The hesitation lasts maybe two seconds. But two seconds is a fucking eternity when you’re waiting to find out the answer to a question like that.
Solis pivots to face me fully. “Yeah,” he finally says. “He does. And he’s looking for you. Clock’s ticking, my friend.”
Then he walks off. Around the corner and gone. Just a man and his dog on a quiet Saturday morning.
51
ELIANA
window /'windo/: noun
1: the brief period when a dish must be served at peak quality.
2: the instant everything you thought was impossible suddenly becomes a door.
This rose bush is basically turning me into a pincushion. Thorns dig into my skin everywhere, a million little pricks of pain, but I don’t dare move. I’m too busy listening. Every nerve in my body is tuned to the frequency of Bastian, straining to hear something, anything, that will tell me he’s okay.
But all I hear is the soundtrack of Suburbia. Problem is, every sound has taken on the most menacing quality possible.
A car door slams somewhere down the block and I flinch so hard my teeth clack together, because what if that’s Aleksei throwing Bastian into a trunk? A dog barks in a neighboring yard, and my heart seizes, because that could be Aleksei bringing bloodthirsty hounds to rip Bastian limb from limb. The crackle of leaves above me could be wind or could be footsteps or Aleksei hissingvicious promises of torture, and I can’t tell the difference, I can’tseethe difference, and God, I’ve never hated my blindness more than I do in this moment.
My lips still buzz with the kiss Bastian gave me before he left. It tasted far too much likegoodbyefor my liking. He knows something. He saw something. And now, he’s out there, alone, with a bullet wound in his gut, facing whatever made the fear run cold in his veins like it’s doing right now in mine.
I sit, and sit, and sit, and do my best not to freak out. It goes… medium-well.
Until footsteps approach through the grass, and all my fears get jacked up to eleven out of ten.
I freeze, every muscle locking up, sweat prickling cold on my skin. The thorns jab deeper into my shoulders as I huddle back against the fence, trying to make myself smaller, invisible,please God let me be invisible?—
Then a pair of hands grabs me.
I start to scream before he kisses the fear away. It’s a rush of wintergreen in my mouth, like aloe for my soul. I hug onto Bastian so hard that it’s not until he winces that I remember I really should not be doing that, given his current condition.
Even still, I can’t quite let go fully. I’m running my fingertips all over him, head to toe, checking for wetness, for the hot slick of fresh blood, for any sign that something went wrong out there.
I find nothing. He’s intact. He’swhole.
“What happened?” My fingers are still twisted in the fabric of his hoodie. “Bastian, what the hell happened?”
Bastian sighs wearily. “The man following us wasn’t Bratva. He was FBI.”
I blink. “FBI? As in the Federal Bureau of Investigation…?”
“I didn’t believe it at first, either. But he had his badge on him and it looked legit, as far as I could tell. Special Agent Jordan Solis. He said he’s been working Aleksei’s case for years.” Bastian’s fingers lace through mine. “He told me that Harold Fitzgerald is dead. Aleksei got to him before he could testify. Two bullets in the back of his skull, tongue cut out and stuffed in his jacket pocket. The full Bratva Special.”
My stomach lurches. I remember Harold’s sweaty handshake the first time I met him. He was a worm, but nobody deserves to die like that.
“So that’s it then,” I summarize. “Harold’s dead and Aleksei wins.”
“Not quite,” he says. “Solis said the FBI recovered Harold’s documents from a bank vault. Eliana… they haveevidence. Lots of it, all of it painting Aleksei as a bad motherfucker. All they’re missing is a witness. Someone who can connect the dots, fill in the gaps, put a face and a voice to all that paperwork so a grand jury understands what it all means.”
Something is building in my chest. Something I’m almost afraid to name. “Bastian…” My voice comes out reedy and thin. “What are you saying?”
His hands cup my face. “They’re offering me full immunity. In exchange for my testimony.”
Immunity. Testimony.These aren’t words I’m familiar with. Just like Yasmin telling me about her pregnancy, I have to rollthem around in my mouth a hundred times before they even start to make sense.
But as they do, it’s like flavor after flavor explodes on my tongue. It’s a ten-course tasting menu of freedom.
