Chapter Eight
Lauren
Gravel crunches beneath the tires as we slow to a stop.
I peer through the windshield into darkness. Trees everywhere, their shapes barely visible against the night sky.
“This is it,” Nikolai says.
My chest tightens. I was expecting a house. Maybe on the outskirts of the city, somewhere with neighbors, with streetlights. Not this. The forest presses in from all sides, so dense I can barely see past the first row of trunks.
The isolation hits me like a physical thing.
Crickets pulse in the darkness. Something rustles in the underbrush and I instinctively reach back to check if Hannah’s door is locked.
“Mommy?” Hannah’s voice is small. “Where are we?”
I turn to look at Nikolai, waiting for him to answer. He shifts in his seat, engaging the parking brake. The headlights illuminate a structure ahead—a cabin tucked between the trees.
“Wow!” Hannah sounds more awake now. “Is that a treehouse?”
“It’s a cabin,” Nikolai says, his voice softening slightly when he addresses her. “A log cabin.”
“Cool!”
I’m glad she can still find wonder in something tonight. After everything she’s seen.
I unbuckle and step out into the night air. It’s cooler here, away from the city. The forest sounds are louder than I expected—crickets, leaves rustling, the distant call of something I can’t identify. Moonlight filters weakly through the canopy, creating scattered patches of silver on the ground.
It’s remote. Which I suppose is the point.
“This is just for tonight.” Nikolai appears beside me. “Tomorrow we leave for Chicago.”
Chicago.
The word doesn’t quite register. I’m still trying to process that we’re standing in the middle of nowhere, that there was a man in my apartment trying to—
I push the thought away before it can fully form.
“Chicago,” I repeat quietly, testing how it sounds. Then I look at him. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Let’s head inside.” He’s already moving toward the cabin.
I stand there for a moment, keys dangling from my hand, Hannah still buckled in the backseat. Part of me wants to get back in the car, drive us home, pretend none of this is real.
But home isn’t safe anymore.
And as much as I don’t want to admit that we’re in danger, as betrayed and confused as I feel, Nikolai saved us tonight.
I take a slow breath, steadying myself.
“Come on, baby.” I open Hannah’s door and offer my hand. “Let’s get you inside. You need sleep.”
“I can’t wait to tell everybody at school about this!”
I manage a smile for her, though my heart sinks. Pre-school. Our routine. Everything we’ve built feels impossibly far away right now.
Nikolai unlocks the cabin door with a rusted key. It swings open with a creak that echoes through the trees.
The smell hits me first—old wood and mildew, dust thick in the air. Cobwebs stretch across the corners like lace curtains no one’s disturbed in years.
Hannah’s hand tightens in mine.
“It’s just for tonight,” Nikolai says, reading my hesitation. “Ten hours at most.”
Our footsteps echo as we enter. The living room holds a single leather couch, cracked and sagging, and a table buried under a thin layer of dust.
Nikolai clicks on a flashlight, pushing open a door to reveal a bedroom.
One bedroom.
“This can be for you and Hannah,” he says.
I peer inside. The sheets look old, the mattress ancient. But it’s a bed, and Hannah needs sleep more than she needs luxury right now. My baby girl hovers in the doorway, uncertain.
“Mommy, are there spiders here?”
Before I can respond, Nikolai moves into the room, sweeping away the cobwebs in the corner with efficient movements. He’s trying. That much is clear.
“It’s going to be okay, Hannah.” He emerges and crouches down to her eye level. His voice drops, gentler than I’ve heard it all night. “I’m sorry for scaring you earlier.”
My breath catches.
This—him kneeling in front of our daughter, speaking softly, trying to make her feel safe—this is what I grieved for the most. What I thought Hannah would never have.
And now it’s happening in the worst possible circumstances, in a dilapidated cabin in the middle of nowhere, after the most traumatic night of her young life.
The unfairness of it all threatens to choke me.
“Come on, sweetheart.” I hold out my hand. “Let’s get you settled.”
Hannah glances up at Nikolai—still wary, still uncertain—then runs to me, burying her face against my side.
I guide her into the bedroom, and she whispers against my ear, "Mommy, I’m scared. Why is this place so old?"
Nikolai’s shoulders tense. He heard.
“You’re safe here,” I murmur, stroking her hair. “I promise. No one’s going to hurt us.” I keep stroking until her breathing evens out, until exhaustion finally wins. “Get some sleep, baby. I’ll be right here, okay?”
She nods and burrows under the covers.
I close the door softly behind me.
Nikolai stands in the hallway, his expression tight. I used to think that look meant he was cold, unfeeling. But I learned better. The Bratva doesn’t allow weakness, doesn’t permit emotion. So, he learned to bury it all beneath stone.
But I can see it now—the tension in his jaw, the way his hands flex at his sides. He’s hurting. He missed four years of Hannah’s life. He’s meeting his daughter as a stranger who terrifies her.
And as much as I want to feel vindicated by that, all I feel is tired and confused.
“Why Chicago?” I ask.
He looms over me in the narrow hallway, his shadow swallowing mine. “Aslanov has no reach there. You’ll be safe.”
There’s certainty in his voice. A promise underneath the words.
I look up at him. Even in the dim light, his eyes are that same piercing blue—the color I used to dream about, that I see every time I look at Hannah’s face. He looks older now. Harder. Four years have carved new lines into his features, added bulk to his frame.
But he saved us tonight. Whatever else he’s done, whatever lies he’s told, he came when we needed him.
I just don’t know what to do with that yet.
