I attempt to smile at him, my heart aching. “I’ve missed you too.”
Dominik places kisses into my hair. “How have you really beendikaya koshka?”
“Surviving,” I answer honestly. That’s what it feels like. Earlier with Gavriil was just about surviving too, right?
I can’t make myself accept the lie, so I know Dominik won’t buy it either.
“How about you?” I ask him.
“It doesn’t matter. Not when you’re here with me now.”
That probably means it’s been bad. I should’ve known Gavriil wasn’t keeping his promise. I plan to confront him about that as soon as I see the asshole.
Still, for a few moments, everything feels so normal between us. Well, as normal as they could possibly be.
We may be in a cell, but Dom’s arms make my body forget.
It’s just him and me. I missed that.
But Gavriil still tries to haunt my thoughts like a shadow at the edge of the room. A handprint on my skin.
“I don’t know why you’re here; I’m glad that you are.”
“Me too,” I agree, my throat tightening. “But…there’s something you should know.”
Dominik pulls back to look at my face with a frown. “What’s going on?”
The words get stuck. I can’t even form them.
I know I should tell him, but I can’t. Not when I haven’t even had time to wrap my head around what the hell just happened. So, I give him a different truth instead. “There’s, um, there have been attacks by the Irish.”
“Fuck,” Dominik mutters. “I knew that there were attacks but not who or why. Gavriil won’t talk to me about any fucking thing.”
I quickly tell him everything that I heard at Gavriil’s meeting. The plans. The attacks. I also tell him about Leon and Nazar and what happened earlier today.
“Why is he shifting our defenses so much?” Dominik sighs as he runs his hand through his hair, looking stressed. “He’s not thinking ahead. He’s reacting. Lashing out.”
“He seemed upset today about Nazar betraying him and what he said. As upset as he’ll let himself appear,” I tell him, remembering the way Gavriil viciously sliced the man’s throat. The blood dripping from his hand before he touched my face, then touched himself…
Dominik shakes his head. “He needs to stop making mistakes before he gets everyone killed. Including himself.”
I don’t know what Gavriil should be doing, but I’m sure Dominik knows.
“He hasn’t told you anything?”
“No, and I don’t care,” Dominik mutters. “Not really. Only enough to make sure you’re still safe here.”
“He’s been letting me see what’s going on,” I tell him. “He let me sit in on his meeting and then the interrogation…”
Dominik lifts my hand to his lips and places a kiss on it. “You’ll have to be my eyes and ears up there,dikaya koshka. I don’t know when we’ll see each other again, but if things keepgetting worse, and I assume they will, then we need to leave before this war ends up on our doorstep. What you find out may help get us all out of here faster.”
He’s always plotting, planning. And now he’s giving me a purpose. It steadies me more than I care to admit.
War is coming for Gavriil and the Bratva, but Dom is more worried about me. About us.
I should do the same.
Determination surges within me as I finally have a task to focus on. A goal in mind.
