Then my voice won’t go anymore.

June steps up and rests her face against my shoulder. When I glance over, I see her cheeks are wet with tears. Together, we stand there, looking down at the ruins of the one selfless thing I ever did.

I’m saved the trouble of figuring out what to do next when Sara walks in. She’s changed out of her scrubs, and that sterile look of professionalism has been replaced with genuine sadness.

“I will monitor her closely in the next few days,” she says before we can even ask, glancing towards the stoic, beeping machines. “If her brain wave functions drop any lower, though, I’m afraid…” She doesn’t finish her sentence, but she doesn’t need to.

“She won’t want to live like that,” I croak.

“W-who makes the decision though?” June asks. “To… take her off life support?”

There are three heartbeats of silence.

Then: “I do. I’m the only family she’s got.”

June’s hand clamps down around my arm. I glance down at her. “It’s time for you to look away, June. Like you promised you would.”

“Now?” she says fearfully. “But we—”

“I have to finish this,” I tell her. “I’m not going to let him slip away again. This ends now.”

“Let me come with you,” she pleads, tightening her grip on my arm. I can understand where she’s coming from. It feels like we’ve lived through a lifetime in this last hour, and now that we’ve come out unscathed, she doesn’t want to let me out of her sight.

“You know I can’t allow that.”

“Kolya—”

I kill her words by pressing my lips to hers. I kiss her deep, like I’ll never get to do it again, and then I pull away just as abruptly.

“Stay here, and follow the doctor’s orders.”

Then I give Sara a nod and head out.

I couldn’t protect Milana. But I’ll be damned if I don’t put everything I have into protecting June, as well as the child she’s carrying. Because fuck paternity: June is mine, and so is her baby.

She’s my woman.

She’s my daughter.

They are my family.

The truth is, if it was just me, I wouldn’t have been able to hurt my brother, no matter what he’d done. No matter how many times he came at me. No matter how hard he tried to destroy me.

But for them…

I’d kill him a thousand times over.

47

JUNE

“June, you need to eat something.”

I shove away the piece of bread that Geneva is offering me. “I can’t,” I whimper. “I can’t eat anything until he comes back home.”

Sara slips into the breakfast nook. “You need to eat for the baby, June,” she advises. Her voice sounds like she looks: flat, pale, tired.

“If I eat, I’ll just throw it all up.”

Geneva gets to her feet and meanders towards one of the window seats that overlooks the garden. It’s still dark out, but the sun should be coming out any minute now. The air is chalky with predawn chill, and insects cluster at the glass panes in search of heat.