THIRTY-SEVEN
CAIDEN
The nurse points me toward the little room, and I stop in the doorway immediately, stock still. Vladimir is asleep on the narrow hospital bed, his blanket kicked halfway down by his feet, one arm flung above his head. Ari is standing beside the bed with his back to me.
He doesn’t turn when I come in. He’s just standing there looking at Vladimir, one hand resting on the rail, still as the furniture. The silence in the room is wrong, and for a second, I can’t speak, but I try anyway.
“I’m—” The word dies in my throat. ‘Sorry’ is useless here, I know that. But what else can I say?
“They told me you suggested putting him on the mission,” he says quietly, his words flat.
He turns then, slowly, and I finally get a proper look at him.
His face is pale, hard, and hollowed in all the wrong places.
Around his neck, hanging over his shirt, are Niko’s dog tags.
That sight almost breaks me. “Why would they say that?” he asks.
“Why would they tell me that Caiden Varrik suggested putting my brother on a mission when he was still grieving and clearly not thinking properly? Surely, you’re not that fucking stupid. ”
I try to answer. “I—” Nothing sensible comes, but Ari waits. “I thought it would help,” I say at last and hear how pathetic it sounds the second it leaves my mouth.
His expression doesn’t shift. “Help?”
“Niko. He asked me to.” The words come out faster now, mixing with the panic. “I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t. He came to me, he said he needed—”
Ari’s eyes sharpen with something so cold it nearly stops my breathing. “So it’s his fault?”
“What? No.”
“My brother is dead,” he says, still in that same awful, cold, calm voice, “and you’re standing there telling me it’s his fault?”
“No, I’m not saying that.” My hands come up almost in surrender, as if I can physically push the misunderstanding back. “You know what Niko’s like. He wouldn’t let it go.”
Ari’s face changes then. “Was,” he says. “What he was like.”
I swallow, and the room seems to shrink around the sound of it. “I’m sorry,” I say, because there’s nothing else left.
Ari gives a short, awful little laugh under his breath. “You’re sorry?”
He turns his head slightly toward the bed without looking away from me. “Tell that to him.”
My eyes go to Vladimir before I can stop them. “Stop,” I say, my voice rough and the tears beginning to burn behind my eyes. “It was an accident. The intel was bad. There was no way I could have known what would happen.”
Ari’s mouth tightens. “He should never have been there.”
I look at him. Really look. At the dog tags on his chest, the fury holding his body together, the grief sitting underneath all of it like a live mine. “And you know it,” he says.
“It’s not my fault,” I say. Even as I hear it, I know how it sounds. It sounds like I’m trying to convince myself more than him.
Ari stares at me for what feels like an eternity. “If that’s true, then why is the guilt written all over your face?” he asks, taking a few steps closer. “You’re still terrible at lying.” He turns back toward the bed as if the conversation is already over. “Just get out.”
I can’t breathe properly. “No.” The word surprises us both. “Can we talk later? Maybe when you’ve had some time?” I ask, hating how desperate it sounds and unable to stop myself anyway.
“There is no later.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m done. Leave me alone, Caiden.”
“No.” I step forward before I can talk myself out of it, the panic rising hard and fast. “No, I’m not walking away from this. We had plans, a future. We can fix this.”
He turns back to face me slowly, and I see there’s absolutely nothing in his face I can work with. “There is no we,” he says. “No plans, no future, and definitely nothing left to fix.”
“Ari, please—” I reach for him without thinking. It’s instinct, nothing more complicated than that. I want his wrist, his hand, any part of him I can still touch before this becomes real in a way I can’t come back from.
But Ari moves faster than I do.
He twists cleanly out of reach, grabs me by the throat, and slams me back against the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of me.
His forearm pins me across my chest. His face is right in mine now, and the fury in it is so naked it almost burns.
“Don’t,” he growls through his teeth. “Fucking. Touch. Me.”
The sound of the hate and venom in his voice goes right through me. Then Vladimir’s cry cuts through the room, and Ari lets me go at once, turning away from me without a second thought, lifting him from the bed with hands that are suddenly careful in a way that makes my chest hurt.
He says something to him, and the crying eases into those small, hitching sobs toddlers do when they’re confused more than hurt. I stand there against the wall, watching and listening to him whisper in Russian. Then I hear it, immediately understanding what he’s saying.
“Oh my God,” I say. Ari doesn’t look at me. “You’re leaving? Ari—” My voice cracks. “You’re leaving without me?”
He shifts Vladimir higher, settling him against his shoulder with practised ease. “That’s none of your business.”
“Of course it fucking is.” I push off the wall, closing the distance between us. “What about Vladimir? You can’t just run with him. That’s no life for a kid.”
“You’re right,” he says as he turns to face me again.
His tone is soft enough that for one stupid second, I think I’ve gotten through to him.
