24. Ariel
24
ARIEL
The Moka pot is growling at me. I’m inclined to growl back.
After… whatever the hell we’re calling last night, I woke up in the foulest mood known to womankind. My back is hurting like I never went to the hot springs in the first place, my head feels like a donkey kicked it in two, and I barely slept at all, tossing and turning between dreams of Sasha and a rooster I’m really learning to despise.
All of which means, of course, that Jasmine and Kosti come thumping downstairs singing fucking showtunes.
“Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred miiinuuuuutes…” they wail. They’re somehow in perfect unison and yet wildly off-key at the same time. It’s honestly kind of impressive.
They stop when they see me eyeing the Moka pot with my back steadfastly turned to Sasha. For his part, Sasha shows the exact same amount of interest in talking to me. He’s been pushing a pile of scrambled eggs around his plate since the minute I came downstairs. Both of us are perfectly happy to ignore the hickey blooming on my collarbone.
I see Kosti and Jas look at each other. Jas speaks first. “… Everything alright down here, love?”
“Oh, we’re doing fucking grand ,” I mutter. “For fuck’s sake, why won’t this fucking coffee boil? My God. I’m being divinely punished.”
“Right. Grand. Well… open the hatch! It’s medicine time.” Jas, still humming, reaches above me to the cabinet where we’ve been keeping the prenatal vitamins. She plucks down the orange bottle containing my blood pressure meds, unscrews the top, and starts counting pills out into my upturned palm. “One… Two… Ope. Well, that’s not so grand.”
Sasha looks up, brow furrowed. “We’re out?”
Jasmine shakes the empty pill bottle. “Lock, stock, and barrel.”
“Fuck,” he says.
“Fuck,” I say.
“Road trip!” chirps Jasmine.
That immediately sets off a massive storm of arguing and cross-talking. The four of us keep raising our voices until we’re all shouting over each other. The Moka pot keeps growling louder and louder, too, like it doesn’t want to be left out.
“—supposed to refill them?—”
“—not my fucking job to babysit?—”
“—if I’m not allowed to lift a finger, then how could it possibly be?—”
What it boils down to is this: I need those meds. They’re the only thing keeping my blood pressure from flying up to join the comma club. But the farmacia in Roccastrada has a limited supply. Same with the local hospital. A proper refill will require a trip all the way to the city of Siena. Given how bad the roads have been with all the storms lately, that means at least a ninety-minute drive each way. And Sasha seems to think that that’s just beyond the pale.
He is in my face, snarling, “You’re not cleared for?—”
“—sitting in a car?” I snap. “Wow, what a strenuous activity. However will I manage? It’s almost like you?—”
Jasmine snorts. “Ariel, you should really consider?—”
Kosti chimes in, “The girl is not a prisoner. Let’s all be reasonable and?—”
It all comes to a sudden and abrupt end when Sasha pulls out his snarliest snarl. “That’s fucking enough.”
All of us finally fall quiet. I look at him. Kosti and Jasmine have been cowed into submission.
Me? Not so much.
“No,” I say. “Not ‘enough.’ I’ve been on bedrest for a week and I’m going to go absolutely fucking Looney Tunes if I have to stay here for a minute longer. Also, as of four hours ago, I’m officially free as a bird. And anyway, it doesn’t make sense for it to happen any other way. Jasmine doesn’t speak Italian, Kosti can’t drive for shit, and you don’t know enough about my medical conditions to answer questions. So you and I are going to play nice. We’re going to get in that car and drive to Siena. And you know what? I might even roll the window down and enjoy the trip a little bit. That’s what’s happening, Sasha Ozerov. I dare you to tell me otherwise.”
His nostrils flare as he stares down at me. Blue eyes churn. Then: “Fine. The car leaves in five, whether or not you’re in it.”
Sasha drives like he has a personal vendetta against every sharp corner. He doesn’t seem super thrilled with me, either.
I roll down the window. He reaches across me and rolls it up.
I turn on the radio. He turns it off.
I start to hum. He presses a finger to my lips and says, “Don’t even fucking think about it.”
Two Truths and a Lie. What a stupid game. If I never play it again, it’ll still be too soon.
But even though the tension between us is disgustingly thick after the cellar shenanigans, I really am happy to be outdoors again. Most of the storms have gone to bother someone else, so through the windshield, sunlit Tuscany blurs into daubs of cypress and terracotta.
When we reach Siena, Sasha parallel parks with a jerk of the wheel that makes my teeth clack. “Let’s make this quick.”
He’s already out, circling to my door. When he yanks it open, his palm splays against the small of my back. Heat seeps through the shirt. He grazes the lowest bump of spine as I shuffle out, breath hitching.
“Watch the curb.” His warning rumbles through his chest into mine.
I stumble anyway. His arm bands around my waist, hauling me flush against him. Our reflection warps in a shop window—a grotesque parody of domesticity. His scarred throat. My swollen belly. The violet bruise on my collarbone where his mouth fused to my pulse in the dark.
He releases me so abruptly I sway.
Inside the pharmacy, I do my best impression of a mime while explaining my prescription to the elderly clerk. Sasha looms at my shoulder, offering blunt grunts to clarify one point or another.
“ Aspetta ,” the clerk murmurs when we’re done, vanishing into the back. He returns a moment later with the pharmacist in tow, carrying a white paper bag, his smile crinkling behind wire-framed glasses.
“ Una bella famiglia!” the pharmacists crows. He switches to English. “Twins are a blessing. You and your husband must be so happy.”
