My heart won’t stop racing. It’s all moving so fast. One decision could change the course of everything. I didn’t know when I walked through that gate that it would happen like this, moving easily from one side to the other. I was foolish to think I could just run away from this life. The thought echoes in the chambers of my mind as my left foot crunches the twigs on the ground and my right side leans heavier into Nikolai. He’s walking so fast, pulling me in closer to him. It’s all moving too fast.
There are small scratches everywhere. My jeans are torn and covered in dirt and my arms are smeared with blood. What’s worse is that I can’t stop shaking. I think it’s just the adrenaline, or maybe it’s due to anxiety. I don’t know which, but I can’t stop shaking and it makes Nikolai hold me that much tighter.
The branches crack beneath our feet with every step and I keep looking back. They must hear us. It’s darker with every passing moment, and I don’t know where we’re going but it doesn’t matter; Nikolai leads me away. Nikolai will be the one Carter blames.
Every small sound behind us makes me jump, but even then, I’m not given a moment to stop; Nikolai doesn’t let up. I can hear his heart pounding, and I know he knows he’s dead if Carter’s men catch us before we get out of here.
I don’t think he’d hurt me, but he’ll kill Nikolai.
“He can’t find us together.” The words rush from me as I reach up and grab Nikolai’s shirt, forcing him to stop and think. “He can’t think you took me; he’ll kill you. He can’t–” the words don’t stop tumbling out of me, but Nik hushes me.
“I have you, and I don’t care if he knows it.” He’s surprisingly calm, and justified in his response. “I’ve waited too long to get close enough to save you.” My thoughts race, wondering how he even got through Carter’s security, where they are and how long Nikolai has waited out here for this moment.
“How did you know?” I ask him, my eyes searching his for all of the answers.
“Someone told me to come. He told me I’d be able to save you.” As he speaks, Nik’s voice is full of so many emotions. “I’m sorry it took so long, Ria,” he says, his voice cracking as he grips my waist and urges me forward. I stumble, refusing to move and waiting for him to look back at me. I need him to realize how serious this is.
“He’s going to kill you,” I say and stare deep into his light blue eyes, knowing it’s true. Before I can urge him to run, he tells me, “Not if I kill him first.”
“Don’t talk like that.” The words are torn from my throat, immediate and raw, just as instincts are. Betrayal flashes in Nikolai’s eyes and I wish I could take the words back, if only to ease his pain, but I can’t. He’s stunned and pained, crushed from my words, but it doesn’t last long.
The sound of heavy footsteps behind us forces me to crush myself into Nik’s embrace. Gripping onto his shirt, I beg him in a whisper, “Run.”
I can feel his large hand splayed along my shoulder, pulling me closer to him as he whispers against my hair, “Never. Never again.”
My face is buried in his chest when I hear my name called out behind me. For a moment I imagine any way that I can barter my life for Nikolai’s, but I don’t believe for one second that Carter would negotiate with me. Not when I have no control and nothing left to offer.
The moment is short lived, because I hear the voice again. So familiar, yet it feels as if it’s been forever since I last heard my cousin Brett.
Shock forces me to pull away from Nik, but again everything happens so fast. Even as he grabs me in a bear hug, Brett drags me along the edge of the woods to a dirt road where an old, beat-up truck is idling. There are two other men with us, but I don’t remember their names and with Brett clinging to my side, I don’t have time to ask.
“I’m so sorry, Ria,” my cousin keeps saying as we move to the truck. “I’m a bastard and a coward, and I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him repeatedly, not knowing what else to say or how to comfort him. Or where the fuck he came from. “I told you to run,” is all I can settle on, but he shakes his head, remorse flooding his eyes.
“Two in the back, armed and ready.” Nik gives the command as the truck door swings open with a creak that carries through the woods.
“Ria.” Brett says my name reverently before hugging me one last time and helping me up into the truck. The dried leather seats are cracked. I’ve never seen this car in my entire life.
“Don’t worry, it’s sound, just made to look like it’s something to be ignored,” Nik says, as if reading my mind. My gaze finds his as the truck sways with Brett and one of the other guys climbing into the back and under a tarp, guns slipped through inconspicuous holes. This truck was made for getaways. The quiet hum of the engine is all I hear for a moment.
It’s only then that I feel like it’s real. Like I’m actually leaving Carter and going home.
Going back to my father and his men.
The two other men I can’t place, although their faces are so familiar, but their names still elude me in this moment. I can feel their eyes on me as they climb into the back, assessing, judging, and questioning. Wanting to know what happened and more importantly, whose side I’m on, I’m sure.
He let me get away. It’s all I can think. Carter let them take me. That’s the only way it could be this easy.
The thought brings a swell of emotion up my throat and I feel like I’m going to be sick again. The dry heave forces me to open the door and lean out of it. The air is cold against the sudden heat spreading through my body and traveling up to my face.
