9. Ariel
9
ARIEL
The engine hums a lullaby. My head lolls against the window, glass cool on my cheek. I bite back a wince every time that a bump in the road jostles the babies into a fresh revolt.
But even if the little ones weren’t crying wolf over and over again, I’d still be uneasy. I feel like a bug getting thrown around by a wind that doesn’t give a damn where I go or how unpleasant the journey is. I’m the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and this car ride here is just another trip back down the water spout.
Sasha’s aftershave clings to the cramped air—cigarette ash, mint, and cedar. Familiar. Safe.
I hate how it steadies my pulse.
Jasmine pretends to sleep in the backseat. Kosti doesn’t pretend at all—his snores are the loudest thing in all of southern France. At least that’s the same as it’s always been.
I do my best to keep my gaze fixed on the rearview mirror. The bullet hole in it soaks up moonlight and cracks jitter across the reflective surface. I don’t think Uncle Kosti is getting his rental deposit back—this car’s as battle-scarred as the man driving it.
Sasha radiates heat from the driver’s seat, grip tight on the wheel. It’s hard not to look at him. He’s always seemed to have a gravity of his own. I fought against it for a while, then danced in it for a while after that. Now, I just want it out of my life.
The twins kick again, sharp and sudden. I stifle a gasp, though I can’t stop my hands from flying to the swell.
Sasha’s gaze darts to me.
“Don’t.” I turn away from him. “Just drive.”
He sighs and looks back at the road.
I wake up with a jolt when I feel the car leave the road. First, two tires, then four, go from asphalt to bumpy dirt. I look out the window to see the dullest gray light beginning to leak over the horizon.
Shit. I slept for longer than I meant to.
“What? Huh—Where?—?”
“They’ll be on every major highway looking for us,” Sasha explains without shifting his eyes to me. “And even if we duck Serbian eyes, driving a Peugeot with bullet holes in it doesn’t exactly scream ‘under the radar.’ Do you want to explain to a French cop where we’re going and where we’re headed?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “A simple ‘resting for a while’ would have sufficed.”
He steers us through a gap in some collapsing wooden fencing and then behind a farmhouse set half a mile from the road. The thing has seen better days. Half the roof is caved in and bird shit cakes the siding in streaks of white.
“Not exactly the Four Seasons Paris,” he murmurs. “My apologies.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll survive.”
I glance in the back. Jas is asleep, effortlessly beautiful, like she’s ready to star in a shampoo commercial as soon as she opens her eyes. Uncle Kosti, on the other hand, has his mouth wide open. Only when the car comes to a final stop do they both wake up.
“Eh? Eh?” mumbles Kosti.
“We’re resting here until sundown,” Sasha says, opening the door. “Get comfortable. More importantly, stay the fuck out of sight.”
“He’s got a way with words, doesn’t he, girls?” grumbles Kosti as he emerges from the vehicle.
Jasmine, with one look at the tension on my face, comes to give me a reassuring squeeze of the hand.
Sasha told us to get comfortable, but comfort doesn’t come easy. The four of us disperse to different corners of the barn. Jas and Kosti go up high, bedding down in haystacks. I’d follow them, but rotting ladders seem like a bad idea in my condition.
Instead, I try to sit propped against a barrel, a tractor wheel, and a pile of old saddles, but each one is more uncomfortable than the last. I can’t stop thinking about how many critters must’ve called this place home over the years, and how many might still. Every time I think I’m about to drift off, an itch or a tingle sends me jolting back upright.
Sleeping during the day is odd, too. Sun peeks through the gaps in the roof like it’s squinting in, trying to see who’s here and why. I throw an arm over my eyes to block it.
But lightning bolts go racing through my hips when I try to adjust my position, and just like that, I know sleep isn’t in the cards for me tonight. Today. Whatever.
I open my eyes…
… and across the room, I see Sasha looking back at me.
