I want him to be fucking honest.
“That’s not a reason for me to trust you,” I tell him. “I need something more than that.”
The silence stretches, and I hear Nico taking a couple of deep breaths on the other end before he starts speaking again.
"Gia used to take trips to France,” he starts slowly, and there’s a low quiver to his voice, almost like he’s holding back his own tears. “Art trips, she called them. And every time she came back, she came back different. Lighter. Happier. Like someone who'd been given permission to breathe."
He pauses again before resuming in a voice thick with loss.
"I never understood why. But now, I think I do."
I know better than anyone the pain of a younger sibling mourning the loss of an older one, and I remind myself that while Gia entered Slava’s life in the middle, she’d been in Nico’s life since the very beginning.
There was once a time in his life when he never could’ve imagined a life where she wasn’t going to be a part of it.
And now all he has of her are ghosts and memories.
"Did he love her?" he asks me softly.
"Yes," I whisper. "He did."
"And does he love you?"
I can't answer him.
The answer is yes—an unequivocal yes. Slava loves me. He must love me from the way he looks at me. I feel it in the way he holds me. I hear it in the way he begged me to come back under the lashing rain of the storm.
I don’t need him to tell me he loves me to know he does.
“It doesn’t matter if he loves me,” I finally say. “The only thing that matters now is keeping my nephew safe.”
"Our nephews," Nico corrects me. "If you say you found a way, then I trust you. In exchange, I'll do what I can to keep both our nephews safe. I swear it on Gia's memory."
My heart stops, and I don’t dare to let hope find its way in.
"One final effort is all that remains," he continues. "You know what must be done. I’ll speak to you when you’re back."
The line goes dead.
I stand there in the bathroom, staring at the phone in my hand.
There’s nothing that tells me that this isn’t just another manipulation attempt from Nico. Nothing to tell me that this isn’t another lie.
But the grief in his voice when he asked about Gia was real.
She came back different. Lighter. Happier. Like someone who'd been given permission to breathe.
I pull up Google Maps and open up the timeline function. The chateau’s location appears on my screen, and I switch to satellite view to verify that’s exactly what it is.
My thumb hovers over the share button.
Outside in the main cabin of the plane, Slava is waiting for me. On the other side of this door, Alessandro is sleeping. Once I do this, they’ll never be able to return to this place.
But this is the only way to keep both boys safe and alive.
I’m out of options.
So, I share the coordinates.
