The irony wasn’t lost on me.
By the time we landed, the sky over Moscow was grey and brutal.
The jet door opened.
Uncle Bass greeted us.He was standing on the runway in a black coat, older than I remembered him.Harder, too.
For a second, neither of us moved.Four years collapsed into nothing.Then I stepped off the jet.And he pulled me into his arms.
His hand gripped the back of my neck like he needed to make sure I was actually there.
When he pulled back, his eyes searched my face.He squeezed my shoulder.
“You made it home.”
Home.
There was that word again.
I looked past him, out across the runway.
Six black cars sat waiting in a neat line, engines running, exhaust curling into the bitter Russian air.Security stood beside them, rigid and watchful, hands folded in front of them, eyes scanning everything.
Like Bass had anticipated war, not a reunion.
My gaze shifted back to him.
“My mother?”
For the first time since I stepped off the jet, something softened in his face.
Bass nodded once.
“She’s flying back from London.She’ll be at the house in two days.”
Relief hit me, sharp and immediate.
She was safe.Safe all this time.And after four years, I was finally going to see her again.
I hadn’t been convinced when Bass split us up.Hell—I’d fought him over it.The day he dragged me out of Russia, I’d wanted my mother beside me.Needed her beside me.Everything had been burning down around us, Rasputin was dead, and Bass had looked me in the eye and told me that separation meant our survival.
At the time, it had felt like another loss.Another thing ripped from me.
He’d sent her to London.Sent me to Italy.
Different corners of the world.Different lives.
His reasoning had been cold, practical.
Viktor would look for us together.A mother and son on the run made sense.A scattered family was harder to hunt.Harder to erase.
I’d hated him for it then.For taking the last person I had left and putting an ocean between us.But standing here now, breathing the frozen air of Moscow, knowing she was alive because of it—I finally understood.
Bass must’ve seen something in my face because his hand came down on my shoulder, firm and grounding.
“She survived because we made hard choices.”
His voice was steady.Certain.
