Then I start walking toward him.
I don't know what I'm doing. Don't know what I'll say when I reach him, or what any of this means. But my feet keep moving, carrying me closer, and I don't try to stop them.
Whatever this is, I'm done running from it.
Chapter 14 - Misha
The rain hasn't stopped since we crossed the Nevada border.
I sit in the back of the SUV, watching water streak across the windows, and try not to think about the blood on my hands. Not literally—I washed it off at the rendezvous point, scrubbed until my skin was raw—but I can still feel it. The warmth, the slickness, the way it pools in the creases of your palms when there's enough of it.
There was enough of it tonight.
The extraction went sideways almost immediately. Alexei's intelligence was good, but Crane had more men than we anticipated—reinforcements from a nearby property, called in when our team breached the perimeter. What should have been a surgical strike turned into a firefight.
We got the women out. All eight of them, including Mirella. They're on their way to a safe house now, where doctors will examine them and counselors will try to help them piece together whatever's left of their lives.
But four of Crane's men are dead. Three of them by my hand.
The first one came around a corner and I put two bullets in his chest before he could raise his weapon. The second tried to grab one of the women—Mirella, actually—and I broke his neck with my bare hands. The third was running for an alarm panel when I shot him in the back.
I don't regret any of it. Those men were complicit in horrors I don't want to think about. The world is better without them.
But that doesn't mean their blood washes off easily.
"Fifteen minutes out," Alexei says from the front seat.
I nod, though he's not looking at me. My clothes are still damp with rain and sweat, my shirt stained with blood that isn't mine. I should have changed before we left Nevada. Should have made myself presentable before returning to the estate.
But I'm tired. Bone-deep tired, the kind that settles into your marrow and doesn't let go. And some part of me—the part that's been growing louder since Bianca arrived—wants her to see me like this. Wants her to understand what I really am, what I really do, so she can make an informed decision about whether to keep walking toward me or finally turn away.
The gates come into view, wrought iron against the gray sky. The guards wave us through without stopping. Home. If you can call a gothic fortress full of ghosts and armed men a home.
The SUV pulls up to the front entrance, and I step out into the rain. It's lighter now, more mist than downpour, but it soaks through my jacket within seconds. I don't care. The cold feels good. Clarifying.
I'm halfway to the door when I see her.
She's standing at the entrance to the greenhouse path, her hair wet, her clothes plastered to her body. She looks like she's been out here for a while, waiting. Watching.
Our eyes meet across the gravel.
For a moment, neither of us moves. The rain falls between us, soft and relentless. She looks different than she did yesterday—something has shifted in her expression, some wall has come down. I don't know what it means.
Then she starts walking toward me.
My heart stops. Stutters. Restarts at a rhythm that feels dangerous.
She should be running the other way. I'm covered in evidence of violence, reeking of gunpowder and death. Whatever she sees in my face right now, it can't be good. The darkness I carry isn't metaphorical tonight—it's written all over me.
But she keeps coming.
We meet in the middle of the driveway. She stops a few feet away, close enough that I can see the raindrops clinging to her eyelashes. Her eyes drop to my shirt, to the dark stains that the rain hasn't managed to wash away.
"Is that blood?" she asks.
"Yes."
"Yours?"