Then he steps toward me. Vladimir is warm, half-awake, and confused when Ari presses him into my arms. My whole body locks in shock before instinct catches up, and I adjust my hold so he doesn’t slip.
“No,” I whisper. “Ari, don’t do this.” He’s close enough now that I can feel his breath.
Ari leans closer, close enough that I can see how badly he’s holding himself together now. His voice drops lower, roughened by something far uglier than grief.
“You can watch him grow up without him,” he says. “You can watch him learn how to walk and talk and laugh, and you’ll see every single fucking second of it because Niko doesn’t get to be here anymore.”
His breathing catches harshly for a moment before he keeps going anyway. “You’ll look at him every day and remember exactly what you did. I hope it follows you everywhere. I hope the pain claws so deep you never get a moment’s peace again.”
His face twists violently, anger finally splitting straight through the control he’s been clinging to. “I hope it destroys you and the guilt eats you alive.”
My throat closes. “This isn’t fair.” The words are pathetic. I know it. I say them anyway because there’s nothing else left and because some childish part of me still thinks fairness should matter to somebody in this room.
Ari’s face twists. “Neither was trusting you,” he says. I hold Vladimir tighter because my arms have started shaking.
“Ari,” I say again. “Don’t— I love you.” I’m begging now, he can see it, I know he can. Then he laughs in my face. It’s honestly the worst sound I've ever heard. “You love me. I know you do.” I try again.
“You’re wrong,” he says. “I hate you, Caiden Varrik,” he says, taking a few steps back. There’s enough space now that there is no reaching him, even if I were stupid enough to try. “I swear on my brother’s grave, if I ever see your face again, I will fucking kill you.”
I stare at him, trying to take in what’s happening. I think part of me genuinely expects him to take it back. To snap and shout then calm down enough to look horrified by what he just said.
But he doesn’t.
He just stands there looking at me like I’m something rotten he can barely stand to breathe near.
Ari doesn’t look angry anymore. He looks done.
Then he slips past me, walks out of the room, and out of my life for good. There’s no pause or backward glance.
He’s just gone.
I stay where I am long after Ari has disappeared, staring at the doorway he went through and replaying every word with brutal clarity. Not because I doubt them, but because I believe every last one.
I wanted responsibility. Now responsibility has Niko’s eyes and a father-shaped hole.
They let me leave without asking questions. Maybe because nobody wants to be the one to stop a man who looks like I must look now, or maybe because there is nothing left to explain.
I carry Vladimir outside, but it feels...
unreal, like I’m watching myself from somewhere half a step above and behind.
The doors slide open, and the cold air outside hits me hard enough that I hiss through my teeth.
Snow drifts through the light, catching in Vladimir’s hair before melting.
He squirms, gives one fussy little complaint, then settles again against me as if this is ordinary.
“Okay,” I murmur without thinking. “It’s okay.” I don’t have a clue who I’m talking to.
I walk over to the car I borrowed from base, open the back door and hesitate. It feels wrong to put him down. Deeply, physically wrong. Like if I do it, something final will click into place. Like I should just keep holding him and start driving and never stop until I’m back in England.
But I don’t, obviously.
I buckle him in with hands that are only now beginning to shake. My fingers are clumsy as I tug the seatbelt until it clicks loudly in the quiet. Vladimir blinks up at me, unfocused, and trusting, and something inside me caves in completely.
“There,” I whisper, my voice breaking on the word.
I close the door, and the sound cracks through the car park like a gunshot.
I make it round to the driver’s side before my legs go.
I catch myself against the roof, then drop into the driver’s seat, folding forward over the steering wheel, hands locked on it hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
Ari was right.
This is my fault.
I should never have put him on that mission. Niko asked, and I said yes, and then he followed my voice into the dark, and now his son is asleep in the back seat of the car while his body is lying on a slab in a building behind me.
My shoulders start shaking before I can stop them, and the sound that escapes me is ugly enough that I’m grateful no one’s there to hear it properly.
I don’t cry quietly, I never have. It comes out more like something being ripped apart, which, in all honesty, is exactly how I feel.
“I’m sorry,” I choke on the words. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
The words are useless and relentless, and there’s nobody left who can forgive me for any of it. I hit the heel of my hand against the steering wheel once. Then again. Then I stop because the thought of waking Vladimir slices through everything else at once.
I force myself to breathe quietly, wiping my face with the back of my sleeve. In the mirror, Vladimir shifts and lets out one small, sleepy sound, then settles again.
I straighten in the seat slowly, my hands trembling in my lap. The guilt is crushing, but I don’t get to collapse properly now. Not yet, with Vladimir in the back seat.
I turn the key, and the engine starts on the first go. As I pull out of the hospital lot, the tyres crunching over fresh snow, the cold realisation drops into the pit of my stomach, making me feel physically sick.
I’m alone.
Ari left me.
Ari left me and handed me a responsibility I can’t put down.
But I’ll do it, because I owe him, and because I owe Niko.
I don’t get to fail this kid, too.