And more content than I had ever been in my entire life.
CHAPTER 18
Somewhere en route to Moldova, one week ago…
Katya
The cabin lights were low, humming softly above us, the jet slicing smoothly through the sky like nothing existed outside its pressurized world.
Andrei still had his arms wrapped around me. One arm lay under my shoulders, the other draped lazily across my waist. I rested my cheek against his chest, still catching my breath.
“You were right,” he murmured into my hair.
I didn’t lift my head. “About what?”
“Revenant.” His fingers traced a lazy, absent-minded pattern on my hip. “Something’s off. I’ve been thinking about it since I got that call.”
I closed my eyes, letting the vibration of his voice settle through me. “Because they didn’t want me there?”
“Because they’re hiding something,” he corrected. “And not just from you.”
I shifted a little, enough to look at him. “So how are we handling the fact that this ‘client group’ thinks only one person is coming? We can’t exactly walk in with a surprise extra body.”
He grinned like he’d been waiting for the question. “We’re not.”
I blinked. “Meaning?”
“I already called them and told them two people were coming,” he explained.
My fingers stilled on his chest. “What?”
He shrugged a shoulder, smug. “I adjusted the terms before we took off. Told them my second would attend.”
“Your second,” I repeated, a laugh slipping out. “And they agreed?”
“They didn’t know enough to argue.” He ran a hand through his hair, messy from everything that we had just done.
I stared at him, realizing that while I had been lying awake in the Dragunov estate plotting how to stow away on this plane, he had already reshaped the mission parameters with a single phone call.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” I asked softly.
“Because,” he said, fingers sliding along my spine in a slow, reassuring line, “I saw you when I told you that Revenant said you weren’t invited. The way you went quiet. The way you started watching me like you expected me to put a knife in your back.”
My throat tightened.
He continued, voice gentler now. “I knew you weren’t going to sit still. So I didn’t bother telling you to stay put.”
I frowned faintly. “Why didn’t you stop me from sneaking on the plane?”
He smirked, eyes glinting with that dark, teasing heat that had made me melt earlier. “I figured you’d try. And I figured the only way to keep you safe was to let you do what you were going to do anyway.”
“That’s terrible logic,” I murmured.
“That’s Dragunov logic,” he countered.
I huffed a soft, tired laugh and rested my head back against him. My whole body was warm, and entirely too content in a way I didn’t trust yet. He shifted just a little, tightening his arm around me until I felt wrapped, contained, and well and truly claimed.
He dipped his head to brush his lips against my temple. “I knew you needed me,” he said. “That’s why.”
