7. Sasha
7
SASHA
This French village stinks of fish markets and diesel. A far cry from the Adirondacks’ pine-scented purgatory.
I’ll take it.
Fuck, I’ll take anything that’s not sap and summer grass. If I stayed in that shack for another day, I might’ve gone insane. This is better. This is good.
This is what I was born to do.
It was embarrassingly easy to pick off one of Dragan’s men in Marseille and make him talk. I’ve had six months to plan what I’d do when I got a Serbian rat in my hands. He sang like a fucking canary.
When he’d given us everything he knew, we dumped his body in the Seine and followed the trail he drew out in his own blood. From Marseille to Montpellier, through Toulouse, into Bordeaux country. A handful of hostel owners along the way added to the story—some from bribes, some from brutality. It all led us here.
Moliets-et-Maa. A mistake on the map. Not even flyover country; it’s really just nothing at all, a place for people who want to be nowhere.
It makes sense that Jasmine would come here.
Why, though? Did something spook her? Why’d she run? How’d she slip away?
I suppose those answers don’t matter. She is here; that’s what matters.
And so are men who want to kill her.
Kosti and I waited on the outskirts of town for night to fall. He smoked cigarette after cigarette while we sat. I just brooded. When the dead of dark was finally upon us, I stepped out of the car and started to walk.
Now, I’m crouched in the darkness at the foot of a three-story apartment building. At the far end of the block, Kosti is circling from the other direction. I don’t intend for him to do much—any drop of Serbian blood that I don’t get to spill myself is wasted, in my opinion. But it doesn’t hurt to have him there to ward them in my direction instead.
They’re so close. Ripe for the plucking. I want to gut them all now. But I have to wait until the time is right.
Patience, I tell myself. Your body is not what it was six months ago. Give yourself the margin of error.
It’s hard to preach patience when every cell in that body is wired with adrenaline. I’ve sat on my fucking haunches for six months while the world kept spinning without me.
While Jasmine lay unguarded.
While Ariel?—
Patience, Sashenka. That won’t help you now. Focus on what’s in front of you.
As I watch, the Serbians drop their cigarettes and grind them out beneath their heels. One man’s shirt raises and I see the glint of a gun. They turn as one to start the trek up the stairs, clustered close together like invading roaches.
Patience…
Patience…
Then—movement. A scuffle at the far end of the block. A muffled cry. Alley cats squabbling, probably.
The Serbians snap toward the noise.
They never see me coming.
One second, I’m shadow; the next, I’m storm. I’m on the tallest one before he can turn back. My blade slips between his ribs like butter. He chokes, warm blood spilling over my knuckles.
The second man spins and cries out, swinging a crowbar at my head. I duck, sweep his legs, and bury my knife in his throat before he hits the ground.
Blood sprays the stucco.
But I’m already moving, pivoting left to face the last man standing. He fumbles to unholster his gun.
Idiot.
I kick his wrist. Bone cracks. He screams and the gun goes flying. I catch the pistol mid-air, spin it around, and jam the barrel under his chin. “ Gde je Dragan? ”
His eyes go wide at the Serbian coming from my tongue. He probably thinks he’s seeing a fucking boogeyman. All things considered, he’s not so far off.
“F-f-fu?—”
No more patience.
The shot paints the wall. Then—silence.
Blood drips from my fingertips. It’s a mess, a bloodbath at the foot of these stairs, but I’ve done the world a service. Three fewer Vukovic men is a good thing.
My shoulder screams and my knuckles are split, but fuck it—it feels good to be a monster again.
A crash echoes from the alley. Distant shouts—female, strangely enough. I frown. But that’s Kosti’s problem. Surely he can handle one Frenchwoman.
I take the stairs two at a time. The door opens easily. Not even locked. I growl in displeasure, low in my throat, and slip inside.
The smell is strong. Cleaning product base, with notes of jasmine and—surely that’s not fucking peaches, is it?
No. Of course not. I’m hallucinating, smelling what I want to smell. I need to get my shit together. The rust might not be all gone after all.
It’s quiet and still inside, which is surprising, given the ruckus of murder that just took place right downstairs. My heartbeat quickens. They didn’t take her already, did they?
You’re too late, ssyklo . She’s already gone ? —
A floorboard creaks behind me.
I turn.
She comes at me in a blur of curls and fury, a kitchen knife aimed at my heart.
Fuck.
