26. Chapter Twenty-Six
My eyes were heavy. Lack of sleep and general weariness at life had gotten me into this state.
“Mr. Vasiliev,” the flight attendant leaned over me, her voice a gentle whisper. “We’re experiencing a delay. Would you like something to drink while we get up and running?”
She smiled, her tilted little flight cap and perfectly manicured appearance made me miss my disheveled little witch. My heart still hadn’t recovered. It took every ounce of my being to not walk by the large glass window of the bookstore, to get one last glimpse of her, even if she was with another man.
Fucking Ryan.
But that would have ruined her happy ending. And she deserved one after everything she had been through.
I placed my palms on my eyelids and pressed at them until the sting of tears disappeared.
“Get it the fuck together, Jericho,” I said to myself, using that fake Brett Bradley voice. I slammed my head against the headrest, welcoming the pain jolting up the back of my head. It was better than the palpitations I was feeling in my chest.
I didn’t know if minutes or hours had passed. I kept my eyes closed, hoping that when I opened them, I’d be in a new place, in a new life.
Maybe I should find my way into French Africa, wage war with some drug cartels in South America, or go back to eliminating targets in the global triangle trade. Doing some good for humanity may soothe my soul. Not as much as she could - but it would be something.
Maybe a bullet to the brain might relieve me of this heart ache. Fuck!
I slammed my head on the head rest again, feeling the sting as it permeated from the back of my skull up to my forehead. If I could give myself a migraine, maybe it would keep me from thinking of her. Replace one gut wrenching misery for a superficial one.
I must have fallen asleep, because a soft voice tickled my ear. I knew I was dreaming.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.” My sweet little Evie, and her haunting voice. The melody of it. Fuck, I missed her so much I was hallucinating about her. I clenched my fist.
Maybe a descent into madness wouldn’t be so bad. If she was there with me.
I felt a cool hand on my cheek and I leaned into it. I could even smell her now. Her floral scent. That musk, and earth, and moonbeams.
I clenched my fists, trying to bring myself pain. I needed to pull myself from this hallucination - this glorious dream - but I also couldn’t. Not when I could feel her. I turned my cheek into her palm, not willing to open my eyes. Wanting to feel this just a moment longer. Just a moment more… just one more minute of her scent.
“Husband.” I could hear her voice call to me, like a siren on the rocks. I would smash myself on those rocks again and again just for the illusion of her. I felt a tear roll down my cheek.
It startled me. The moisture on my cheek wasn’t a dream. Nor was the slender thumb that wiped it away. Or the warm lips that kissed beneath my eyelashes.
I fluttered my eyes open, blinking back the moisture. Her pale, moon face was inches from mine, smiling with those eyes the color of the forest in the summer. Her lips were parted in a kind smile, her hair wild around her head like a fiery halo.
“I’m dreaming,” I whispered, tilting my head towards hers.
“Then I’m dreaming too,” she whispered, her voice so ethereal and lovely.
I shook my head slowly at first, then much faster. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
She was cupping my face, and stroking my cheeks. A thing I had done for her a dozen times in my short time with her. Such a short time, but also a lifetime ago. I reached up to grab her wrists.
“You’re there. In that bookshop.” I tell myself, delirious and heartbroken, and I heard it in my own voice. “Happy. I need you to be happy, Evie. Is this why I’m dreaming of you? Did I drink one of your teas and now I’m telling everything to visions of you.”
“You’re so self-sacrificing,” she whispered to me. “Do you really think you’re dreaming, husband?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “There’s no other explanation for this.”
The angel haunting me brought her knees up to either side of mine, straddling me in the tan leather chair. The weight felt real. Her touch, her scent. The mind could do such crazy things.
She took my hand in hers and kissed the palm, her moist, warm, red lips feeling so tender on the callous. Then, her teeth came down on the skin that connected the index finger and the thumb. Skin crunched between her teeth, and a small drop of blood appeared on her bottom lip.
I yelped and pulled my hand away.
“Son of a bitch!” I said, shaking my hand.
“Not dreaming,” Evie said, a self-satisfied grin on her face.
Not dreaming. I wasn’t dreaming? What?
“You’re not supposed to be here.” I looked down at her. She was wearing the same clothes that she wore that morning. That little plaid woolen skirt, and knee high boots. Her hair was a pleated mess, and those eyes… “You’re supposed to be with Ryan.”
“I’m supposed to be with you.” She shook her head. “I’m your wife.”
“You don’t have to be!” I yelled, shaking my head. “I’m not trapping you. Sign the divorce decree. You’ll be protected. You’ll want for nothing. Please…”
I slammed my head on the headrest again, feeling the shooting pain rip through my skull one last time.
