23. Adrian
TWENTY-THREE
If I didn’t get Nataliya in my arms soon, I was going to combust. I was sure of it. But even as I stared at her, safe and sound at last, I held myself back. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to touch her yet. Or ever again.
Nataliya opened her mouth, like she wanted to say something, but then she closed it again. Finally, after a short eternity, she crossed the space between us and threw her arms around my neck. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for coming for me.”
I wrapped my arms around her waist, holding her close. I couldn’t hold back the sigh of relief at getting to hold her like this again. “I’ll always come for you,” I promised. “No matter what.”
She drew back enough to look at me, though she didn’t let go. “Adrian, I?—”
“I know I said some awful things to you,” I cut her off. “I was angry, and I didn’t want to listen, and I’m sorry.”
Her expression softened. “It’s okay.”
I shook my head and cupped her face. “It’s not,” I insisted. “I would never want you to feel like you weren’t being heard. I just?—”
“He gets into his own head sometimes,” Zach helped me out. “We don’t have a lot of time for this, but why don’t you two step into another room and talk?”
I nodded, and taking her by the hand, we found an unused guest room next door. “Keep the door open,” she implored me, looking around as if someone was going to jump out of the shadows.
“Sure.” The house had emptied, except for the unconscious and Hayes, but I left the door open wide so the light of the hallway mingled with the light in the room. Once we were alone, however, I faltered. Although I had her hand in mine, I felt like we were back in that holding pattern where I wasn’t sure whether I was allowed to touch her or not. “I’m falling in love with you,” I said, deciding to jump in headfirst.
Nataliya blinked, obviously trying to absorb that information. “We barely know one another.”
“I know, but I’m falling in love with you.” I already love you, I could have added, but I didn’t want to scare her. “I’ve never met anyone who makes me feel like you do.”
She started to smile but bit it back with a shake of her head. “Adrian, I have to think about Elias here. Being with me isn’t simple.”
“Why in the world would I want something simple?” I asked. “What would that even look like? From the moment you and I met, it’s been nothing but chaos.”
“And that’s not a good start to a relationship!” she pointed out, exasperated. “We’ve been running off adrenaline and impending doom since the day we met. What happens when we settle into ‘everyday’ life? Won’t that be a little boring for someone like you?”
“Someone like me?”
Nataliya tried to gesture, but our hands were still linked. We’d been talking all this while still touching. She stared at our hands for a second, as if confused by the sight of them, but she didn’t let go. She just refocused back on the fight we were in the middle of. “You’ve traveled the world and done some of the most exciting things. How could a life like that compare to putting down roots somewhere and staying? And if you kept your lifestyle going, kept working investigations that took you all over and put you in danger more often than not, what would that mean for Elias and me? I want him to have stability—to have a real home. A dad figure who’s barely around is so much less than what he deserves.”
“I agree,” I said and, feeling brave, brought her hand up. I brushed my lips against her knuckles, and I saw the goosebumps spread down her arm. “I want what’s best for you and Elias. I would do anything for you both.”
Before she could reply, the local PD burst in. “Hands up!” one deputy barked at us. He had his gun drawn, and his finger was resting on the trigger.
“Get that finger back on the barrel of the gun!” I snapped as I complied. “Are you trying to shoot us?”
“No,” the deputy said. “Uh…I mean, no.” He had to be brand new out of the academy.
“Then keep your fingers away from the trigger,” I suggested. “Hayes is in the next room with my friend.”
“And what are you doing on private property, Mr.—?”
“Pierce,” I said. “Agent Adrian Pierce…and I came here to rescue her.” I nodded to Nataliya. “Hayes had taken her captive.”
The word “agent” piqued the officer’s interest. “FBI? CIA?” he asked.
“FBI,” I replied. “Can we put our arms down now?”
The deputy agreed, and he put his gun away to show we weren’t in danger anymore. “The sheriff is going to want to talk to you,” he said. “Get your statements.”
“Of course,” I said. “My girlfriend will tell your higherups all about the operation Ian Hayes is running.”
“Girlfriend?” Nataliya murmured from my side, as if she were testing how her mouth moved to form the letters.
“My maybe-girlfriend,” I corrected, not wanting her to feel like I was putting words in her mouth or making decisions for her. “If I can get her to agree.” I squeezed her fingers with mine. “Can we get a few minutes before we join you?” I asked. “She’s been through a rough night.”
The deputy eyed us. “I…guess.”
“Thank you. We’ll be with you shortly.”
Once we were alone again, Nataliya extracted her hand from mine. “So you want me to be your girlfriend?” she asked.
“Yes. That’s what I want.”
She tried to smile but failed. “I don’t think I can,” she said finally. “We’re just two very different?—”
“We are,” I agreed. “We’re very different. But I think that’s a good thing. We help each other see life in a different way, offer different perspectives. We complement each other—and I think we could be good for each other, too. I know there’s a lot we’d need to work out and talk through, but if we’re both willing to try, I think we can find a compromise. And when it comes to you, I’m always going to be willing to try.”
