Her gaze flicks to Bella in my arms, then back to me. There’s something almost like regret there, buried deep.
“Keep them alive, if you can,” she adds. “I’d rather not waste a good son twice.”
Then she turns away fully and walks on, climbing into the car without looking back.
The engines start. The convoy pulls out, taillights shrinking into the dark, taking the drive—and whatever comes next—with them.
I stand there on the tarmac, Bella pressed against me, her heartbeat thudding against my chest.
EPILOGUE
BELLA
By the timeIrina’s cars disappear through the gate, my legs feel like they might give out.
The tarmac is suddenly too big and too quiet. The plane is still humming behind us, lights on, door open, like it’s waiting for a script that has just been thrown away. Nikolai is a dark shape on the ground, a smear around him that I’m trying very hard not to look at.
Aleksander is still holding me. His arm is solid around my back, his other hand on my shoulder. I can feel how hard his heart is beating under my palms.
“You all right?” he asks quietly.
It’s such a stupid question that something inside me wobbles. I let out a shaky laugh that sounds a little like a sob. “No,” I say. “Not even close.”
He huffs a breath, almost a smile. “Me neither.”
His face looks different now that Irina is gone. Tired in a way that’s deeper than lack of sleep. There’s blood on his sleeve thatis not his. There’s a new line etched between his brows that was not there a few days ago.
He was ready to die for me. He almost watched me die instead. His best friend betrayed him. His mother just walked away with the thing that nearly destroyed all of us, and he let her.
And still, when he looks at me, there’s that softness I don’t know how to carry.
This was supposed to be the part where I leave. Where I get on a plane and disappear and never look back. Instead I’m standing here pressed against him like I have nowhere else in the world to go.
“Bella,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say.
His hand slides from my shoulder to my cheek, fingers rough and warm as they cup my face. The touch is careful, like he’s afraid I might break. His thumb brushes under my eye and I realize there are tears. Again.
“You don’t have to stay,” he says. “You still have the money. You can take another flight. Go anywhere. None of this has to be your problem.”
I search his face. “Do you want me to go?”
He pauses. That tells me enough.
“I want you safe,” he says finally. “That’s all I have wanted since the moment you walked back into my life.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again. “No,” he says quietly. “I don’t want you to go.”
I feel suddenly very clear. I’m still scared. I’m still shaking. But the fear is not as loud as it was. Something else has pushed past it.
“Good,” I say.
His brows pull together just a little.
“Because I’m not going anywhere,” I add.
