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WHEN I WOKE THE NEXT morning, it was to the weight of the woman next to me in bed. And, as I opened my eyes to look over at her, I couldn’t help but smile.
She was here. Next to me. My plan had worked, somehow. I knew Nikita or one of his men must have worked out that she had made a break for it, and I had no doubt that the city had exploded into chaos since she left. But here, now, it was hard to even think of that, because she was here with me, where she belonged, and the peace I felt looking at the soft rise and fall of her chest wiped everything else out of existence.
I reached over to stroke her face, but she didn’t stir much. She must have been exhausted from everything that had happened. I hoped she would sleep all day, if that was what she needed – anything to allow her body to heal after everything she had been through.
We had told each other that we loved one another the night before, and I was so glad that it was out there at last. I did love her, more than I had loved anyone before in my life, and it would have felt wrong to keep that from her a second longer. I felt like we were meant to be together, something that I had never felt with anyone before, that solid, settled sureness I felt when I woke up next to her.
I leaned over to kiss her cheek, and her eyes fluttered open. She smiled at me, sleepy, and stretched out in the bed beside me.
“How did you sleep?” I asked her.
“Pretty well,” she replied, her voice throaty from her slumber. She looked so fucking hot beside me that it was hard not to get distracted, but my phone buzzed on the bedside table and I went to check it at once.
It was a picture, courtesy of the driver Leo had sent to the city to pick up Dmitri. The sun was rising over the Manhattan bridge, and Dmitri was in the back of a car heading towards the edge of New York.
I showed the picture to Nadia.
“Look, your dad’s getting out of town.”
She looked over at the picture and frowned.
“I thought he was already gone?”
“He will be by this afternoon, that’s all that matters,” I promised her. “He’s going to be out of the country by tonight, and there’s no way for Nikita or anyone else to find out where he’s staying.”
She chewed her lip. She didn’t look convinced. I couldn’t say that I blamed her. After everything that had happened, it only seemed logical that she would have some doubts about the sureness of this plan. I just prayed she would trust me enough to see this through.
I pulled her against my chest, wrapping my arms around her. Kissing the top of her head, I did my very best to comfort her.
“Hey, you know you have nothing to worry about, right?” I asked her, and she managed to nod.
“Yeah, I think I’m starting to get that.”
“Good.”
She snuggled against me, draping her arm over my chest as though she never wanted to let me go. I knew how she felt – whatever it was, the connection between us now felt stronger than it had ever been, as though she had finally started to understand that I really meant it when I said that I would look out for her.
We rose from the bed after a few minutes, both of us too anxious to see what came next to spend more time hanging out and doing nothing. Today was the day that it all started, one way or another, that it all came to light, and I was determined to make sure that everything ran the way it was supposed to.
I made us a pot of coffee as I checked my phone to see if Leo had gotten in touch with me – I had no clue what he was planning to do in New York today, but I hoped he and his men were strong enough to handle whatever happened when Nikita found out that Nadia had been snatched right from under his nose.
“Do you think he’s found out by now?” Nadia asked, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. I nodded.
“I think so,” I murmured, coming over to join her. “But honestly – there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s just going to be pissed he can’t see his plan through. You’re safe. You and your father. Okay?”
“Okay,” she breathed. I still hadn’t told her the ins and outs of the plan that her captor had in place for her, because I figured she didn’t need to hear something like that right now. I was sure she had guessed what he was willing to do to her. She didn’t need me to drag it out again.
I brushed her hair back from her face, and she looked up at me and managed a small smile.
“Thank you for getting me out of there.”
“If you thought I was going to let you marry that piece of shit,” I told her, shaking my head, “you’ve got another thing coming.”
She giggled.
“I didn’t even think you would find out about it,” she confessed. “I – I thought you would be done with me, after I left New York.”
“I’m never going to be done with you, Nadia,” I replied.
“You have no idea how glad I am to hear that,” she murmured, and she smiled up at me. Fuck, when she smiled at me, it was like everything in the world just dropped away – everything fell back so I could be in this moment with her, so I could give myself over to the heaven of being in her company.
