Boris grunts. It’s the closest thing to approval she’s going to get from him. He turns toward the door and starts heading out, but I catch the set of his shoulders that tells me he’s already regretting this.
I don’t blame him. Part of me is regretting it, too.
The door closes hard enough to rattle the frame, and his boots pound down the stairwell until the building swallows the sound.
Daria stands by the kitchen counter with her arms folded. She watches the door like she expects him to come back and resume the argument.
“He’ll cool down,” I assure her. “He might not agree with the call, but he’ll execute it. That’s who he is.”
She nods, but I see the doubt behind her eyes. Boris stormed out of here angry, and angry men make Daria nervous for obvious reasons.
“Come here,” I prompt, extending my hand.
She crosses the kitchen and stops in front of me. I take her hands and hold them between mine.
“Thank you.” She sighs.
“Don’t thank me,” I reply. “This isn’t a favor. Everything I said to Boris, every condition — that’s the deal. I need you to promise to listen to everything I tell you.”
“I promise, I’ll follow every instruction.”
“And if it goes sideways? If something happens to me?”
She takes a shuddering breath and answers, “Then I’ll let your men get me out.”
The answer is right. It’s the answer I need to hear. But hearing her say it, hearing her already prepared to lose me, guts me in a way I wasn’t ready for.
“Good.” I brush a strand of hair behind her ear because I can’t stop myself. “That’s all I needed.”
She catches my hand and presses her lips to my knuckles. When she peers up at me through her impossibly long lashes, her eyes are full of tears. I wish more than anything I could take away her fear and anxiety.
But I can’t take it away. So, I pull her against my chest and hold her there, and I let that be enough for now.
30
Daria
The nightmare rips me awake with Bogdan’s name stuck in my throat.
I’m drenched in sweat. The sheets are twisted around my legs like restraints, and my heart is hammering so hard that I can feel it in my teeth. The bedroom is dark except for a sliver of light beneath the door, and standing right outside it, I hear Pyotr’s footsteps pause.
Of course, he’s already there.
The door opens before I can call out. Pyotr fills the doorway with one hand on the frame, and I can tell from the way he’s dressed that he hasn’t slept. He’s been walking his circuit.
“Bad one?” he asks.
He crosses the room in three strides and sits on the edge of the bed beside me. His hand finds the back of my neck, warm and steady, and he holds me there until my breathing slows.
“Same one?” he asks.
“He had Kira.” I rub the heels of my palms against my eyes. “He had her, and I couldn’t move. I just stood there.”
“It wasn’t real."
"It sure as shit felt like it.”
The nightmare is already fading, but the feeling it left behind isn’t. The buzzing, frantic energy that crawls under my skin after a bad dream won’t let go. My mind is spinning, looping through tomorrow and every scenario I've imagined a hundred times.
