Chapter 34
Kolya
Cottage Seven is quiet, with only Max’s snores from his broken nose filling the air. The four enforcers claimed the beds, joking about how unmarried couples shouldn’t share a room.
Realistically, they just didn’t want to sleep on the lumpy couch, even if it meant sharing a bed with another man. Considering they spent the last week racing around, trying to stop or at least mitigate the Falcones’ attacks on us, I’m not going to begrudge them for choosing comfort over ego.
Chloe and I cuddle on the couch fully clothed, waiting for morning. Sleep isn’t even a consideration.
I’m savoring the feel of her, safe in my arms.
Chloe’s thumb traces circles on my palm. She looks at me, then at the door, a question in her eyes.
I nod.
We rise together. My body protests with a symphony of aches, though I do my best to hide the pain. Chloe notices anyway, her hand gentle at my elbow as we head toward the door.
The hinges give a high, plaintive whine.
Glancing back, I catch Alexei’s eye through the open bedroom door. His gaze holds mine for a heartbeat.
Two.
Then his lids fall shut again, his breathing resuming that careful rhythm.
No words. No questions. A gift of privacy I hadn’t expected.
Outside, the night cocoons us like a cozy blanket. Stars—cold points of light against an endless black—pierce the darkness overhead. The air tastes clean after the chemical stench of the warehouse fire and the lingering smell of blood and antiseptic in the motel room.
Chloe tugs me toward the concrete steps leading to the parking lot, where we sit side by side.
“Are you cold?”
“I run hot.” Truth. No lies between us anymore. “You really okay? Didn’t want to ask in front of the guys in case you weren’t.”
“I’m fine.” She snuggles in closer. Scenting me.
The observation stirs primitive pleasure in my chest.
“I need to tell you something.” Her eyes track the empty road beyond the parking lot, checking for threats. She’s learned that much, at least. “Something I didn’t tell Gio.”
I still. This sounds important. “What is it?”
She faces me, moonlight shimmering in her eyes. “I know where the diamonds are. I figured it out right before they took me. I was coming to wake you when they broke in.”
I freeze.
These stupid diamonds nearly got Chloe killed. But without them, I wouldn’t have met her.
Once they’re returned to Roman, maybe she’ll finally be safe.
I exhale and squeeze her fingers. “Where?”
“The globe bar. Supposedly a ‘gift’ from a random parent of one of my kids. I received it last year.” Her bitter laugh is nothing like her usual brightness. “What kind of parent gives their kid’s kindergarten teacher a gift like this? I should’ve known something was off. But, you know, I’m always—”
I chuckle, mostly to myself. “Sunshine on Legs.”
“What?”
I can’t believe I just let my private nickname for her slip. “You’re always thinking the best of everyone.”
She shrugs.
I should have paid more attention to that damn globe the night I drugged Chloe. “You’re sure about this?”
She nods. “Why else would someone mysteriously gift me that?”
My mind races, connecting dots, filling gaps. The globe bar. The break-in at her house. Gio’s men searching. Everything fits. The timing lines up with MJ’s own investigation.
But that’s not what seizes the breath in my lungs.
“You didn’t tell Gio.” My statement is flat with disbelief.
She stares down at her hands as she twists them in her lap. “No.”
I almost touch the bandage on her cheek. “You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you’d told him.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he would’ve killed me either way.
I couldn’t be sure. Really, all he did was slap me a few times, and honestly, I’ve endured worse trying to stop children’s tantrums.” She makes a face, baring her teeth and extending her fingers like claws.
“They’ve got sharp little teeth and nails.
Anyway, I think he was working himself up for bigger things, but you got there first.”
Gone is the woman who only saw good in the world while ignoring the blatant evil. She’s finally opened her eyes.
“But you’re certain enough to risk your life on it.” I pinch her chin between my thumb and forefinger and tilt her face up to mine. “Why didn’t you tell him? Save yourself?”
Her unwavering eyes meet mine. “Because I didn’t believe him when he said you were in the next room about to be tortured. I couldn’t ‘feel’ you there. That might sound silly, but—”
“It doesn’t.” My heart swells with emotion I struggle to contain.
“I just knew you’d come for me. And you did. You risked everything. I couldn’t betray that.”
This woman. This impossible, contradictory woman. She withheld information that could have saved her from torture, from death, to protect diamonds that mean nothing to her. To protect me.
Wait.
“You figured it out before you were taken. The keys to the car weren’t locked up. I was asleep. You could have tried to escape, gotten the money, and skipped town.” The realization dawns slow and heavy. “Twenty million dollars. New identity. New life.”
Her laugh and the genuine amusement brightening her face startle me.
“I don’t want those cursed things. Besides, you need to give them to Roman so you can complete your job.
” She shifts closer, her legs sliding between mine on the concrete step.
The borrowed sweatpants hang loose on her frame.
She looks smaller, more vulnerable. But there’s nothing vulnerable about the steel in her spine or the steady way she holds my gaze. “And I’m not a thief.”
“No.” I cup her unhurt cheek in my palm. “You’re not.”
And she isn’t. She’s exactly what she’s always seemed to be.
Honest. Decent.
Good in a way I’d forgotten existed.
