“I’m going to rinse this and stitch it closed. OK?” Her beautiful black eyes are like anchors, just enough to keep me from going adrift again. At some point she took my hand, and I realize I’m gripping hers with bone-breaking force. “That was the worst of it.”
I nod, and she proceeds to pour alcohol into the wound. I gasp, but she doesn’t even look at me, only continues working, quick, practiced, deft movements. A needle and suture thread appear in her hands.
“Where did you learn to do this?” I ask, voice ragged. I look away as she sets to stitching the hole closed.
“My mother. My father taught me to shoot, she taught me to mend.” The pierce of the needle bunches my nerves so tight I think I might throw up. But a few more stabs and it’s over, Annika clipping the thread and setting to wrapping the wound with gauze. “A little cliché, isn’t it.”
I look up at her and find her smiling. “I wish I’d known my mother,” is what I hear myself saying.
Her smile falls, eyes widening. She quickly turns back to my arm, binding with ginger fingers. “You’ve never told me about her.”
I shrug. “Nothing to tell. She left us when we were kids. You know my dad was in the Bratva. He was a raging alcoholic. Could barely walk straight most days. She walked out on him when I was eight. Never came back.” Why am I telling her this? Heat rises up the back of my neck, but when I look into her face, I find no judgement, only softness. I picture, against my will and maybe because of hers, us, as parents.
“I’m sorry,” she says. She wets a rag and continues cleaning blood from the rest of my arm, from my chest and stomach. As she cleans, her eyes take in the tattoos that mark almost every inch of me. “These are beautiful. You didn’t have nearly so many three years ago.”
“No.”
“That one.” She points her lips at the Sacred Heart on the inside of my bicep. “I remember that one.”
I know what she’s doing. I also know that my resolve to stop her is dissipating rapidly. That every time we’re alone together, I forget the world around us. “Stop,” I order her softly. Her hands still on my torso, cool against my burning skin. “You said this wasn’t a game anymore.”
Her face hardens. “It’s not.”
“I know what you’re doing.”
She narrows her eyes, then rises, tossing the bloody rag in the sink. “Fuck you.”
I catch her arm as she turns to leave. When I stand up, she shrinks back, dwarfed by my immensity. Yvan is still out by the Jeeps. I shove the door closed and push her back against it. “Don’t tempt me,” I hear myself say.
“I’m not heartless,” she says icily, her black eyes piercing mine. “My kindness isn’t false. It wasn’t three years ago either. Fuck you for thinking I’m only capable of deception. Fuck you for thinking I am only the Daughter of the Snake and nothing else. Fuck you—”
I kiss her, hard, and she shoves me away.
“Don’t,” she commands. “I’m not a fucking animal to be beaten and then patted on the head. Don’t call me a liar and then kiss me, Maxim.”
I search her face. Truth. Lies. I don’t know. All I know is that deep in my gut, I trust her. “Alright.”
Her eyes widen. “Alright?”
“Say it. Again. Look me in the eye and tell me they’re mine.”
Tears instantly rise in them, a bright sheen. She’s silent a long moment, her palms against my stomach, our bodies so close we’re nearly touching. “They’re yours,” she whispers. “I’m yours.”
“Right now,” I say, “everything changes.”
She nods once, solemnly. “I know.”
“No going back.”
“I know.”
“You are choosing a side.”
“Yes.”
My heart is slamming. “Say it.”
“You have my loyalty,” Annika whispers. “You have me.”
