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“What about the baby?” His voice breaks slightly.
The question stops me cold as I turn to face him with one hand instinctively moving to my belly. “What about her?”
“She’s my daughter too.”
I nod. “Of course, and you can see her per whatever schedule we work out, as long as you can guarantee her safety, but I won’t raise her in a world where violence is always lurking around the corner.”
“This was the last of it. With Vadim gone?—”
“Vadim isn’t gone. You said it was a trap, and he wasn’t there. So now what? Another mission? Another secret operation you’ll lie to me about?”
He does not have an answer for that, which confirms my worst fears about what our future would actually look like. I zip the suitcase closed and set it on the floor. “I need you to arrange transportation back to my apartment.”
He studies my face for a long moment. “Sabrina?—”
The word comes out softer than I intended, but I don’t have the energy for more fighting. “Please. I need some time to think, and I can’t do that here.”
I think I see something break behind his eyes. “If you leave now, I might lose you forever.”
I keep my expression as impassive as I can. “You lost me the moment you decided to lie to me about something this important.”
“I never meant to hurt you.” Hurt bleeds through every word.
It makes it hard to breathe as I share that pain with him for a moment, though for different reasons. “I believe you, but you did. The worst part is you chose to hurt me instead of trusting me with the truth.”
He nods slowly, and defeat settles over his features like a heavy blanket. “I’ll have Maksim drive you.”
“Thank you.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m seated in the back of an armored SUV with my suitcase beside me and two guards following in a separate vehicle. As we pull away from the estate, I refuse to lookback even though I’m certain Nikandr is watching from one of the windows.
The image of him limping through the foyer keeps replaying in my mind. Pale, injured, and trying to minimize his pain while explaining why he had risked everything without bothering to include me in the decision. Each time I remember the blood on his shirt or the careful way he moved, my resolve wavers slightly.
Until I remind myself one day, he might not come home at all, and I refuse to raise our daughter in a world where that possibility hangs over us like a constant threat, especially when I can’t be sure he’ll tell me what he’s doing before it happens.
I press my hand to my belly and whisper, “It’s going to be okay, baby girl. Mommy’s going to figure this out.”
I call Jessie and ask her to meet me at the apartment before falling into silence. As the familiar streets of my old neighborhood come into view, I’m not sure I believe that promise any more than I believed his desperate attempts to placate me this afternoon.
26
Sabrina
Aweek has passed since I left the estate, and I’m still heartbroken over what feels like the end of everything I’d started to believe in. Jessie returned to the apartment the same night I did, taking one look at my tear-stained face before dropping her bags and marching straight to the kitchen.
“We need ice cream.” She’d said, opening the freezer and emerging with an armload of ice cream containers and two spoons, settling beside me on the couch like she was preparing for battle. “Okay, start from the beginning. Tell me exactly what that lying bastard did, and then we’ll figure out how to make him pay.”
That first night blurred together in a haze of tears, ice cream, and Jessie’s increasingly creative suggestions for revenge. She’s spent the past seven days alternating between bringing me comfort food and devising outrageous plans to get back at Nikandr.
“We could put itching powder in his holster,” she suggests from her position sprawled across the living room floor, surrounded by takeout containers and crumpled tissues. She’s polished and ready to report to work in a little while, but she’s still hanging out with me. “Or better yet, we could replace all his expensive suits with knock-offs from that discount store on Fifth Street.”
The mental image of Nikandr discovering his custom-tailored wardrobe has been swapped for polyester blend makes me laugh despite the hollow ache in my chest. “You’re terrible.”
She grins and tosses a piece of popcorn at me. “I’m creative. There’s a difference.” She stands in her high heels and counts off on her fingers. “We could also sign him up for every spam mailing list on the internet, order pizza deliveries to his house every hour on the hour or hire a mariachi band to serenade him at inappropriate times.”
“A mariachi band?”
“Picture it,” she says, gesturing dramatically. “He’s in the middle of some serious crime boss meeting, and suddenly, there’s a full mariachi band outside his window playing ‘La Cucaracha’ at maximum volume.”