Nikolai drags a chair from the dining table and positions it outside the bedroom door. A few feet away, but close enough to hear if anything goes wrong.
He settles into it like he’s taking up a post. On duty.
“You should get some rest,” he says without looking at me.
I stare at the back of his neck for a long moment. We used to be so close. Now there’s an entire ocean between us, even standing in the same room.
“Okay,” I manage.
I slip back into the room and into the bed beside Hannah, and pull her close, tucking the covers around us both.
“Shh, it’s okay, baby. Mommy’s here.”
She relaxes against me, already drifting. Children are resilient in ways adults can never be.
I close my eyes and try to rest, but my mind won’t stop replaying the events of the last few hours. Nikolai appearing in my apartment. His hands around that man’s throat. His eyes meeting mine across the chaos.
Four years of grief. Four years of believing he was gone.
And he was alive the whole time.
I roll onto my back once Hannah’s breathing evens out into a deeper sleep. The cabin ceiling is lost in shadow above me.
He’s back.
I keep repeating it to myself, testing the reality of it. Trying to make it stick.
People tell you how grief feels—the stages, the waves, the way it changes shape over time. But no one prepares you for this. For the person you buried suddenly breathing again. For having to recalibrate an entire history you thought you understood.
I’m stuck somewhere between denial and anger, and I don’t know which one is winning.
Should I ask him if he plans to disappear again? Or is it safer to stay numb, to protect myself from being hurt a second time?
This is how it’s always been with Nikolai Rogov. He crashes into my life like a storm, upends everything, leaves me scrambling to find solid ground. The first time we met, he handcuffed me to his bed to stop me from ruining my best friend’s wedding. My life hasn’t been the same since that day.
And now here he is again. A freight train I never saw coming.
Twenty-four hours ago, I was asleep in my own bed, alarm set for 7 AM, Hannah’s preschool drop-off and my commute already mapped out in my mind. Structure. Routine. The only things keeping me from falling apart.
Now all of it is gone.
And the worst part—the part that makes me feel sick and warm and furious all at once—is that I still want him. Despite everything. Despite the lies.
It’s really him.
After all this time.
Has he been thinking about us? About Hannah growing up without him? About me?
My chest tightens.
Has he been with someone else?
The thought arrives unbidden, sharp as a blade. He’s Nikolai Rogov. Handsome, dangerous, exactly the kind of man women fall over themselves for. Four years is a long time to be alone.
I push the covers back and slip out of bed carefully, mindful not to wake Hannah. My bare feet are silent on the old floorboards as I ease the door open.
Nikolai sits in profile, chest rising and falling in what looks like sleep. But I know better. His jaw is too tight, his posture too rigid. He’s on guard. Still protecting us even now.
I used to imagine this moment. Late at night when the grief was unbearable, I’d let myself fantasize about him coming back. Tearful reunions. Hannah running into his arms. The three of us together, finally, the way we were always supposed to be.
I pictured warmth. Joy. Relief.
But this—standing in a dark cabin that smells like rot, my daughter traumatized, my life in pieces—this isn’t what I imagined.
Reality is cold. Uncertain. Heavy with words unsaid.
Nikolai’s eyes snap open. He turns, seeing me in the doorway, and rises halfway from his chair before stopping himself.
The space between us feels like a physical thing. Charged. Fragile.
He’s restraining himself. I can see it in every tense line of his body.
And so am I.
We stand there, silent, oceans apart even though we’re only feet away from each other.
I have a thousand questions. Four years’ worth of them.
But I can’t ask any of them right now. Can’t give him that yet.
Not when everything still hurts this much.
The air between us feels charged. Electric.
I forgot what it was like to be this close to him. How his presence alone could make my heart race, my breath catch. Even now, even after everything that happened, my body remembers. The pull is still there, as powerful as it ever was.
Maybe more so, after four years of absence.
I force myself to look away.
This isn’t just about me anymore. Every choice I make affects Hannah. I can’t afford to be reckless, can’t let old feelings override the reality of what he’s done. What he’s put us through.
Part of me wants to close the distance between us. To fall into his arms and let four years of grief pour out. To tell him how much I’ve missed him, how many nights I’ve ached for him, how seeing him alive has broken something open inside me that I thought had healed.
But another part—the part that’s spent four years rebuilding from nothing—wants to scream at him. To make him feel even a fraction of the pain I’ve carried.
I don’t do either.
I quietly turn and walk back into the bedroom, closing the door softly behind me.
Hannah is still asleep, curled on her side, one small hand tucked under her cheek.
I sink back into the mattress beside her, exhaustion settling into my bones.
Tomorrow we’re leaving for Chicago. Another disruption to the life I’ve worked so hard to build. But at least Nikolai will keep us safe. That much I can trust, even if I can’t trust anything else about him.
I force my muscles to relax, willing sleep to come.
What I want doesn’t matter right now. Four years is a long time. Everything has changed. And whatever Nikolai’s intentions, whatever pain he’s carrying, the fact remains: he brought this danger back into our lives.
He might be protecting us now, but he’s also the reason we need protection.
I have Hannah to think about. My beautiful, innocent daughter who doesn’t understand why a stranger broke into our home, why we’re sleeping in a cabin in the woods, why her entire world has been turned upside down in one night.
That’s all that matters. Keeping her safe. Getting through this.
And when it’s over—when Aslanov is dealt with and the danger passes—we’ll go back to Atlanta. Back to our routine, our life, our peace.
Without him.
We survived four years without Nikolai Rogov.
We can do it again.