“Stop doing that.” Her hands flew up to grasp around the nape of my neck. “Don’t do that anymore.” Her eyes were wide, brimming with tears. “Please, stop doing that.”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “I did all this to make you happy. Don’t you want to be happy? Please…”
I tried to push her away, but my body felt weak. Like I couldn’t summon the strength to do it. She slapped at my hands, and secured her thighs tighter to mine.
“Fuck,” I said through gritted teeth as my cock decided to wake up and join the conversation.
I shut my eyes. Maybe that would help. Maybe that would get me to summon my strength again.
“Please go, Evie,” I whispered. No, I begged. “I can’t let you go a second time. Please… Do it for yourself.”
“I’m doing this for myself,” she said, her hands coming back to my neck, massaging the tension on my shoulders. “You can’t get rid of me. I won’t let you.”
I shook my head, bringing my palms up to my eyes again as the sting of tears was back.
“Please,” she whispered, that throaty voice of hers coiled itself into my consciousness. “Choose me. Don’t let me go. Please…” Was she begging me? “Don’t you want me anymore?”
Good God, what world did she live in, if she didn’t think that I wanted her?
“I can’t let you go a second time, Evie. It would kill me.” I wanted to wail like a child. “You belong somewhere that makes you happy. Even if it’s with… Ryan.”
I spat out that cursed name. That fucking imbecile. The asshole bookstore owner who had, without trying, bested me in the only competition that mattered. Over the only prize that I had ever wanted.
“I’m happy with you.” I could hear the tears in the waiver of her voice. Shit.
I opened my eyes, as a beautiful stream went down her cheek.
“Don’t do that,” I said, reaching out to her face. “I hate you in pain, but you’re also… so fucking beautiful when you cry.”
I pulled her to me, wrapping my arm around her ribs, crushing her against me. She clutched me back, her hand around my neck and fingers twining through my short hair, tugging at the strands.
“A single tear could drive me to burn the world down.” I crushed her until her body was flush against mine. Her hair tickled the side of my face, and I buried myself in it until it covered me like the most delicious shroud.
“I’m not asking you to burn the world.” She wept into my neck, I felt her tears running down my collar. “I’m asking you to let me stay. Please.”
“It was never my choice.” I was in complete agony.
How could I ever set her free now?
“Then it must be my choice, yes?” Her little hand came up in a fist and hammered down onto my shoulder. “I choose you. Let me make the choice. Please.”
“That’s a stupid choice.”
“It’s the only one.” She hit me again, and the pain reminded me that I was here. That this was real. That she was in my arms. Without it, this would be a dream. A delusion of my own making. “I love you.”
The words sent a shiver through my body, from the hairs on my head, to the sudden tension down to my toes. My cock bobbed underneath her, and I felt her moan as it pressed against her through her skirt. Every cell in my body responded to those three beautiful words.
“I love you,” she whispered again. “Mr. Jericho Vasiliev, please. Don’t turn your wife away.”
She leaned back so that her weight rested on my lap, and she looked down at me from her superior height. How ridiculous it was for an angel to tell a sinful man to let her stay.
“I love you, Aoibheann,” I whispered.
“You can say my name?” She let out a sad little laugh.
“I’ve always known how to say it. From the first time I met you.”
“Then what was all this Evie nonsense?”
I chuckled to myself. “Because I liked seeing you mad.”
I touched her pale cheek, watching that familiar blush coming over.
“It made you blush, and I thought it was cute.”
Her eyelids fluttered, and a hint of a smile came over her lips. I kissed her cheek.
“I first saw you turn red in anger.” Then I kissed her nose. “Then in fear.” Then her lips. “Then in embarrassment.” She laughed at that one, as I traced my lips on her neck. “Then from arousal.”
As if on cue, she let out a deep moan. My cock bobbed against my zipper, ready for his own declaration of love. Down, boy. You’ll get your turn.
There was a cough. I still wasn’t great at deciphering dreams from reality, but when a second cough, followed by a slight knock ocurred, my wife and I looked at the embarrassed flight attendant, hovering near the cockpit.
“Sorry,” she mouthed. “But we’re getting ready to take off. Could you… put on your seatbelts?”
Evie giggled, sliding off of me and into the seat beside me. I wasn’t ready to let her go, holding onto one of her hands as we both buckled her into the seat. I stared at her as the engine started to roar. She looked up at me, leaning her shoulder against mine.
“This will be my last warning,” I whispered into her ear. “You come back with me, and I will never let you go.”
“You’re an idiot.” She playfully bit into my shoulder through my blazer. “I’m the one who wouldn’t let you go.”
As the engine roared, I stared at her, and she stared back at me, our hands clasped together so tight, I thought her nails would dig right through my skin. We waited in transfixed silence until the seatbelt sign turned off.
