before.
Ivan takes my hand and leads me upstairs. I think he’s going to take me straight to the bedroom, but instead he pulls me into the library.
He’s set up a table in here, with two chairs and dozens of candles all around. There’s a rosebud in a vase atop the linen tablecloth and two formal place settings.
“What’s this?” I ask him.
“The night I was going to pick you up at the train station, I wanted to take you out for dinner,” he says. “I wanted to take you on a real date.”
I can’t help laughing.
“We really haven’t been on a date, have we?” I say.
“I hope this counts,” Ivan says.
He pulls out my chair for me so I can sit down.
He takes the seat across from me.
His face looks unbearably handsome in the glow of the candlelight. I can hardly look at him. Yet, I never want to look at anything else.
He takes my hand across the table.
He pulls a little box out of jacket and places it between us.
My heart is fluttering against my ribs. My fingers tremble as I lift the lid.
I see a gold band, set with a dark green stone.
I take the ring from the box and slip it on my finger. It fits perfectly.
“You’re mine forever, my little love,” Ivan says. “My own grim reaper.”
