His lower lip trembles. "Where are you going?"
"I don't know yet. But I need you to be brave and take care of yourself. Can you do that for me?"
He nods, but his eyes are filling with tears and I can feel my heart cracking down the middle. I promised him I wouldn't do this and I'm doing it anyway. Maybe I can send help, or maybe somehow, Fyodor will give up and turn Sasha in to the authorities so someone who is equipped for parenthood can love him.
I lean in and press a kiss to his forehead, lingering there for a moment to breathe him in.
But I can't stay here. I can't.
"I love you," I whisper against his hair. "Remember that."
I stand up and walk toward the door without looking back. My hand finds the handle and I pull it open, stepping out into the hallway with my purse clutched against my chest and my heart breaking into pieces that I don't know how to put back together.
The door closes behind me and I start walking.
I don't know where I'm going or what I'll do. All I know is that I can't be in that room anymore, loving a man who treats me like I'm nothing. I can't keep hoping for something that's never going to happen.
The tears come when I reach the stairwell, blurring my vision until I can barely see the steps in front of me. I hold onto the railing and make my way down, one step at a time, leaving behind the only two people in this country who mean anything to me.
It's the hardest thing I've ever done.
And I don't know if I'm making the right choice or the worst mistake of my entire life.
21
FYODOR
I've been driving for two hours now, circling the same streets over and over, checking every hotel and bus station and late-night cafe I can find in this godforsaken town. Sasha is asleep in the back seat with his head lolled against the window and his breath fogging the glass, and I keep glancing at him in the rearview mirror to make sure he stays that way.
I tried my damnedest to calm him patiently when Noemi marched out of that motel room and he started crying, but I'm a pathetic excuse for a father. I don’t know what to do with him at all. He clung to me desperately, but he needs her. He just lost his mother and I got so short-tempered that I shouted at her, and now she's gone and it's my fault and I don't know how to fix it.
She could be anywhere by now—it's been hours. She could've called a cab or hitched a ride or found some way out of Moscow, and I'd have no way to find her because I don't even know where to start looking. All because I lost my temper with her.
I just want to protect them. That's all I wanted when I told her no to shopping. She wanted new clothes, which isn't a huge thingto ask for. And she wanted books for Sasha after having left behind his studies at the hotel so abruptly, but all I could think about was either of them being seen in public by Koslov's men. I couldn't stand it if they got hurt. It made me irrational at the thought of losing one of them, and I snapped.
I pull into another hotel parking lot and sit there for a minute with the engine idling, trying to decide if it's worth going inside to ask if anyone matching her description checked in tonight. But it's the middle of the night and the lobby looks dark through the windows and I've already done this at three other places with no luck. She doesn't have any money, I know that much. Just whatever was in her purse when I took her from her classroom, which couldn't have been more than a few thousand rubles. That's not enough for a hotel room, let alone a bus ticket back to St. Petersburg.
So where the hell is she?
I pull back onto the street and keep driving, scanning every storefront, sidewalk, and cross street. The city is mostly dead at this hour, just a few cars on the road and the occasional drunk stumbling home from whatever bar is still open. I pass a gas station, a pharmacy with its lights off, a row of closed shops with metal grates pulled down over their windows.
After another full hour of searching, I see a woman walk out the front door of one of those twenty-four hour coffee shops with her collar turned up and her head down. And without even having to think twice, I know it's her.
Noemi has this grace about her in everything she does, including the gait of her walk that is so feminine it appears she could walk on air. One glance at the figure strolling down the sidewalkcupping a paper coffee cup between two hands and my heart twists in my chest.
I pull the car over to the curb and throw it into park, then get out and close the door as quietly as I can so I don't wake Sasha. He needs his sleep and he doesn't need to see whatever is about to happen between me and Noemi. Who knows how she'll respond to me, and he doesn't need to see us bickering again. I cross the sidewalk toward her, and she stops walking when she sees me coming. I'm braced for a fight, ready for the anger that's been building between us to finally explode.
But when I get close enough to see her face, she's not angry at all. She's shivering and scared, her eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks wet from tears she must’ve been crying before I pulled up. She looks exhausted and cold and completely alone, and I feel the fury in my chest start to soften around the edges. I don't see the frustrating woman who has the balls to stand up to me. I see a fragile woman who needs protection.
"Get in the car," I tell her, probably a bit more gruffly than I should. She probably expects gentleness and patience along with an apology. I only realize it when it comes out and she scowls at me.
"No," she grunts, and she keeps walking, ignoring me.
I hurry after her, glancing over my shoulder at the running car where my son sleeps. "Noemi, it's freezing out here and it's the middle of the night. Just get in the car." Now I'm annoyed. The idea that I'm far enough away from my car that someone could jump into it and drive off with my boy is crowding out my ability to find compassion for her.
"You can't talk to me like that." She shakes her head, and I can see her hands shaking around the coffee cup she's holding. "You can't order me around and expect me to just obey. Why the hell do you think I left that motel?" Her feet slap the concrete and she doesn't stop walking.
"I'm trying to help you," I growl, grabbing her arm, making her spin around to face me.
