I didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to hold the weight of his words without crumbling under them. So I did the only thing I could think of—I kissed him.
It was soft at first, gentle, a thank-you I couldn't put into words. But it deepened quickly, heat building between us like it always did, his hands sliding into my hair, my body pressing against his.
"Bedroom," he murmured against my lips.
"Yes."
We didn't make it to the bedroom. We barely made it off the couch before clothes started coming off, hands exploring, breath coming faster. We ended up on the floor, tangled together on the expensive rug, and I lost myself in him completely.
Afterward, we lay there in the darkness, the city lights filtering through the windows, our bodies cooling in the night air.
"We should move to the bed," I said eventually.
"Probably."
Neither of us moved.
"I'm tired," I admitted. "More tired than I should be. The sessions today took more out of me than I expected."
"Then rest. We have nowhere to be."
I closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion wash over me. There was a strange heaviness in my limbs, a bone-deep weariness that seemed disproportionate to what I'd actually done. Probably just stress. Disrupted sleep. The accumulated weight of everything that had happened.
But beneath the tiredness, something else stirred. A feeling I couldn't quite name. Like something was different, something had shifted, though I couldn't identify what or when.
"What are you thinking?" Rodion murmured, his hand stroking my hair.
"Nothing," I lied. "Just tired."
"Then sleep. I'll carry you to bed later."
I smiled against his chest and let myself drift, his heartbeat steady beneath my cheek.
Tomorrow would bring more sessions, more waiting, more uncertainty. But tonight, there was this. Warmth and safety, and the feeling of being exactly where I was supposed to be.
Chapter 19 - Rodion
Something was wrong with Keira.
I'd noticed it over the past few days—small things, easy to dismiss individually but forming a pattern I couldn't ignore. The way she pushed food around her plate at breakfast without actually eating. The pallor of her skin in the morning light. The exhaustion that seemed to hit her earlier each evening, sending her to bed before ten when she used to stay up reading until midnight.
"I'm fine," she said whenever I asked. "Just tired. The sessions take a lot out of me."
I didn't believe her. But I didn't push either. She'd tell me when she was ready.
In the meantime, I had other problems to deal with.
Kirill had returned to Boston three days ago. He had his own territory to run, his own operations to manage, and he couldn't babysit me forever—his words, delivered in that flat tone that made it impossible to tell if he was joking. But we stayed in constant contact, and when my phone rang that morning with his name on the screen, I knew it wasn't a social call.
"Cormac?" I asked by way of greeting.
"Getting desperate." I could hear the tap of keys in the background—Kirill never stopped working. "His attempts to rally support have mostly failed. The families in Philadelphia want nothing to do with him. Boston told him to go to hell. Even his own people are starting to question his leadership."
"That should be good news."
"It would be, if desperation didn't make people dangerous." A pause in the typing. "A cornered animal is more likely to attack than a confident one. Cormac knows his position is crumbling. That makes him unpredictable."
"And the Petrovics?"
