Alex clears his throat. “I’m sorry,” he tells her.
“I came to tell her I won’t fail you again,” I murmur. “And I’m taking you home.”
“Fine.”
“Route,” I say to Alex.
“East exit. Car at the dock. Swap two blocks away. Second car to the bridge, third to the villa. I run lead, then tail.”
“Good,” I reply, then to Cassandra, “When you’re ready, we move.”
She turns to Clara and lightly touches her shoulder before turning back to me. “I’m ready. Doctors said I was fine to be discharged.”
We step into the hall. I pull the door until the latch catches and look at Cassandra. “She sleeps like a log,” I point out.
“She’s a champion sleeper. It’s her only luxury right now,” she replies solemnly.
We walk. Alex slides ahead, Orlov merges behind. A volunteer with a cart of paperbacks moves aside. We hit the elevator.
I study the three of us in the mirror. Me in a tailored charcoal suit. Cassandra in my coat with the collar up. Alex and Orlov all in black with stoic expressions. We look like a dysfunctional family portrait.
The numbers count down. My hand hovers an inch from Cassandra’s back, not touching. A barrier without pressure. A promise without claim.
Alex steps out first on the ground floor, lifting a hand in a lazy hello to the desk. After a few minutes of conversation with the nurse, Cassandra is discharged.
The doors open to cold air and soft snow. We cross to the dock where the car idles. Warm air spills out when Alex opens the doors. He sets Cassandra in the back like she’s made of glass. I take the passenger seat.
I look at her over my shoulder. “What?” she asks.
“I keep my promises,” I say. “You gave me terms that are now mine to own.”
She turns her face to the window. Snow falls, softening all the hard lines. Alex pulls us into traffic. The hospital gets smaller in the mirror.
Things are not solved. They’re just behind us—for now.
CHAPTER 28
CASSANDRA
Snow whispers softly against the tall windows.
The study is dim and warm, perfect and cozy. Fire low, logs settling with the tiny song wood sings when it gives in to heat. Damien sits on the loveseat, jacket off, sleeves pushed up, a glass in his hand that catches the firelight and throws it back in pieces.
He watches the flames the same way he watches everything—with keen, narrow, brilliant blue eyes.
I hover in the doorway for a breath longer than I mean to. The image of his hands on my belly, his raw truth, loops over and over in my mind.
It’s too much to carry, so I don’t. I pad over the rug and sit down beside him, tucking myself into his side like a tired cat.
No words. No rules. Just pure exhaustion, mental and physical.
He slides his arm around me and pulls me close, like it’s the most natural thing he could do. His chest is solid under my cheek. When he breathes, my body remembers how, releasing a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
The wound on my forearm throbs in a dull, informative way. Beyond that, a new thought glows—faint but insistent.
Baby.
His hand moves, a slow pass along my upper arm to my shoulder in a way that says I’m here, not a request for anything else. I let my eyes fall shut. The house hums, the fire crackles. My last clear thought before sleep takes me is simple and sharp—whatever this is, it’s bigger than we think.
