Then she lifts her hands and puts them on my face. The way I held her face in the warehouse, the way I held it in her apartment, the way I've held it every time the world tried to take her and I pulled her back. Her palms are warm against my jaw, her thumbs are on my cheekbones and she's looking at me with those blue eyes that are full and bright and certain.
"Yes," she says.
One word. The only word that matters.
I slide the ring onto her finger. My mother's ring on Sadie's hand. The oval diamond sits against her skin, simple and clean, and her finger is slightly swollen from the zip ties so the fit is snug and that's fine, that's perfect, because I don't want it coming off. I don't want anything about this to be loose or uncertain or temporary.
"Yes," she says again, quieter this time, and I realize she's saying it for herself. Testing the weight of it. Finding it fits.
I put my forehead against hers. Her hands slide from my face to the back of my neck and she holds me there, and for a moment there is no sound in the room except our breathing.
"I love you," she says. "And I'm going to eat the chicken and rice because my sugar is still too high but then we’re going to make this official."
I laugh. It comes out of me rough and unexpected, a sound I didn't know I had left in me after today. Sadie smiles, and the smile is the thing that puts the last piece back into place.
There's a knock at the door and Irinia enters with the tray. Chicken, rice and vegetables with a glass of juice and a small bowl of fruit. She catches the ring on Sadie’s finger and smiles without saying a word.
Tomorrow, the work begins. The captains. The allies. The reshaping of a family that lost its patriarch and its traitor in the same month. The wedding that will need to happen soon, within weeks, because the protection it offers isn't symbolic and the clock on that protection started the moment Viktor took her from that alley.
I watch her eat while I pull out my phone and call Father Konstantin.
Sadie
I eat slowly because my sugar is still high and my stomach is fragile. The clinical part of my brain won't let me shovel food the way my body wants to. Small bites. Chew thoroughly. Give the insulin time to work. The chicken is seasoned simply, rosemary and salt, and the rice is plain, the vegetables are steamed soft enough that I don't have to work for them.
Nick is in the chair by the window with his phone pressed to his ear talking to someone he calls Father Konstantin. He looks at me and smiles that small smile that melts me.
He ends the call. He puts the phone in his trouser pocket, and comes to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Father Konstantin can do the ceremony at St. Elias," he says. "He needs two weeks for the banns. He says he can expedite, but two weeks is the minimum if we want it done properly."
"Two weeks." I set the fork down on the tray. "That's fast."
"It needs to be fast." He's watching my face, looking for something I don’t think he will find. "The protection starts when the marriage is formalized. Every day between now and then is a day you're exposed."
He's right. I know he's right. I should call Dr Mehta and let her know I probably can’t be at work for the next two weeks…
The thought of missing work irritates me, but the way his voice sounded when he said "my wife" ten minutes ago, makes thedecision easier. It’s like the words had been living in his mouth for weeks and he was finally letting them out.
"Two weeks," I say again. "Okay."
His shoulders drop a fraction. "Okay," he repeats.
I push the tray toward the foot of the bed. My stomach is full and my sugar is leveling and the clinical checklist is satisfied. "I’m going to be your wife."
He exhales. It's not quite a laugh but it's close, a sound that lives in the space between relief and disbelief, and I realize that for all his certainty, for all his control and his precision, he was afraid I'd say no.
It undoes something in me.
I reach for him.
My hands find the front of his shirt and I pull in invitation. He comes. He always comes when I pull. He leans into me and I slide my hands up his chest to his collar and I hold him there, close enough that I can feel his breath on my mouth.
I pull him in until his mouth crashes into mine in the kind of kiss that comes after a day like this. All teeth and hunger and the desperate need to prove we're both still alive. His hands frame my face, thumbs brushing the edges of my jaw like he's memorizing me, and I taste the faint salt of fear and relief on his tongue.
"Nick," I whisper against his lips, and he makes a low sound in his throat, something raw that vibrates through me. He climbs onto the bed, careful not to crush me, but there's no hesitation in the way his body settles over mine. The weight of him is perfectly solid, warm, and real. I wrap my legs around his hips and feel him already hard against me through his trousers. Heat pools low in my belly, chasing away the last echoes of the metallic taste and the cold concrete room.
His mouth moves down my neck, sucking lightly at the pulse point that still races from the day. I arch into him, fingers threading through his hair, tugging just enough to make him groan. "I need you," I say, the words slipping out unfiltered. "Inside me. Now."