Sasha’s hand flexes against my lower back. I open my mouth to correct him— we’re not together; he’s just the sperm donor —but Sasha cuts in first.
“Couldn’t be happier,” he grits out.
The pharmacist just nods, oblivious to the tension radiating through Sasha’s hand and into my spine. He taps the prescription label. “Blood pressure is high, yes?”
“Only when I’m around,” Sasha mutters.
I elbow him. “I’m fine. The human barnacle here is the problem, but not for that much longer, praise be.”
The pharmacist blinks, my sarcasm lost in translation. Sasha’s lips twitch. “She says thank you.”
The man shuffles through more questions—due date, ultrasounds, any complications. Each answer tightens the invisible wire between us. Sasha answers in clipped Italian when I falter, his palm a brand through my shirt.
Finally, the chatty pharmacist bids us farewell. Sasha’s fingers brush against mine as he takes the bag from me. He starts for the door, but I pause. “Actually, my bladder is about to burst.” I turn to the pharmacist. “Can I use the, uh… il bagno? ”
The man chuckles, probably because I just made an absolute mockery of his native tongue. “ Si, si. Right this way.”
I follow him and pee quickly. When I’m done, I step back out of the shop and into the mid-morning glow. The pharmacy door jingles shut behind me. Sunlight stabs my eyes as I scan the sidewalk.
Which is… empty.
My pulse jackhammers, worst case scenarios immediately cropping up like weeds. He left. He actually fucking left me.
Or what if it’s worse? What if Dragan found us? What if ? —
Then I spot him. Half a block down, Sasha stands frozen in front of a window display. When I catch up to him and see what’s captured his attention, my heart stills.
It’s a baby boutique. Cribs, onesies, little leather shoes small enough to fit in my palm. His throat bobs as he traces the outline of one sole against the glass—a gesture so tender it wrenches something loose behind my ribs.
Don’t let this sway you, cold logic whispers. Leaving is survival. Fool me once, right?
But the man in the reflection—jaw slack, fingers hovering over ghost-children he’ll never know—isn’t the Bratva king who broke me. He’s just a boy who grew up harder than he should have, tossing wishful coins toward a future he still thinks he doesn’t deserve.
“Sasha…?”
He startles. When he sees it’s me, his mask slams down. “Let’s go.”
Yet as we walk away, he keeps glancing back—at the shoes, at my belly, at roadkill happy endings littering the cobblestones between us.
I watch the Peugeot’s taillights disappear down the drive, taking Sasha with them. He didn’t even look at me when he dropped me off at the villa—just waited until I was safely up the steps, then reversed like the devil himself was riding shotgun.
Jasmine materializes beside me, two gelato cups in hand. Pistachio drips down her wrist as she hands me one. “Where’s he off to in such a hurry?”
“He mumbled something about needing a drink.”
She scoffs. “No man ever has ‘a’ drink. Ten or twelve, maybe. However many it takes before he accepts his own bullshit.”
“There isn’t enough alcohol in all of Italy for that,” I mumble. I take a bite of gelato and sink to my butt on the stone stairs.
Jasmine joins me. “So. How many times did you bone in the car?”
“Jas! We didn’t?—”
“Relax, kiddo. I’m joking. Although it did look like I interrupted something below the belt in the cellar last night. Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Well, I do. So let’s talk about it.”
My face is burning. “It really wasn’t a big deal.”
Her eyebrow goes vertically skeptical. “That hickey suggests otherwise.”
I clamp a hand over my collarbone and curse myself for forgetting to cover it up. “Fine. It was more than ‘not a big deal,’ but still less than a big deal. It was… a moment of weakness.”
“Mhmm,” she hums. “And how many more ‘moments of weakness’ will it take before you two stop beating around the bush?”
I turn away from her, but the image of Sasha’s face pressed against that baby shop display follows me. The raw vulnerability in his expression as he traced those tiny shoes. For a moment, he wasn’t a wolf or a liar—he was just… Sasha. My Sasha.
“It’s not that simple,” I whisper.
“No?” Jasmine’s voice softens. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks pretty clear. He loves you. You love him. And those babies deserve to grow up better than we did.”
I’m shaking my head before she even finishes talking. “You’re saying I should love him back, but… How am I supposed to do that? I can’t just forget, Jas.”
“No,” she agrees. “Maybe not. But what’s the next step between here and forgiveness? Maybe try that out for a while.” She kisses me on the forehead, then rises. “Anyway, that’s just my two cents. Do with it what you will.”
I sit there for a while after she’s gone. My gelato has melted into ice cream soup, but the sun is beautiful as it descends behind the hills.
The next step between here and forgiveness— what does that look like? The cellar felt like some kind of middle ground. It wasn’t love; we all know that can never happen again. But it was… something. Feasible, maybe. That part of things has always been easy for us.
If I find a way to separate what can be from what can’t be, then maybe Sasha and I can make something work. At least for the next ten weeks.
Sex isn’t love. Love isn’t sex.
One can exist without the other…
Right?
I stand up. The bag of pills is still in my hand, I realize. I look down at it and sigh. As if I needed another reminder of what Sasha has done to me, I’ve got his babies and the meds I need to keep them alive right here with me.
The bottle label is in Italian, but I don’t need to speak it to know what it reads. Or at least, what it might as well read.
For chronic delusional syndrome. Take twice daily until reality sets in.
I throw back a pair of them and go to get the bicycle.