Page 110 of Lash
By the time we fall asleep late on the second night, I am thoroughly sore, sated, and happy. And if I'm not pregnant, it'll be a statistical miracle, considering we never used a condom again. Some may say it's foolish, reckless, even irresponsible to throw myself so fully into love with Nico when we've only really known each other as adults for a handful of days, but I don't care.
As I told him, I know my heart. I know what I feel, and I know it's real. I know that giving Nico a child would be the greatest privilege of my life.
I don't need months or years with him to know that he is my life, my future, and my everything; I don't need to wait to know that I will marry him, that I will bear his children—now or weeks or months or years from now—and we will be deliriously happy. We will argue, of course, and I'll want to throttle him for something stupid, and I’ll make him angry and we'll sort it out and have wild makeup sex.
For the first time in my life, I know that I'm where I need to be, with the person I'm meant to be with.
I know things may not be totally over yet, but no matter what happens, Nico is my everything.
I'm almost glad Filip did what he did, that he brought me to that hangar. I'm not glad that so many people I care about died for the idiotic plans of selfish people, but I am happy with how things turned out.
I mourn my father, of course. I mourn Ana and Katya and Georg and Tata. I will miss Zagreb and the beauty of the Croatian seaside. I will miss Low Town and High Town, and trains across Europe from one pop-up to another. But inexchange for all that, I gain friends—brothers and sisters. I gain a family, a big one, and a wild and strange and dangerous one. I gain a home. I gain a husband.
We wake early on the third morning, my head on his chest, his heart thudding steadily under my ear. Sunlight shines on a few strands of my hair that I shed last night, draped across his chest. On a whim, I make sure he's awake and watching, and then I twist the strands of my hair, wrap it around the ring finger of his left hand, and knot it.
"Be my husband, Nico," I whisper, holding his eyes. "As soon as possible. I don't care about rings or churches or anything. I just want to know you're mine forever."
He doesn't reply immediately, but the brilliant hot joy in his eyes says all there is to say. When he does speak, it's to whisper "Yes" into my ear—first in Croatian, then English, then Romani, and then in every other language he knows.
And that is how I find myself engaged to Nicolae Dragos.
Minutes later, there's a knock on the door. I tuck the sheets in my armpits while Nico shrugs into a hotel robe and answers the door.
The whole crew barges in, bringing with them several room service trays piled high with bagels, croissants, muffins, bacon, scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, steaks, sausage, fruit, yogurt parfaits, and several silver pots of coffee. And just like that, our quiet engagement is suddenly a noisy, raucous, impromptu gathering. Everyone talks over everyone else, laughing, teasing, and telling more of those ridiculous fables. Someone flipped the lock to prevent the door from closing and latching, and at some point in the festivities, Inez shuffles in, wrapped in a robe, looking bleary-eyed and irritated. She stands behind the couch, breathing heavily, both eyes black and blue and green and yellow and swollen, nose crooked, lips puffy, cheeks cut and scabbed, standing stiffly with one hand bracing her ribs.
For a moment, no one speaks.
"Well?" she demands. "One of you assholes pour me coffee.”
It's Nico who moves first, filling a white mug for her. “Here, Inez, sit on the bed with Tati."
Inez nods, shuffling carefully over to the bed and gingerly slides in beside me. I toss the blankets over her lap and wedge a pillow behind her, and she settles back with a sigh.
“Thanks,” she says with a sigh. “I forgot how much torture sucks.”
"No shit," Rev growls.
"Facts," Solomon adds.
Has everyone here been tortured?
"Would you like some food, Inez?" Kane asks.
She sips from her mug, nodding. "Please. I'm fucking ravenous. Fucker didn't feed me."
Slowly, the noise level returns to where it was before Inez arrived—loud. She sips and nibbles, taking it slow while she watches the men—and Scarlett—joking and ribbing each other.
After a while, she turns to me. "So. Tatiana Juric."
“Inez," I say. “Or is it Sophia? Lorenzo only referred to you as Sophia, but in this group, I know old and new names are a sensitive topic."
She snorts. "I have not decided yet. I am Sophia to Lorenzo because he has never known Inez. I am Inez to them because they never knew Sophia. And the two are not…it is a hard thing to know how to merge them." She smiles at me, a quick tilt of her lips, so brief I almost miss it. "Let's just go with Inez, for now. I will need time to learn how to be Sophia again."
Scarlett overhears us and leaves the group of men to climb up on the bed, sitting cross-legged facing us with a bagel in her teeth and a slice of bacon in one hand and coffee in the other. She balances the coffee on her knee and sets the bagel on the other, nibbling on the bacon.
"Not again," she says to Inez.
Inez frowns. "Hmmm? Not again what?"