We stare at each other through the dusty gloom. His gaze drops to my belly first—always the belly, an instinct he can’t seem to quit—before dragging up to meet mine. For a few thundering moments, I’m back in his penthouse, tangled in sheets that smelled like his stupid cologne, whispering promises we both thought might actually stand the test of time.
I wrench my gaze away before he says something. Seeing him here, now, like this—it’s too much. It would be too much if it were just him, without all the baggage he’s brought along for the ride. But for it to be him and Dragan’s reaching, grabbing fingers, the ever-present cloud of danger that hovers over Sasha’s head… That’s far, far too much.
I close my eyes and pretend I’m sleeping again.
Fabric rustles. Footsteps approach. I tense as Sasha’s shadow falls over me. He drops a canteen in my lap. “Drink.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Your lips are cracked, your voice is hoarse, and I know you haven’t had a sip of anything in at least twelve hours.” When I still don’t move, he crouches—slow, predator cautious—and unscrews the cap. “Sit up and take one sip.”
I stay wrapped tight around my belly. “Make me.”
His throat bobs. Then, with a growl, he slides an arm under my shoulders and hauls me upright. Through the gap in his shirt, I see a bandage I hadn’t noticed before—with fresh blood blooming through the gauze.
“Christ, Sasha?—”
“Drink. Don’t worry about me.”
I swallow a few bitter gulps just to wipe that look off his face—some unholy mix of concern and possession. The water’s warm. Tastes like his sweat. Like shared air in a car that’s waiting for one or the other of us to drive it right off the edge of a cliff.
His thumb touches my lower lip, catching a stray droplet. “Better?”
Electricity arcs where skin touches skin. I jerk back. “Don’t touch me.”
His jaw clenches, but his hand falls. He rises and steps back. “Try to sleep.”
“Where are you going?”
“Perimeter check.” He tosses the words over his shoulder. “Stay put.”
The barn door screeches open, then slams shut. The silence that follows washes his absence clean. My fingers drift to my lips, still tingling from his touch.
“Asshole,” I tell the twins. “Your father is a total fucking asshole.”
Their answering kick feels suspiciously like laughter.
Twilight finds me perched on an overturned crate, squinting at a tractor operator’s manual by the watery light filtering through filthy windows, just to take my mind off things. Unlike me, Jasmine has had no problem sleeping. I can hear her breathing soft and even in the shadowy corner overhead.
A wooden creak signals Sasha’s return. He’s shirtless and covered in a light sheen of sweat from whatever the hell he was doing out there. The sight of scars and scabs rippling across his torso makes my heart clench up—but I tell myself I’m not allowed to ask questions.
What’s the point? Would you sympathize with him? Do you feel as if the man you knew, the body that gave you these babies… Do you think that man is gone? Damaged? Broken beyond repair? Or worse—what if you’re the only one who can repair him? Can you? Should you? Is it your job to save him?
Can you, Ariel?
Should you, Ariel?
I pretend to be consumed by the technical ins and outs of the T293’s instrument panel, as described in French. I can sense Sasha’s presence, though. He’s looking at me again. I really wish he wouldn’t.
“Quit looming,” I say without looking up. “You’re making the babies nervous.”
A derisive snort. “The babies? Or their mother?”
“Don’t start with me now.”
He sighs. Uncle Kosti unleashes a thundering snore from the upper level, then settles back into sleep-addled mumbling. “I didn’t intend for this to happen, you know. We came to protect Jasmine. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
I drop the manual to the ground as I whirl on him. “And yet now, she’s on the run once again, with bad men breathing down her neck. Your ‘protecting’ has a funny way of getting people in trouble, Sasha.”
He regards me from where he’s leaning against a support beam, arms folded across his chest. I wish I could resist looking him up and down, but I’ve failed at that since the moment we met. Even now, seething at him for what he’s done, what he’s brought to my doorstep, the momentary bubble of peace I’d almost convinced myself would last forever… Even now, I can’t help noticing how beautiful he is.