The woman who decorates her classroom with rainbows and smiles at children and means it. A survivor who keeps going after seeing the world’s darkest corners. The lover who sees the monster in me and doesn’t run. The warrior who holds on to her humanity despite everything.
She’s much stronger than me.
She leans into my touch as her eyes flutter closed. “I should be terrified of you.”
Smarter than me too.
My chest tightens. “Are you?”
Part of me fears her answer. An unfamiliar sensation I don’t enjoy.
She tips her head to the side, considering. “Sort of. But…in a good way.”
“A good way?” The corner of my mouth lifts despite myself.
“Like standing at the edge of something enormous. Powerful.” Her featherlight fingers trace the line of my jaw. “You could destroy me but won’t.”
Tectonic plates shift and shudder in my chest, reforming entirely into new ground.
Before, I was a weapon. A tool. Nothing more than Roman’s enforcer.
After, I’m…different. Better. Whole.
Someone.
I never thought I wanted or needed that.
Needed her.
There was Before Chloe, and now there is After Chloe.
Chloe makes me more of a man, and I’ll never return to being less.
Not with her by my side.
I hook my finger under her chin. “I’m worse without you.” The unplanned and unfiltered declaration rings true.
She breathes in, holds it, then exhales shakily. Her fingers, still touching my jaw, tremble against my skin.
Tears shimmer in her eyes. “And I’m better with you.”
The simplicity of her statement, the perfect mirroring, undoes me.
I tug her closer, ignoring my protesting injuries. She nuzzles against me with her back to my chest and her head tucked perfectly under my chin.
Her shuddering stops. She’s warm, soft, and sweet.
And most importantly, mine.
We stare out at the empty parking lot, past the flickering neon sign and into the vast beyond. My arms encircle her possessively. For the first time since the warehouse—maybe since before I can even remember—peace settles in my bones.
“What happens now?” Her soft-spoken question barely pierces the night. “With the diamonds. With Roman.”
I press my lips to the top of her head, breathing in her scent. Smoke from the fire, sweat, a host of chemicals, and something sweet underneath that’s uniquely her. “We go back. We retrieve the diamonds. We give them to Roman.”
“And then?”
“We figure it out.”
She shifts in my arms and tilts her face up to mine. Starlight catches in her eyes, rendering them liquid silver.
My heart lurches in my chest.
I kiss her. What was meant to be a gentle touching of lips deepens into desperate hunger. Her hands fist in my shirt, dragging me closer. Mine tangle in her hair, cradling her skull.
I savor her warm, willing mouth against mine. She’s not the same as she was in the safe house—not that desperate, wanton thing pleasure reduced her to—but this woman is infinitely better.
I won’t complain about taking her that way again, but this is the Chloe I want.
Sweet. Strong. Perfect.
When I hear her broken, needy whimpers, I tighten my hold. Her body presses impossibly closer. I can sense her need throbbing between us.
If not for the full house behind us and the occasional car passing down the road, I’d fuck her right here on the steps.
Which just proves why the guys didn’t trust us to share a room with a door.
When we break apart, breathless, her lips are swollen. She pants for a moment, her fingers still clenched in my shirt. “Kolya…”
I brush my lips over her forehead until I reach the small butterfly bandage Vanya placed over the cut at her hairline. “What is it?”
She chews her bottom lip. Her eyes glisten, and I brush my thumb against the edge of her lashes.
A vice grips my chest. Is she crying? Did I upset her somehow? “What’s wrong, dushka?”
She leans toward my fingers, her lips parting with a soft exhale. “I think I love you.”
The quiet words wash over me in a tsunami.
My heart stutters, then pounds harder.
Just a few days ago, I would have scoffed at the idea.
Love is weakness. Vulnerability. A weapon to be used against you. Roman hammered that lesson into me with every assignment, every kill.
But with Chloe, warm in my arms, her heartbeat a steady rhythm against mine…I understand what Roman never could.
Love is strength. Purpose. Worth fighting and dying for.
Worth living for.
The realization floods my system, chasing away lingering aches.
My arm tautens around her waist. I cup the back of her neck, splaying my fingers against her skin. I can’t get enough of her.
“I know I do.” The words rip from somewhere deep inside me. “I love you, Chloe Jane Davidson.”
Her smile breaks across her face like a radiant sunrise, chasing away my shadows.
She kisses me again, softly and sweetly. She presses close, and her warmth—her love, I realize with a tug on my chest—washes through me like a benediction. Reanimating my cold, dead heart from the grave.
I can’t understand what I did to deserve her, but I don’t care.
I’m never letting her go.
When she pulls back this time, her smile remains. “We’re quite a pair. The enforcer and the kindergarten teacher.”
“The monster and the sunshine.” I waggle my eyebrows the way I’ve seen Vanya do.
“Dork.” She stifles a laugh against my shoulder. “No. Just two people who found each other in the dark. Two people who, despite everything, chose each other.”
I drink in the determined set of her jaw. The kindness in her eyes, even after everything she’s endured. The strength that has nothing to do with physical power and everything to do with an unbreakable spirit.
Attaching myself to this woman is the best thing I’ve ever done. My only real decision in twenty years.
For the first time in my life, I’m not just surviving…I’m living. All because of her.
I made my choice. I found my home.
And she’s right here beside me.
There’s one question nagging at me, though.
“Dushka, which parent gave you the globe?”