“ Nyet! ” I snarl, slamming her against the wall by her wrist. Plaster dust rains as she struggles to bring the blade down into my chest. Her heartbeat thrashes against mine. Violin-calloused fingertips.
Jasmine.
Alive.
“You fucking bastards!” she rasps. “I’ll?—”
“Open your eyes, Jasmine.”
She freezes. Blinks. Peels her eyelids apart.
When she does, recognition floods her face. “… S-Sasha?”
I twist the knife from her grip. It clatters to the floor. She stumbles back, chest heaving, hands raised like she’s waiting for the blow.
“I was starting to think you might be dead.”
“That’s a piss-poor ‘ thank you for saving my life,’ ” I growl.
She rubs the sleep from her eyes. “I never know what to thank you for, honestly. Some days, I appreciate what you did. Others… I’m not so sure it was for me.”
“Somehow,” I snap, “your gratitude got even worse the second time around.” I grab her by the upper arm and start to drag her to the door. “Regardless, we don’t have time for this shit. I just killed three Serbs on your doorstep, and if I know anything about Dragan, there are more coming. We need to go, now.”
She digs her heels in. “I’m not leaving Ari.”
“I don’t have time to deal with your?—”
Wait.
Wait a fucking second.
Icy dread strokes down my spine. I feel graveyard chill all over, head to toe, inside and out. My mouth hardly cooperates, but I manage to rasp out, “… Who?”
Before Jasmine can answer, footsteps thunder up the stairs. I shove her behind me and turn, bloody knife clutched tight in my hand, to face the doorway.
It bursts open. Kosti charges through first, face stricken with something I can’t explain. His eyes find mine. “Sasha…”
More footsteps sound out behind him. My gaze flits from Kosti, to the black rectangle of the entryway.
It fills slowly. A white linen sundress stretched to its absolute maximum in the attempt to contain the belly beneath it.
Then bare feet. Female. Dainty.
Above that, the tip of a broken oar. I trace up the oar, to the hand holding it, to the tanned arm, the familiar shoulder curve, a collarbone I’ve spent hours nipping and kissing…
To a throat I once looped a belt around.
To lips I’ve kissed, lips that have whispered my name after the words I love you.
And last of all, to green eyes that stare back at me with a hate I put there myself.
No.
No.
No.
Ariel stops in the doorway. Shock melts to horror melts to rage. Her grip tightens on the oar.
“You,” she spits.
For six fucking months, I’ve done my best to bleed this woman out of my head. To cut memories of her out of me, stitch by painful stitch.
I should’ve known I’d meet her here, in this forgotten corner of the world, my hands dripping red for her again.
“ Ptich —”
“Don’t.” She swings wild. The oar catches my shoulder. Agony explodes. My vision whites out. “Don’t you dare say that to me!”
Jasmine grabs her arm to stop her from swinging the broken oar again “He’s here to help!”
“He’s here to lie !” Tears streak Ariel’s cheeks. She jabs the oar at my chest. “Another rescue? Another favor ? What’s your angle this time, Sasha?”
I don’t flinch. Let her project her hate onto me. I deserve it, every last drop.
Footfalls echo on the street. More Serbs. A lot fucking more.
“We need to get out of here first,” I snarl, ripping the Glock from my waistband. “We can bicker after.”
Ariel’s laugh is broken glass. “Fuck you.”
Bang.
A lamp disintegrates as a bullet clips it from the open window. Jasmine yelps. Ariel freezes.
Instinct kicks in. I tackle them both behind the couch and spread myself over them for cover as the rest of the window shatters. More bullets chew plaster.
“Back door!” Jasmine wheezes.
“Covered,” I snap.
“So we die here?!” Ariel’s eyes are bright green in the midnight gloom.
I press the Glock into her palm. Her fingers tremble. “Trust me.”
She spits at my feet. “Never.”
Growling, I grab her face, and fuck me, it’s so soft between my fingertips. She’s sun-kissed now, but still velvety to the touch. I look at her eyes because I can’t bear to let my gaze drop to her pregnant belly and all the implications it holds. “You can tell me to go fuck myself once you’re safe. For now, though, I need you to trust me.”
She searches my face. For once, I let her see it all—the fear, the want, the rot left by my father’s hands.
Her resolve cracks. “One time only.”
“That’s all I need.”
Ariel hesitates. Then she slips her hand into mine.
It fits.
It fits.
We run.