And when it did, if I would have the courage to confront him once and for all after this long spell of agonizing distance.
25
ALEXSEI
Misha and I hadn’t gone home for almost two months. Because he wanted to be with Kalina, and because she didn’t trust me to be the sole provider of her protection, we were here.
I wasn’t offended that Misha was so attached to her after what they’d gone through at the cabin. He’d tried to save her. He wanted to protect her too. Almost losing her had frightened him, and I wasn’t at all surprised that he wanted to cling to her now.
He saw her as a source of comfort, and it touched my heart that she favored him and wanted to help him get over the cabin danger too.
Whatever made him sleep better. Whatever helped to put a smile on his face. My son’s happiness was all that mattered to me.
Kalina’s happiness mattered to me, too, and that was why I couldn’t walk away and give up.
That wasn’t an option.
There was no way that we could’ve fallen for each other so strongly, deeply, and quickly in that cabin if it was all just a sham. If it was only a lustful connection that was borne in the heat of the moment and the close proximity we were thrust into.
My feelings for her would not change. If anything, this absence of having her close made me even fonder of her. At the same time, my feelings toward myself wouldn’t change, either. This guilt that plagued me wouldn’t be erased, no matter what I did or said.
Misha hadn’t forgotten about me, though. He clearly enjoyed spending as much time with Kalina as he could, but he was still my little boy. He would come to sleep in his room next to mine in our private wing of the mansion. He would still love me. And I wanted to hope that the love he patiently and openly showed Kalina would be another bridge to getting back to that sense of a family we’d found in the cabin.
That with my patience, she might understand that I wasn’t going to quit. That Ididcare. That I wasn’t going to give up on what we had. That even though something terrible had happened with those two new Dubinin recruits selling the intel of our location, it was something I couldn’t have personally controlled.
Luka had tried to reason with her. He told me how he’d explained in blunt detail how he claimed personal responsibility for what had happened.
Gabriella was also talking to her, daily. I knew she was rooting for us to find peace again.
Everything seemed to be hinged on her forgiving me, on our returning to the companionship we’d found in her healing days.
Until she might open up to me and trust me again, I preoccupied myself by staying close yet with distance, hunting down her brother and Yusef. Because so long as they were alive out there, she would inherently be at risk.
Almost two months of this waiting game.
But I would remain patient. I had to hold on to this hope. Because it had taken me years to find her, for us to encounter each other in the worst and darkest moments. She was the light that I needed after all the despair over not saving my wife.
She was the hope that love could win in the end.
And at last, she came to me.
Unexpectedly, in complete surprise, one night after I had given up in my office, a night when Misha was spending the night at Raisa and Ivan’s house for a change to be with Lev, a soft knock sounded on my door.
Nobody here knocked like that.
I held my breath.
The raps on the wood came so quietly. Almost as though the person trying to summon me was timid. Or shy. Nervous.
Only one person came to mind.
Kalina?
I longed for it to be her. I got up from my chair to go to the door, my heart racing at the possibility that she could be on the other side. That she could be seeking me.
Knocks came again, faster and more impatient, with a sense of urgency that had me worrying.
Before I could get to the door and open it, it swung open.