He’s taller than I remember. I think I shrunk him in my memory just so he’d be easier to ignore. If he was small, I could stick him in a mental drawer and never linger on him again. But in this reality, he’s huge, with dark curls matted down with sweat and a beard that’s grown thick enough to verge on wild. His nose has a crook in it that wasn’t there before, but the tormented smirk underneath is the same.
It’s the eyes that’ve changed most. There’s a sadness to their depths that I definitely would’ve noticed. A molten, churning sadness.
Actually, on second thought, maybe that was always there. What I’m certain is new are the injuries. He’s a patchwork quilt of ugly stitch scars and fading bruises. His skin is mottled in half a dozen different colors—blue, purple, green, yellow, red, black. A bandage looped haphazardly around his abdomen, the one I saw when he threw the canteen at me earlier, is drenched into a nauseating copper.
“You’re a mess,” I whisper.
He laughs. “Inside and out.”
I reach out toward him. Stop myself. Reach out again. Sasha watches me the whole time, moving neither to help me nor to stop me. Eventually, I give in to the impulse.
The bandages peel away with a sickening tug. Underneath it, his wound is obscene—a jagged canyon carved through muscle, surrounded by bruises in every shade of rotten fruit. The stitches look like something from a taxidermy project. Even Frankenstein’s monster would call this shoddy work.
“Who did this?” I ask. “Feliks after one too many vodka shots?”
“Dragan’s parting gift.” His muscles jump under my touch.
God, the mere thought of the stories underlying those three little words makes me sick to my stomach. How did Dragan get close enough to do this? Sasha is so strong, so careful and capable—so what was he doing that gave Dragan the chance?
The implied answer is obvious.
You, Ariel.
He was protecting you.
I just told him that his protection has a funny way of getting people killed. Did he almost join that club?
I accidentally graze a fingertip too close to the reopened wound and he hisses.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have— Just, sorry.”
He nods and touches a palm to it. It comes away smeared with blood. “It’s fine. I ripped it trying to keep your sister from stabbing me through the face, actually. She’d be pleased to know she did some damage after all.”
I snort. “She doesn’t hate you like I do, unfortunately.”
“I’d get it if she did.”
“Same. And believe me, I’ve tried to talk her into it. No dice, though. She’s a saint. We don’t deserve her. Well, I don’t. And actually, you definitely don’t, either.”
Sasha laughs, but the wince passes over his face again when the effort forces his abs to tighten and tug at the wound again.
I frown. “That’s not a light graze, Sasha.”
“I’m fine. It’s just?—”
“You’re not fine,” I interrupt. “You’re a bullheaded man, just like the rest of them.” I jab a finger at a nearby bench. “Sit down. I saw a first aid kit in the car.”
I go to fetch it. When I come back in with the kit in hand, I’m half-surprised to see that he actually listened. He must really be hurting; the Sasha I know—the Sasha I knew, rather—would never have taken orders. He’d have been defiant for defiance’s sake.
Who broke him? I wonder again.
I’m even more surprised that he lets me take off the bandages and start to dab disinfectant on the edges of the wound. I’m very, very careful not to allow myself to touch him. I know too well what happens when skin touches skin.
After all, this entire saga began when he pulled out a first aid kit and began tending to me.
“Dragan did a thorough job,” I mutter.
Sasha scowls. “Not as thorough as he would’ve liked. I won’t make that same mistake when the tables are turned.”
I shake my head in disgust as I dip another cotton ball into the hydrogen peroxide. “Good to see you’ve learned your lesson about these stupid power squabbles.” I feel like Mama, slamming kitchen cabinets and muttering about men and their wars. It used to seem like a grand thing she was rebelling against. Now that I’m in her shoes, though, I just feel disgusted. “Wars” aren’t grand or awe-inspiring; they’re just bleeding gut wounds festering in abandoned French farms. Nothing grand or awe-inspiring about that.
