The quiet inside the house this morning already feels like a memory. Nadia and Nik hugged me goodbye at dawn—tight, fierce hugs that saidbe careful, even on a honeymoonbefore they vanished into the chaos of the office. Gwen had been wrangling the kids into their coats, already planning to take them out for pancakes with two cars’ worth of security because apparently sugar was the only way to survive them being stir-crazy after yesterday’s events.
And now it’s just me and him.
He doesn’t say a word until we reach the car. Then, with a sidelong glance and as he opens the backdoor, “What is in the backpack, Lily?”
I blink up at him. “You saw me pack the suitcase.”
“I did,” he says, amused. “But I did not see you pack this.”
“Books,” I admit, brushing hair out of my face.
He pauses, hand still on the car door handle, and turns to look at me fully. “Books? How many?”
“Twenty,” I shrug, sliding into the car as he hands both of our suitcases to the driver, before sliding in himself.
“Lily, we will only be gone a week,” he says, in a monotone that makes my eyes widen.
“A week?” I question, “Do you think I should have packed more?”
His mouth curves into something slow, dangerous, and entirely unfair. A soft laugh rumbles in his chest. “No, Moya. You will be… very occupied.”
The meaning in his tone hits me square in the stomach. Heat shoots up my neck, and my mouth opens, but no words come out.
He just keeps watching me, that infuriatingly calm, teasing patience burning in his eyes. It’s too much. I shift in my seat, crossing my legs as if that could steady me, my tongue darting over my lips while I look anywhere but at him—the window, the partition, the stitching on the leather—anything that isn’t Aleksandr.
A low chuckle rumbles out of him, quiet and sure, and he sinks deeper into his seat, as if my pussy-leaking induced discomfort amuses him more than it should.
I don’t think Aleksandr knows this about me, but I hate flying. Absolutely fucking hate it.
Not in the casual,ugh, turbulence is annoyingkind of way. No. I mean the full-bodied, sweaty-palmed, my-soul-tries-to-leave-my-body-every-time-the-plane-shifts kind of hate.
And here’s the thing—we’ve already been in the air for two hours. Two. Which means there are still three hours to go before we touch down in Panama.
Panama. My dream location. The beaches, the rainforests, the old city with cobblestone streets—everything I have pinned on a mood board for the last seven years. And I’m probably not going to see any of it because I’ll be too busy clinging to the nearest solid object like a barnacle, convinced the earth is rejecting me and the sky is trying to murder me.
The only saving grace right now?
The Petrovs are richer than Midas, which means we are not crammed into a commercial flight with a screaming toddler kicking the back of my seat. No. I am currently terrified for my life on a private jet.
A jet with leather seats soft enough to sink into, no line for the bathroom, actual glassware instead of plastic cups, and, best of all, enough space that I could theoretically run laps to burn offthis anxiety. (I will not be running laps. I am glued to this chair until we land or I die.)
Unfortunately, luxury does not change the fact that I am still fifty thousand feet in the air inside a very expensive tin can.
Aleksandr sits right next to me, naturally. Close enough that his thigh presses against mine every time the plane tilts. And I’m holding my newest bookMexican Gothicby Silvia Moreno-Garcia in my lap, pretending that I am reading when I have not absorbed a single word since we took off.
Meanwhile, Aleksandr—my terrifying Bratva husband, the man who negotiates with killers without blinking—is readingTwilight.
Because I made him.
I convinced him to readTwilightby saying, very casually, that Edward Cullen was “grade-A sexy” and my childhood crush. Aleksandr didn’t even blink. He just picked up the book like it was a gauntlet I’d thrown at his feet, and this was the only way he could prevent a war.
I am ninety-nine percent sure he’s only reading it now to prove a point that he, Aleksandr Petrov, is better than the immortal Edward Cullen and maybe one percent to make me smile.
He sits with the book propped open in one massive hand, head bent, loose strands of hair falling forward as he reads. Every so often his brows draw together, his mouth flattening in silent judgment, like he cannot believe the things these people in Forks consider reasonable life choices. But he keeps going, page after page, patient, thorough.
And I haven’t managed to read a single word ofMexican Gothic—even though it’s the perfect book for me, all psychological unease and slow-burn romance wrapped in a gothic backdrop that might as well have been written with my name on the cover—for the past half hour.
Instead, every nerve in my body feels like a live wire.