“You weren’t before,” she pointed out. “You wouldn’t even hear me out.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “I screwed up. I’m so used to being the guy in charge, the guy who knows what to do. I couldn’t break out of that mindset. But losing you threw my pride out the window and made me realize what really matters. I never want to have a fight like that again. I never want you to think you’re not being heard, not being listened to.”
Her eyes went wide, and I could tell that this was the last thing she’d expected me to say. It gave me some hope I’d finally gotten it right.
“So…” she said, slowly, cautiously. “The files.”
“Right.” I nodded sharply. “The files. We need to decide what to do about them, and we need to decide fast, before we talk to the sheriff.”
“Even if we wanted to release them right now,” she said, “is that an option? It’s not like I have my computer with me.”
“Drake has everything,” I reminded her. “He’s just a phone call away, if we want him to release the files.”
She looked at me, challenging. “Do we?”
I took a breath. “I still don’t love the idea of releasing information on active-duty service people. But I agree that we don’t want to run the risk of Hayes sweeping things under the rug and maybe continuing to hurt innocent civilians all over the world. Is there a middle ground?”
I waited anxiously to see how she’d respond, and the tension poured out of me in a rush when she smiled and leaned in and kissed me. Her lips were petal soft against mine. Kissing her immediately chased every thought in my head away. When she started to pull away, I chased after her, needing her mouth on mine. She let out a shivery giggle. “Let’s compromise,” she said.
“Compromise?”
“Call in your ‘big guns,’” she said. “Anyone you trust to take on Ian Hayes in court and actually put him away…and I’ll talk Drake through releasing the most damning things to show that Hayes’s company is as complicit in his crimes as he is. We won’t reveal the military information he has. The war profiteering and smuggling that directly boosted the company’s profits should be more than enough, along with the bribes and blackmail that got the government to go along with it.”
My chest felt tight and free all at the same time. I pressed my forehead against hers. “Your brother isn’t going to come out so great if you do that. His name was all over the files about smuggling, especially in the RoW. Hell, without knowing that he was the one who made a deal with Interpol and gathered evidence against his boss, he looks like he was Hayes’s right-hand man, living the good life.”
Nataliya sniffled; she was crying, and my chest ached for her. I brushed my thumb across her cheek. When she was ready, she said, “My brother, as much as I love him, was a criminal. I would have loved for people to see the side of him that I knew; I would have loved for Elias to be able to point to his uncle and say that he died while trying to do the right thing. But, in the end, Anton made his life choices all on his own. He worked with Ian Hayes knowing exactly who the man was. I can’t change that. All I can do is to continue to love all of the parts of him that no one else will get to see.”
“We don’t have to?—”
“I’m okay with this, Adrian. Really, I am. This is what lets us move forward instead of being tied down to the past. This is what gives us a fresh start…together.” She let out that shivery giggle again; it was a nervous gesture. “I don’t know if we’ll be good together in the long run, but I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”
“Are you saying you’re falling for me too?” She nodded. Her hazel eyes swam with hope and fear and something that looked a lot like love. “Can you say it for me, sweetheart? Please?”
“I’m falling in love with you. I want…I want to build something worthwhile with you.”
I leaned in and caught her mouth with mine again, and this time, I tugged her close so that her body was pressed against mine. I needed to feel her that close.
Nataliya must have felt the same way because she wound her arms around my neck and clutched at my back. When my tongue brushed her bottom lip, she sighed and opened to me, letting me taste her again. She had only been gone for twelve hours, but I genuinely wasn’t sure I’d ever have this again. I would never take it for granted again.
“Um…folks?”
I wrenched away from Nataliya. The deputy was back. “The sheriff is really insistent on you coming to speak with him. Now.”
I glanced at Nataliya, and we both broke into laughter. The adrenaline burn-off was finally hitting us, and I felt that itchy, needful feeling I always did after missions. Usually, I would grab any means of distraction from it, but for now, it was a reminder that we survived. That we had each other again.
“Folks?”
“We’re coming,” I assured him. “While I speak with the deputy, why don’t you call Elias?” I suggested and handed her the phone. “He’s worried sick about you.”
“When we’re done, can we go back to him? There’s no reason to stick around, right?”
“We may need to come back to testify in the trial, but we have time before that, so there’s definitely no reason to hang around here.” I kissed her forehead, then her nose, and then her chin. I avoided her lips because if I kissed her lips again, we’d be lost to each other, and I wasn’t sure I’d let a piddly deputy stop me. “Go call your son. Tell him how much of a badass you are.”
We walked out of the bedroom and with a squeeze of our hands, we parted ways. The deputy led me toward a dour-looking sheriff and Zach. I glanced back and saw Nataliya already talking into the phone. I couldn’t quite hear her, but whatever she was saying, she had the most beautiful smile on her face.
I want to see that smile for the rest of my life, I thought.