Everything is quiet as the sickness leaves me. It’s disgusting and leaves an acidic burn in its wake. But even when it’s over, I can’t bring myself back into the car fully. I lean out of it, feeling the cool air and wishing I could leave as easily as the wind can.
It’s all too much. It’s all too fast and I hold my belly, not knowing what to think or what to do.
It’s only when Nik gently rubs my back and whispers that we have to leave that I resign myself to the fate I chose.
“I didn’t plan for this,” I confess to Nikolai as he pulls me back into the truck and gives me a napkin to wipe my mouth.
I didn’t plan to leave the man I love. I didn’t plan on him allowing it.
I didn’t plan to run back to my family, to his enemy.
And I didn’t plan for the small life I wanted to protect from all of this.
I needed to run to get away. Not to fall back into the same game, only to find the color of my pieces have changed.
“He’s going to hate me,” I cry out softly and once again, Nikolai pulls me into him. The truck is still idle and I know time is ticking. Precious time.
Nik calls out for one of the guys to come drive and scoots to the middle so he can comfort me, even as I cry over Carter.
As the other man gets into the driver’s seat, giving me a look of sympathy, Nik reaches behind the seat and pulls out a thick, wool blanket.
“It’s all right,” Nik tells me, not taking the moment to curse Carter or question my sanity. “We’re going home.”
For the first ten minutes, I kept expecting bullets to fly out of nowhere. I was ready for the ping of steel to slam against the truck. And then I thought maybe Carter would just appear in front of the truck. Standing in the middle of the road like a madman.
It took too long for me to swallow the jagged pill. I’ve truly left Carter. He’s not coming to take me back.
“You don’t have to tell me now.” Nik’s voice slices through my thoughts. The man at the wheel, a man named Connor, glances at me. I know he’s curious. I can’t imagine what everyone thinks of me, knowing I chose to stay with Carter when they came to rescue me.
Shamefully, I consider making up a lie, just so they won’t know how I’ve fallen for him and how I betrayed them by doing so. The idea comes and goes with the rumble of the truck being carried into the fall air.
“You don’t have to tell me right now,” he repeats and I gaze into Nik’s eyes as he continues, “but I need to know everything you remember.” He nods slightly, as if wanting me to agree to such a thing.
“You don’t want to know, Nik,” I answer him, feeling the painful fissure again in my chest. My cheeks heat as I stare down at my hands and pull away from him. I start to tell him that I love Carter and that I only ran because he doesn’t love me in a way that’s healthy. I only ran because I can’t bear to think of a child growing up in this world we inhabit. I wanted to run away from it all, but as the truck jostles over a bump, I know I only ran into another hell.
“You’re safe now,” Connor says calmly from his seat. It takes me a long second to remember who he is. To place his face and his voice. Turning around in my seat, I remember the other man from when we were younger. The memories pooling together and reminding me who I am.
“How about I tell you a secret?” Nik offers. He sets his hand on my thigh and rubs a soothing circle with the pad of his thumb. He’s so much taller than me, I have to crane my neck to look up at him after watching him swallow.
The air changes instantly, tensing and becoming thick. Too thick as Nik starts, “Do you remember the day we met? At my father’s funeral when we were just kids?”
My pulse feels weak as I answer him, knowing deep inside of me that Nikolai will never hurt me, but also feeling that whatever he’s about to tell me, whatever it is, is going to cause me pain. It’s the look in his eyes. I recognize it too well.
“You have to wait for me to finish,” Nik presages his confession, and I nod. “Tell me you will. Promise me, Ria,” he commands me, his voice hardening.
I glance at Connor, who cautiously looks back to us before I tell Nikolai, “I promise.” With a quick breath I add, “I’ll let you finish.”
Butterflies flutter in the pit of my stomach as Nikolai says, “I was working for Romano at the funeral. When my father died, I was working for Romano.”
The words hit me over and over. Working for Romano. A revolting wave of nausea spreads through me as Nikolai swallows and peers down at me, waiting for a response. I can’t breathe.
Romano. The man who took me and traded me for a war. The man who would have seen me dead that night I killed Stephan rather than to have his ally murdered.
My body stiffens and I can’t control it. I’ve never feared Nikolai, not until this moment.
“Romano told me your father had my father killed. That’s why I was so angry when you touched me. When you came over to me as if you had any right to.”
I can’t swallow and I struggle to breathe.
“I don’t know what my father–” I battle the need to explain, to defend, to do whatever I have to do to survive with the anger that slowly rises. Lies. My life has been built on so many lies and with so many men I can’t trust.
Nikolai cuts me off. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters, Ria.”
I have to bite down on my lip to keep from screaming at him not to call me by the name my mother called me. The betrayal and rage stir inside of me, brewing a cocktail I’m not sure I can control.
My best friend. My only friend. Deceived me for years. He was a rat. A fucking rat!
