Chapter 46
My phone buzzes against the nightstand, and the sound slices through the silence of the apartment, abruptly dragging me from my sleep.
I jerk upright in the dark, a mixture of panic from being woken suddenly and fear that something is wrong with my Nikolai, causing my heart to thud.
I fumble for my phone in the dark and swipe open the screen.
It’s blinding, and I blink at for a minute, desperately trying to get my eyes to adjust.
NIK
Sorry for not being there when you wake up. I’ll be home as soon as I can.
I love you.
I note the time.
3:12 a.m.
It’s about the time he’s usually crawling into bed, smelling extra woodsy from his soap. I stare at the message for a moment, my thumb hovering over the screen. I press call. It rings once before he answers. “What are you doing up?” His voice is low and gravelly, yet soft and tender.
I let out a humorless laugh. “You woke me.”
There is silence on his end, and when I close my eyes, I can see his smug smile, “So, how was your night, little pet? Netflix? Midnight snack? Dreaming things about me that I would enjoy hearing about?”
I roll my eyes in the dark. “Are you seriously making small talk and trying to have phone sex with me right now?”
“Why not? I’m just in a car with my brothers, they won’t mind a little phone sex,” he teases.
“We would mind,” Alek’s voice carries through the phone. “We would mind a lot!”
I can’t help but laugh.
“Fine,” Nik huffs. “No phone sex.” His voice is maddeningly casual, but I know him too well. That tone means he’s trying to distract me from the text that woke me.
“Nik…” My stomach tightens.
“Not a big deal,” he soothes. “My brothers and I are taking Alek camping.”
“What?” I blink, sitting straighter, the sheets pooling around my waist. “Camping? You don’t camp. None of you camp.”
“We’re heading upstate. We finally got a lead, and we’re going now before things change and he has a chance to move on us again.”
I grip the phone tighter, my nails pressing into my palm. The thought of Nik heading out of the city to hunt down the man putting our family in danger sends my heart racing.
Trying to hide my hesitation, I mumble, “You’re sure?”
“As sure as we ever get, little pet,” he declares confidently. “We’ll flush him out, finish this, and take back every inch of our city.”
I want to beg him not to go. Plead with him to come home and climb into bed beside me, but I can’t. I know this is who he is. It’s who all of them are. They have the need for vengeance pumping through their veins, and as much as it scares me, I love him too much to try to change him.
“Okay,” I whisper. My throat is tight. “Just… come back to me.”
“You don’t even have to ask.” His voice softens. “You know I will. Nothing in this world could keep me from you. From the two of you.”
“I love you,” I exhale.
“I love you too, little pet.”
When the call ends, I sit, frozen, the darkness almost stifling.
My hand drifts down, rests against my belly almost instinctively.
I lie there, staring at the ceiling, the faint light from my phone still glowing at the edge of the bed.
Sleep is gone, miles away. All the disastrous ways this night could end spin through my thoughts—any of them getting hurt, or worse, not coming home at all.
I can’t be alone with these thoughts.
Grabbing my phone again, I send a text.
You up?
The response is almost immediate.
EAVAN
Yup. I’ll unlock the door.
Sliding out of bed, I pull on pajama pants and one of Nik’s oversized hoodies. I pad barefoot through the apartment, bumping into Jagger when I open the front door. His gaze drops to me as I step beside him. “Ma’am, you know I can’t let you go anywhere tonight.”
“Don’t start. I’m literally going across the hall, ” I grumble, ignoring him and walking over the threshold, pointing at Eavan’s door when he tries to stop me.
“Six steps, Jagger. You can take six steps”—I spin my finger in the air—“just turn around and face the other direction for a little while. You’ll live. ”
He huffs, dropping his arm with all the drama of a sulking child, and follows me across the hallway.
Eavan’s door is cracked, the light spilling faintly into the corridor. As I step into the apartment, the stairwell door at the end of the foyer creaks open. Madison slips out, also barefoot, wrapped in a cardigan like she’s been awake for hours. Her eyes widen a little when she sees me.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” I ask with a tiny smile.
She shakes her head, lips pressed thin. “Same as you, I guess.”
We fall into step together, both of us drawn to the same refuge. We find Eavan waiting for us at the kitchen island. She’s dressed in Enzo’s sweats and sporting a messy bun, pouring water from a kettle into three cups of tea.
“You two look like hell,” she teases lightly, though her eyes flicker with the same worry I feel.
“Gee, thanks,” I mutter, grabbing one of the cups and sinking into the couch.
Madison drops down beside me, tugging her cardigan tighter. Eavan hands her the other mug before curling into the armchair across from us.
For a while, none of us speaks. The silence is heavy but different, gentler somehow, like we are all carrying the weight together instead of alone. Eavan breaks the silence, “They’ll be fine.”
Madison lets out a deep sigh. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” Eavan admits. “But I know them. And I know they’re not going down without taking the whole damn world with them. All of them are too damned stubborn not to come home.”
I sip my tea and curl my fingers tighter around the warmth of the mug. It’s not really comforting, but it’s something to hold on to. “At least we have each other.”
Madison leans her head against my shoulder in silent agreement. Eavan tucks her legs under herself, the three of us bound by the same gnawing fear and the strange solace of not having to face it alone. These women have become my family.
And as the night stretches on, we sit together in the dim glow of Eavan’s living room, waiting, hoping, and pretending for just a little while that we aren’t terrified of what the dawn might bring.