Something crashes on the other end, a few barks from King that make me choke up a bit, hurried footsteps, and then I hear it—the low, velvet rasp I’ve been dying for.
“Moya?”
I nearly collapse right there against the wall. My knees buckle as relief surges through me, hot and dizzying. His voice wraps around me like a lifeline, and for the first time since they dragged us away from each other, I can breathe.
“Alek,” I whisper. My voice is small, breaking, but I don’t care. Just hearing him melts me into something weightless and fragile.
He inhales sharply, and then there’s steel in his tone, layered with something softer beneath. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I choke out, the word trembling so hard it barely makes it past my lips. “Are you okay?”
There’s a pause, and then—God, that sound—the low, rough chuckle that only Alek can give, pulled from somewhere deep inhis chest. “You’re the one in handcuffs, Moya, and you’re asking if I’m okay?”
I press my forehead harder against the cold tile, my eyes closing. My hands clutch the receiver like if I let go, I’ll lose him entirely. “Yes,” I whisper, because it matters. It matters more than anything.
“I am fine, Moya,” he says, and I can hear the smallest smile hiding beneath the gravel of his voice, the kind of smile that’s only ever for me.
Relief blooms in my chest, enough to steal my breath. “Then I’m okay,” I whisper back, and the sigh that leaves him—soft, almost tender—has me preening like a swan desperate to show off its wings.
“We found out you’re downtown, and Gwen is already getting ready to be on her way now,” Aleksandr assures me, and I can picture his face now: calm, calculated, but those serious grey eyes full of fire. “Just hold on, moya malen’kaya. Do not say a word to them. Not a word.”
“Yes, sir,” I whisper, my voice trembling but obedient.
A rough groan catches in his throat, and then his voice drops, strained, raw, like he’s biting back something primal. “Fuck, Moya. Don’t say that when I can’t touch you.”
In the background, Nadia’s voice cuts in, loud and unfiltered: “Ugh! I’m leaving the room if you two start with this?—”
There’s a sharp ruffle of fabric, the sound of her retreating, and another voice slides through—Gwen’s, clear and controlled, all business.
“What are they saying to you?” she demands, no patience for pleasantries.
I steady my breath, clinging to the thread of calm Alek has given me. “Nothing. They can just place me entering the alley, but they’re not saying anything else. No evidence. No cameras. I haven’t even been charged with anything yet.”
“Good,” Gwen huffs, the exhale sharp, decisive. “That means they have you on a seventy-two-hour hold.”
On the other end, Alek snarls—low and lethal. “Seventy-two hours?”
“It’s standard procedure,” Gwen tries, her tone level, but he’s not hearing it.
“She’s not staying there for seventy-two hours!” His voice spikes, sharp enough that I have to hold the receiver away for a second.
“Aleksandr—” Gwen tries again, but there’s another shuffle, a short, frustrated sound, and then he’s back.
“Moya,” he says, his voice rough, like he’s clawing through glass to get to me.
“Yes?”
“I will get you out,” he says, low and certain, as if it’s already done.
“Alek—”
“No,” he cuts me off, firmer now, forcing the words through, each one like a vow. “I will get you, and then I will take you somewhere where there is only me and you. Do you understand? No one else. Just us.”
My throat closes around a sob that I don’t let out. “Okay.”
For a moment, there’s just the sound of our breathing over the line—two people holding onto a single thread across the city.
“I love you, Moya,” he says, softer now, but with a weight that sinks into my bones.