She moved faster than I did, unbuckling then straddling me under her lithe legs. I wrapped my arms around her waist.
“I have something to tell you,” I finally confessed, placing a kiss on her tender, pink lips.
“Yes, husband?” She wrapped her arms around my neck.
Her eyes were love, and forgiveness. I adored her.
I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose.
There were four people who knew the extent of my secrets: Me. My sister. My daughter. Corbin McClellan.
“I was born Jericho Vasiliev, but most of the world knows me by another name,” I took a deep breath through my nose.
She was a Mafia bride, from a Mafia family. I did not know how she might take my secret. I did not know if there was still some kind of loyalty that she felt towards the Murphy clan, especially as that relationship had thawed.
“I am a government agent, in a company called Paradigm,” I blurted out. “We are in deep cover. Our mission is to stop criminal organizations within the United States that our law enforcement, and others, can’t touch.”
She leaned back, her brows pinching together, putting a small line between her brows.
“I became Pakhan to eliminate the bratva in New York.” She touched my face, her hands shaking at my confession. “I will break it from the inside. Most of the world knows me as Brett Bradley.”
Her brows rose, and her hands left my face, just as I thought they would. I shut my eyes, shielding myself from her inevitable rejection. Then I heard a rather unflattering little snort. My eyes flew open, and saw something that I did not expect.
My wife had her long fingers over her mouth, the apples of her cheeks rounded and pink.
“Brett Bradley may be the worst name I’ve ever heard.” She laughed.
My mouth opened as I leaned back in my seat.
“That’s all you have to say?” I asked.
“My sweet husband.” Her hands came down to my chest, and she leaned forward, placing her forehead against mine. “Your wants are my needs. Your vows become mine.” She grabbed my hand, flipping it over to the scar that lined my palm. “That is what this means.”
She leaned down and kissed the tender spot in the center of my curved hand.
That ridiculous, medieval bullshit. A scar on my hand, more permanent than a ring.
“I guess you were a knight in shining armor all along.” She smiled, collapsing into my arms, her head resting on my shoulder.
I didn’t move, afraid that this dream would disappear.
“Hold me, husband,” she whispered against my chest. “Hold me tight.”
I did. And she was real. Her slight weight, her slender frame, her warmth and the incredible, raw, presence of my witchy little wife overwhelmed me. I dipped my head into her wild, fiery curls, and took in her floral scent, and thanked God, or whatever higher power had given my miserable life this small mercy.
For her, every scar, every wound, every miserable experience was worth it. The fight to bring justice into the world was something that had made me want to suck start my own pistol. But with her in my arms, everything had new meaning.
I held her on my lap through the entire flight, even as the flight attendants tried to warn us that it was against protocol. But protocol be damned. I held her to me as she dozed off. I couldn’t sleep, though. I was too busy memorizing her smooth features, and every strand of her glorious mane.
I was still the fucking Pakhan, and if she wanted to sleep in my arms the entire flight, then I would make it happen.
When we landed in a small airport outside of Mourningkill, New York, she finally moved out of my arms.
We walked to the door and the staircase holding hands, and the sight that greeted us from the bottom of the steps terrified me.
“What’s happening, Yuliya?” I demanded, pulling Eve into me.
My sister’s hair was in a tight braid, her face devoid of any of that useless powder she’d been using, with a helmet strapped to a black netted vest over her black combat gear. She was dressed to go to war, with a pistol on her thigh, an M-4 slung at the low ready, and black gloves with hardened knuckles, and full magazines taking up every space on top of her body armor.
“Corbin has been kidnapped,” she said, her Russian accent strong as shit.
That was never a good sign. My sister might have been born in America, and called herself Finnish because of our mother, but she had been raised bratva. This was her killing voice.
“He was taken on his way to a rally in Boston, and has been gone for almost twelve hours. I’ve alerted all our assets.” She tried to make her face placid as she said it, but there was an added bit of ice behind her words.
Some people’s temper flares like fire. Others like ice. My sister was the latter.
She was an arctic freeze that would kill everything in its wake.
“Give me ten and I’ll gear up,” I told her, leaning down to kiss Eve on the temple.
“No,” Yuliya said, flatly.
“Yuli…” I gritted out.
“You will stay here, with your wife. I don’t care if she knows what we are - I’m sure you’ve already told her.” She smirked, lifting a brow. “You should have told her before the wedding, but I won’t say I told you so.”
“You just did.”
“You have to go home.”
“I’m not going home while my little sister goes and…”
“Rose is in labor.” My sister’s pale eyes turned to my wife, and without changing her expression, she said, “She is asking for you.”