Chapter 18: The Last Burn

We left the island at sunrise.

Not in the usual way.

No suitcases. No goodbyes.

Just Czar carrying me down the dock barefoot, wearing his black shirt and nothing else, while the guards loaded one single duffel bag and a baby car seat still in plastic.

The yacht was gone.

In its place: a matte-black submarine tender disguised as a fishing boat.

He’d planned this for months.

He handed me up the ladder, climbed after me, and the captain cast off without a word.

Czar stood at the rail, arm locked around my waist, watching the island shrink.

“You okay?” I asked.

He didn’t answer for a long time.

Then: “I just ordered every server farm holding my records torched. Every offshore account emptied into new names. Every man who ever called me boss is either dead or paid enough to forget I exist.”

He turned to me, eyes ancient.

“I’m a ghost now, Eden. For real this time.”

I pressed my hand to his cheek.

“Good. Ghosts can’t be hunted.”

He kissed my palm.

We sailed north for three days: no flags, no ports, no names.

On the fourth morning we surfaced off a tiny fjord in northern Norway.

A wooden house waited on the cliff: glass, timber, smoke curling from the chimney.

Inside: warm lights, a nursery already painted soft grey, a crib with tiny lions carved into the rails.

He carried me over this threshold too.

“This one’s real,” he said quietly. “No trackers. No guards. Just us.”

He set me down in the living room, knelt, and pressed his forehead to my belly.

“Welcome home, little lion.”

The baby kicked like it understood.

That night we burned the last pieces of the old life.

Passports.

Phones.

The black-diamond wedding ring he’d once locked around my finger like a threat.

We fed them into the fireplace one by one.

When the flames died, he pulled a new ring from his pocket: simple white gold, no stones, just our initials and the date we first said “I love you” engraved inside.

He slipped it on my finger.

“No more cages,” he said.

I slipped its twin on his.

“No more running.”

We made love on the rug in front of the fire: slow, reverent, like the first time and the last time all at once.

After, he carried me to bed, tucked me against his chest.

“Tomorrow we pick new names,” he murmured. “You get to choose.”

I smiled into his skin.

“Already did.”

He raised a brow.

“Tell me.”

“Eden and Aleksandr Vale.”

He went still.

“Vale,” he repeated. “As in valley. Safe place.”

“As in the place we finally land,” I whispered.

He kissed me until I couldn’t breathe.

Three months later I gave birth in the middle of a snowstorm.

No hospital.

Just the local midwife, Czar holding my hand so tight he left bruises, and a fire roaring in the bedroom.

One push.

Two.

Then a cry that cracked the world open.

A boy.

Dark hair.

Grey eyes.

Lungs that already sounded like his father’s roar.

Czar cut the cord with shaking hands, wrapped our son in the softest blanket, and placed him on my chest.

Then he did something I’ll never forget.

He cried.

Not quiet tears.

Full-body, broken sobs that shook the bed.

He buried his face in my neck and whispered over and over in Russian:

“Spasibo. Spasibo za nego. Spasibo za tebya.”

Thank you. Thank you for him. Thank you for you.

I held them both: my monster and our miracle, until the storm outside quieted and the fire burned low.

Later, when the midwife left and the house was silent except for our son’s soft breaths, Czar carried the bassinet to our bed and climbed in fully clothed.

He pulled me against his chest, one arm around me, the other resting on our sleeping boy.

“Safe word,” he said suddenly, voice rough from crying.

I went still.

“What?”

“Say it now. One last time. So we never need it again.”

I turned in his arms, looked at the man who’d once owned me body and soul.

And I smiled.

“Red.”

He exhaled like I’d lifted a decade of weight.

Then he kissed my forehead, my lips, the tiny fist of our son.

“Red,” he echoed. “Heard. Accepted. And retired forever.”

He tucked us closer.

Outside, the northern lights danced green and purple across the sky.

Inside, three hearts beat in the same rhythm for the first time.

No empire.

No enemies.

No chains.

Just Eden, Aleksandr, and the little lion who would never know his father as anything but gentle.

The last safe word was spoken.

And we finally, truly, breathtakingly free.

The End…