I made myself a coffee, and sat down with her at the table – I wanted to get her something to eat, but I was sure that she would have turned it down for the time being.
“So, what happens now?” she asked. I had tried to fill her in last night on as much as I could, about Leo and the FBI and the agents who had been working with us, but she seemed to have a hard time taking it all in.
“I think Leo is going to keep an eye on the wedding, or at least, what was meant to be the wedding,” I explained. She nodded.
“And what happens then?”
“They’re going to do their best to destabilize his position and make sure he doesn’t turn it into an opportunity to cause more harm,” I continued. “And after that...”
I trailed off. Honestly, what came after that scared me a little. I knew I had to be ready to fight, no matter what, but I had to believe Nikita would bring down hell on my head the first chance he got. He was a man who hated me with a real passion, and he was going to do everything that he could to make sure I didn’t win this war between us.
“After that?” she pressed me, sounding concerned. She had good reason to be, heaven knew she did. I didn’t want to have to involve her in any of this, but at the same time, leaving her out of the loop was going to make her feel like I didn’t trust her.
“After that, we have to be ready to take him on ourselves,” I replied. “The FBI are pulling their agents out of the field to leave a clear path. And then we can do what needs to be done.”
A shadow flickered across her face, and I could see the fear in her eyes. She knew what that meant, even if she wished she didn’t. Even if I wished that I could protect her from this, keep her from falling deeper into this mess that she had been dragged into, I needed her to know what we were up against.
“And that means war, right?” she asked. I nodded.
“That means war.”
It was the first time I had said it out loud, and it sent a shiver down my spine to hear it. I had to be ready to fight this man, take him on in any way that he tried to throw at me. I wasn’t scared, not for myself – I could handle me – but for the people he might come after as a way of trying to harm me. Men like that, they were always willing to do whatever it took to win, and I had no doubt that he would come gunning for Nadia and her father to make a point about what I did and didn’t have over him.
“But you’re going to be okay,” I promised her. “I’m going to keep you safe. You and your father. You’re here with me, he’s way out in Vancouver, or he will be soon. You have nothing to worry about, okay?”
“Okay,” she replied, letting out a breath I didn’t even realize she had been holding. I wanted to pull her into my arms again, but that might have given her reason to think she should have been scared. I needed to play it cool right now, make it obvious that nothing that was happening was going to impact her.
A small smile flickered across her lips, and she glanced up at me.
“I wish I could see the look on his face when he realizes that I’m gone,” she remarked, mischief playing in her eyes. I laughed.
“Yeah, wish I could see that too,” I agreed. “He’s going to be furious.”
“But he knows there’s nothing he can do,” she continued, the smile spreading further. I was glad she seemed to be taking some level of glee in what was going on, she deserved to – we both did, after what we had been through. I didn’t know the details of everything Nikita had done to her, but I doubted it was anything good. The mere thought of him laying a hand on her sparked my anger to a point where I could hardly control it, and I was sure nothing good would come from making her recount the details if she didn’t offer them up herself.
My phone buzzed, pulling me out of the conversation for a moment, and I snatched it up to answer it at once. It was likely Leo, with some information about what was happening in the city. I could practically picture the chaos now, the shit that Nikita was spreading over New York as he tried to get back the bride who had abandoned him. He really thought he could just take what he wanted from her, but she had pushed back and made sure that he lost out at the last minute.
“Hello?”
“Hello.”
The voice on the other end of the line sent a sharp shiver down my spine, and Nadia must have been able to see it – she mouthed who is it at me, but I held my hand up, telling her silently that I would be with her as soon as I could.
Because if this was who I thought it was – we had some serious issues here. Some serious fucking issues.
“Who is this?” I demanded. I needed to know for sure before I jumped to any conclusions, but I was already pretty certain I knew.
“You know.”
“Who is—”
“This is Nikita,” he growled down the line, voice brimming with a rage I had never heard before in my life. “And if you don’t put her on the line in the next ten seconds, I’m going to find you, and I’m going to speak to her myself. You understand me?”
