“You were going somewhere else. I do not want to create inconvenience.”
“You’re not an inconvenience,” I tell her, my grip tightening on the wheel before I ease it.
“You have already done more than required.”
“Nobody required me to do anything, ptichka.”Little bird.I don’t know why I say it. It just fits.
She looks at me slowly, real surprise there this time. “You know that word?”
I keep my eyes on the road. “You look like you’re ready to fly off at any second.” I’m quiet for a beat, then add, “My mother is Russian.”
That makes her turn toward me fully. “She taught you?”
“Da.” Yes.
A smile ghosts her face. “How much do you speak?”
“Enough.”
She keeps looking at me a second longer before facing forward again. “That is… unexpected.” She goes quiet after that, and it isn’t the tense kind of silence. It’s thoughtful. She watches the road ahead, hands resting in her lap. Traffic shifts around us and she follows it without flinching, shoulders steady now beneath my jacket.
A few minutes pass before she speaks again. “You could have left me at the hospital,” she says evenly. “Many people would do this.”
“I wasn’t leaving you there alone,” I reply, not looking at her because I don’t want to see doubt in her face.
Another mile passes before she speaks again. “He will not come?”
She means Volkov. “No.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s dead.”
Her body goes completely still. “I understand,” she says after a moment, and there’s no panic in it, just acceptance.
We pull up to my gate and the system scans my plate before the metal slides open, and she watches the mechanism closely, following the timing of the lock disengaging and the way the panels move. The house comes into view as I drive through, lights on along the perimeter, cameras placed where they can’t be missed if you’re looking for them, and I park in the driveway before cutting the engine.
“You don’t have to get out yet,” I tell her. “Take a minute. Get your bearings.”
She studies the house, slow and thorough, eyes moving over the gate, the corners, the lights along the driveway. After a moment she turns back to me, and there’s something different in her expression. Less guarded.
“I trust you, medved,” she says.
My brow lifts before I can stop it. “Bear?”
She shrugs one shoulder, and there’s the faintest curve to her mouth. “You are large. You are quiet. You look like you would break someone’s spine if they annoyed you.”
“That your official criteria?”
“It is sufficient.” Then a soft laugh slips out of her before she can swallow it, and it changes her whole face for a second.
I step out before she can open her door and walk around the front of the truck, pulling it open for her. “Easy, ptichka,” I mutter, more habit than anything. I hold my hand out and she looks at it, then at me, one brow lifting just slightly.
“Careful, medved,” she says under her breath, and there’s humor there now.
I snort once despite myself. “Get out of the truck.”
She places her fingers in my hand anyway. Her grip is light but sure, not clinging, just steady enough to let me guide her down. I don’t squeeze. I don’t overdo it. I just give her balance and let go once her boots hit the driveway.
