There’s nothing that needs saying yet—nothing that wouldn’t shrink what just happened by trying to put words around it. I push her hair back from her face and she lets me, watching me with those green eyes that have undone me since the first time I looked into them.
“Come on,” I say finally. “Poshli.”
I take her hand and lead her into the ensuite. Steam rises around us as I get the water running. She steps in first, tilting her face up into the stream with her eyes closed, and I watch the tension leave her shoulders in real time.
After a moment she turns to me, tracing one of the tattoos on my forearm with her fingertip, following the line of it with quiet focus.
“The past four years,” she says, not quite finishing the sentence.
“I know.”
She looks up. Something moves across her face—complicated, layered, not yet resolved. I don’t try to name it. We have time, or we will, once this is over.
She reaches up and brushes the wet hair back from my forehead. A small gesture. The kind that costs more than the large ones.
“Don’t die,” she says. Plainly, looking straight at me.
“I’ll do my best,” I say.
Her eyes narrow slightly. “That’s not the answer I was looking for.”
“It’s the honest one.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Then she leans her forehead against my chest, and I put my arms around her, and we stand there under the water until it starts to run cold.
Chapter Sixteen
Nikolai
Lauren is asleep.
I brush a strand of hair from her face and watch her in the quiet—the particular stillness of her, the way sleep smooths out everything she carries when she’s awake.
She looks like she did four years ago. Like none of it happened.
Blyad.
I should get up. Check the cameras, run the circuit, log back into the security feed. Lying here with the outside world sealed off is probably the single worst tactical decision I’ve made since coming back from the dead, and Aslanov has a habit of moving when I’m distracted.
I don’t get up. Not yet.
She stirs—a slow surfacing, her eyes opening halfway, finding me. No alarm, no jolt. Just a quiet smile, like waking up next to me is something her body remembers even when her mind is still catching up. She brings her mouth to mine, unhurried, and I let myself have it. One more minute. I’ve earned one more minute.
Then Hannah’s voice cuts down the hallway.
“Mommy?”
Lauren is up before the echo fades. She pulls on the nearest item of clothing, drags her hair back, and is out the door in the same motion. It shuts behind her with a soft click.
I listen to her voice in the next room—low, warm, orienting Hannah toward breakfast or a cartoon or whatever the morning requires. The sounds of a routine I’ve never been part of.
I turn to look at the empty side of the bed.
Four years of that view, and it still costs me something.
I swap the pillows. Hers still holds her warmth, the faint scent of her shampoo—coconut, something floral. I let myself have that too, for exactly as long as it takes to remember that sentiment is a luxury I can’t afford right now.
I sit up.