“Those ‘squabbles’ would’ve had you chopped up into half a dozen different pieces if I didn’t intervene,” he growls.
“Again with the hero act. Do you ever give it a rest?”
“Not when it’s your neck on the line, Ariel.” His eyes, when I glance up, are burning icy blue.
I gulp and go rummaging back in the first aid kit, just to have something to do with my hands. We’re quiet for a little while.
“You should’ve told me you were pregnant,” he says softly. It’s not quite a reprimand, like I would’ve expected. It’s too soft for that. Almost… plaintive? Like he’s sad for the time he’s missed.
But fuck that. He doesn’t get to be sad. I didn’t make any choices that he didn’t force me into himself.
My hands go still. The warehouse breathes around us—wind through broken windows, the creak of Sasha’s jaw as he grinds his teeth.
“Would it have changed anything?” I ask quietly.
He doesn’t answer.
I pack the wound with gauze, fingers stroking the hard planes of his stomach. His breath hitches. My own throat tightens.
Too close. Always too close.
“There.” I sit back, wiping bloody hands on my dress. “Try not to make it even worse.”
He catches my wrist as I stand. “Your turn.”
“For what?”
“You’re limping.”
I rip my wrist away from him and laugh right in his face. “I’m pregnant with twins, Sasha. Everything hurts.”
He stands in one fluid motion, crowding me against the wall. The splintered wood digs into my spine. His hands hover over my hips, not touching, but the heat of him seeps into my skin anyway.
“Let me help,” he rasps.
“You don’t get to help.” My voice wavers. “You don’t get to swoop in and act like some white knight after?—”
“After what?” His eyes glitter. “After I loved you? After I failed you?”
The word hangs between us— loved , past tense—and something inside me wails in self-pity.
Jasmine’s voice cuts through the dark. “Ari? You okay down there?”
“Yeah.” I duck under Sasha’s arm. “Peachy.”
I’m starting to stride away when he speaks up again. “I didn’t come back to ruin your life, you know.”
That draws a derisive laugh out of me. “No? But that’s your favorite game.” I turn back to face him. “But yeah, sure, you didn’t come back to ruin everything; that’s just a fun, natural byproduct of you doing what you want all the time, and fuck what it means for anyone else, right?”
“Ariel—”
“You came back because you couldn’t stand—couldn’t fucking stand— the thought of me existing outside of your control. That’s what you came back, Sasha. At least do me the courtesy of saying it to my face.”
The thickening darkness hollows out his cheeks and turns his eyes to mercury. “You think this is about control?”
“With you, everything is about control.”
“Not with you.” He growls in his throat. “When I kissed you in that library… When I—” He cuts himself off, jaw working side to side. “That wasn’t control. None of it. That was surrender.”
My heart stutters. “Don’t start using words like that, Sasha.”
He steps closer. The farmhouse seems to hold its breath. “You asked me once why I wouldn’t fall in love. Let me answer now—it’s because love is the one thing my father couldn’t beat out of me. The one weakness he never found. But you…” He touches my cheekbone. “You made it look so easy .”
I knock his hand away. “You don’t get to rewrite history now. You lied. You manipulated. You let me think?—”
“I know what I did.” His voice drops. “And if I could carve those lies out of the past, I would. But I can’t. So all I can offer is this—” He presses my palm to his chest. His heartbeat thunders against my skin. “However long we have left. However you’ll have me.”
I wrench free and turn so I don’t have to look at him anymore. With my back to him, I say, “We have until Jas and I are safe. Then you’re going to walk away from us, Sasha. And I’ll never see you again.”
I can feel him lingering. Waiting. His breath rattles in the silence.
“You’re right,” he says finally. “I should walk away. That would be the noble thing to do.”
I pause at the barn door, hand on the rusted handle. Outside, crickets chirp a deafening symphony.
“But I never claimed to be a noble man.”