“Your father told me that it was Romano who’d done it. That Romano had my father killed. And I didn’t know who to believe. I had no one, yet both of them had hired me. I was only a kid; I was angry and more than that, I was scared and so fucking lonely.”
The truck moves steadily along until we’re out of the brush and dirt road entirely, headed down a back road of thin asphalt.
The day at the funeral comes back to me slowly with the quiet rumble, the picture painted in a different hue than I’ve seen it before.
“I’m still the same, Ria. You have to understand. I was a kid, and you don’t say no to men like your father… or to men like Romano.”
“Did my father know?” I manage to ask him as the anger wanes and the boy in my memory looks back at me. I remember his face. I remember the anger and I remember how he held me in return. How I needed someone just like he did. He was my someone. But the lies… I’m so sick of the sins and secrets.
“No.” His answer is solemn. “Romano wanted me to keep eyes on Talvery, and Talvery hired me to do shit work. I figured one day, one of them would kill me.” Nik’s voice is resigned and flat, with no motive revealed in his words other than survival. “Romano would kill me for not telling him everything. Or your father, for being a rat. I didn’t want this. I was only a boy.”
Through my lashes, I peek at Connor, who doesn’t respond. That’s when it hits me that Connor knew too.
Adrenaline spikes through me, numbing me as Connor’s gaze catches mine.
“I don’t work for Romano,” Connor tells me before I have to ask. “But I’ve known what Nik has – all of us have – for years.”
My gut churns. My throat’s tight as I look up at Nik. “You didn’t tell me?” The words are merely whispers.
Nik doesn’t speak, he only looks down at me with regret, but Connor answers in his place. “Your father will kill us if he finds out we know, Aria.” I can barely tear my gaze from Nik to look back at Connor. “You didn’t deserve to be put in the middle.”
The irony of his words aren’t lost on me.
“I had to stay and as everything happened, I did what I had to do to survive.”
“You didn’t have to stay,” I argue.
“Yes, I did.”
“Why did you stay? You could have left any time and just run.” I push the words out, containing my anger that’s dimming, and remembering all the times we’ve been together. At one time in my life, he was my everything, and yet, he held onto secrets that could have destroyed me.
It’s quiet for so long, I start to think I didn’t ask the question, until I look up at him.
He stares back at me with such pain in the depths of his haunted eyes. Pain that I don’t already know, yet somewhere deep in my soul I did know. I’ve always known.
“I could never leave you, Ria,” he tells me and then rips his gaze away to look straight ahead as his eyes gloss over.
“Then why let them take me?” I ask him and swallow the hard lump growing in my throat. “You gave me to Romano!” My voice raises and I can’t help it, but as it does, Nik grips me tighter and peers at me with a fierceness that’s undeniable.
He told me that he’s the reason I was taken. It’s Nikolai’s fault all of this started. If he loved me so much, why would he dare risk it?
“No, I didn’t. He fucked me over, and he’ll pay for that.” Nik’s jaw is hard and his eyes dark with anger. The kind of anger that I’ve seen before. Anger that comes with revenge.
“I wanted you away from this life,” he confesses to me, his shoulders relaxing as he stares out the window behind me. “Your father is getting older. Everyone knows his time is coming to an end. What do you think would have happened to you?”
I don’t answer Nik’s question.
“He promised he’d save you. I lured you out, taking your notebook, and I knew you’d try to retrieve it. I knew you’d think it was Mika. And Romano lied to me. I’m sorry, Ria. Your father doesn’t have long, and I needed to protect you. I needed you away from all of this.”
“It wasn’t your decision to make,” is all I can say to him. My notebook. It’s an odd feeling to have an object mean so much in a life where nothing is meaningful anymore.
“I can’t believe it was all you.”
“I had to save you,” he tells me and settles back into his seat, apparently done with the conversation.
It’s hard not to blame it all on him. Everything I’ve gone through. I struggle with all the emotions running through my blood.
“You love him, don’t you?” he asks me with a hint of disgust in his tone. “He’s brainwashed you.” He gives himself an explanation without waiting for my response.
“I do,” I say, staring Nikolai right in the eye. “I love Carter Cross…” I have to swallow before finishing. “But I’m not dumb enough to think we’d last… Because he doesn’t love me. Not how I need.”
My heart does this awful thing just then. It pumps, but it’s lifeless. It beats, but there’s no sound. It gives up on me in this moment, and I can feel it as it happens.
It’s a lie on my lips. I hear a whisper in the back of my head.
I have to remember why I left. I have to remember this life and what it does to people.
“I need to get out of here,” I murmur beneath my breath, not to Nikolai or Connor, but to myself.
“I can help you,” Nik is quick to tell me, pulling me close to him although I’m still in his grasp. “I’ll make it right. I’ll get you out of here, Ria. I just have to do one thing first.”
