“Keep it.”
I close my fingers around the matte black handle and tuck it under my pillow, as he pulls me closer, his arm heavy across my waist, his breath warm against the back of my neck.
“Sleep,” he murmurs. “Ya zdes’. Ya nikuda ne deyus’.” I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.
I fall asleep with his arms around me, and for the first time in my life, the monster under the bed is the only reason I can close my eyes.
ROMAN — Winter Dacha, 14:23
The road to the dacha is forty kilometers of frozen birch forest, and I’ve been watching Anya sleep against my shoulder for thirty-seven of them.
Her mouth has softened in sleep, stripped of the sharp edges she wears against the world. She is defenseless here, in my car, in my territory, and the sight of that seatbelt crease on her cheek makes something twist violently behind my ribs. She’s a contradiction I’m desperate to solve—a creature of light I’m dragging into my darkness.
She whimpered twice from dreams I can’t protect her from, and both times my hand found her thigh.
Both times, I didn’t pull away.
Chyort.I’m losing my fucking mind over this woman.
The convoy winds through the forest that’s been Volkov territory for three generations—two SUVs ahead, two behind,Luka driving this one. He has been silent for the entire trip, but his eyes keep reverting to us.
“She’s not ready for this.” His voice is low enough that it won’t wake her. “Thebratkiare talking. Saying you’ve gone soft.”
For half a second, I imagine slamming his head into the steering wheel, feeling the bone give under my palm. The urge passes. Luka is necessary.
“Let them talk. When half of them are dead next month, the survivors can talk about that instead.”
“Roman—”
“Say what you’re thinking, Luka. Before I lose patience.”
His jaw tightens. Smart man. He shuts up.
I look at her sleeping face.
My father would call this weakness.
My father is dead.
She shifts in her sleep, her knee pressing against my thigh. The small bones of her wrist rest on my leg. How easily that wrist would break. How the bruises would bloom purple against her pale skin. How I’d kill anyone who left those marks.
Anyone except me.
Yob tvoyu mat’.I need to get my head straight.
But then she makes a sound—soft, wounded, something from a nightmare—and my hand is in her hair before I can stop it, stroking, soothing, whispering Russian nonsense against her temple.
“Tikho, kroshka. Ya zdes’.” Quiet, little one. I’m here.
She settles. Her breathing evens.
And I sit there in the armored car with my hand in her hair, knowing with absolute certainty that Luka is right.
* * *
The dacha appears through the trees like a fortress pretending to be a home.
Three stories of reinforced concrete hidden behind traditional wooden facades. Security cameras in the bird feeders. A helicopter pad behind thebanyathat officially doesn’t exist. My grandfather built it during the Soviet collapse as a fallback position—somewhere to run when Moscow burned. My father used it for interrogations.
