Chapter Nadia
Nadia
Grace drives. Iris sits in the back with me, her arm around my shoulders.
Nobody speaks for the first few minutes. The streetlights slide over the car in rhythmic pulses and I watch them pass and try to stop shaking. My cheek throbs. My lip is swollen where I bit through it, and I can taste the blood every time I swallow. My wrists ache where Kyle's fingers dug in.
"You're safe," Iris says quietly. "You're safe, Nadia. We've got you."
I nod. I can't speak yet. The words are trapped somewhere behind the shock, lodged in the same place my screams were stuck twenty minutes ago when Kyle shoved me into that car. I press my forehead against the cold window and close my eyes.
"We're going to the estate," Grace says from the front.
Her voice is calm. The voice of a woman who has lived inside this world long enough to know that tonight is not the worst thing that could have happened, and that the men they left behind will make sure it never happens again.
"Saoirse is waiting. She'll want to see you. "
"She knows?"
"Yes. You should probably know that not much gets past her."
I imagine Saoirse receiving the call, setting down whatever she was holding, and simply starting to move. Kettle on. Blankets out. Doors open. The matriarch preparing her home the way she always does when one of her own is hurting.
One of her own. I'm not even married yet and she already considers me hers. The thought makes my throat ache.
The Orlov estate appears through the trees. Every light is on. The house is blazing against the dark like a beacon, and when Grace pulls up to the front steps, the door is already open.
Saoirse is standing right there. The silver strands in her hair glittering in the dark, a cardigan pulled tight over her dress. She's smaller than I remember. Smaller than seems possible for a woman who raised five sons and a daughter mostly alone.
She takes one look at my face and her expression goes through something fast and fierce. Then it settles into warmth.
"Come inside, sweetheart." She takes my hand. Her grip is firm and her palm is warm. "You're home now."
She says it like it's a fact. Like this house has always been mine and I'm just late arriving.
The kitchen is warm and bright. Saoirse has the kettle on and the table is set with mugs and sugar and a plate of shortbread that nobody is going to eat but that needed to be there anyway.
Because that's what Saoirse does. She feeds people.
She steadies the room with simple, ordinary things until the extraordinary things shrink back to a manageable size.
Iris guides me into a chair. Grace disappears, then returns with a blanket. Saoirse stands beside me and presses her hand to my undamaged cheek, her thumb tracing the line of my jaw.
"Let me see," she says.
I turn my face toward her. The bruise on my left cheek must be darkening by now. My lip is split. I can feel the swelling pulling my skin tight.
Saoirse's eyes go hard for a fraction of a second.
Something cold and absolute moves behind them, something that reminds me viscerally that this woman didn't just marry into the Bratva.
She survived it. She raised her children inside it.
She knows exactly what her sons are doing right now, and she approves.
Then the softness returns. She brushes my hair back from my face and kisses my forehead.
"I’ve got some cream that’ll clear this right up," she says, nodding at Iris who promptly zips from the kitchen. "Then tea. Then we'll talk, or we won't. Whatever you need."
The tea appears in front of me. Hot, sweet, and milky. I wrap my hands around the mug and the warmth seeps into my frozen fingers. Iris plops back down beside me as she slides a label-less jar across to Saoirse.
The back door opens and Tanya slips in. Aidan's wife. She's in workout clothes with a coat thrown over her shoulders, her hair pulled into a messy knot. She takes one look at me and her face tightens.
"Jesus," she breathes. Then she pulls out the chair next to Grace and sits down. "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay." My voice is hoarse. "He didn't... it wasn't as bad as it could have been."
"That's not a high bar,” Tanya says drily, shaking her head.
A minute later, Katya appears. She's enormous, heavily pregnant, one hand braced against the small of her back and the other resting on the swell of her belly. She moves slowly, carefully, but the look on her face is anything but gentle.
"Anya’s on her way down.” She looks across to me. “If Killian doesn't break every bone in that man's body, I'm going to waddle over there and do it myself," she says, lowering herself into a chair with a grimace.
"Katya, sit down before you pop," Iris says.
"I'm fine. The baby's fine. We're both furious.
" She reaches across the table and takes my hand.
Her fingers are swollen from the pregnancy and her grip is fierce.
"You're one of us now, Nadia. Do you understand that?
Whatever happened before tonight, whatever you've been carrying, it's ours now too. You don't do this alone anymore."
I stare at her. At all of them. Saoirse scooping cream onto her fingers, steady and sure, then gently smoothing it over my skin. Grace with her calm, measured presence. Iris with her arm still touching mine. Tanya in her pajamas. Katya, eight months pregnant and ready to wage war.
These women don't know the full story. They don't know about the photos, the blackmail, the years of payments.
They know only that someone hurt me and their men went to handle it, and their response was to gather in this kitchen at seven o'clock at night and wrap me in tea and blankets and fierce, unquestioning loyalty.
A sob breaks out of me. Ugly, loud, graceless.
I press my hand over my mouth but it's too late, the sound is already filling the kitchen, and then I'm crying properly.
The kind of crying I haven't done in front of anyone since I was a child.
The kind that shakes your whole body and makes your ribs ache and doesn't care who's watching.
Iris pulls me into her side. Saoirse's hand rests on my shoulder. Someone, Tanya maybe, squeezes my knee under the table.
I cry until there's nothing left. Until the sobs turn to shuddering breaths and the shuddering breaths turn to stillness. The kitchen is quiet around me. Patient. No one rushes me. No one tells me to stop.
"Sorry," I whisper into Iris's shoulder.
"Don't you dare apologize," Saoirse says. Her voice has an edge to it that could cut glass. "You cry as much as you need to. This kitchen has seen plenty of tears and it'll see plenty more. That's what it's for."
I sit up. Wipe my face with a tissue that one of the women presents to me, then take a sip of tea that's gone lukewarm. An ice pack is pressed gently to my cheek by Grace, who holds it there without comment. It feels soothing on top of Saoirse’s cream.
Katya rubs her belly and winces occasionally. Tanya makes a second pot of tea. Iris talks softly about nothing, filling the silence with easy words that require no response. Saoirse stands at the counter like a sentinel, her eyes drifting to the window every few minutes, watching for headlights.
It's almost ten when the cars pull into the drive.
The kitchen tenses. Every woman in the room straightens. Saoirse moves to the back door and opens it before anyone has knocked.
Liam comes in first. His shirt sleeves are rolled up and there's blood on his forearms. He goes straight to Grace, kisses her hair, murmurs something I can't hear. She nods.
Aidan is next. He catches Tanya's eye across the room and something passes between them. She stands and goes to him and he wraps his arm around her, pulling her close, before she turns and nods at me, and they leave.
Killian comes through the door and Katya struggles to her feet. He crosses the kitchen in three strides and cups her face, studying her like she's the one who was hurt.
"Sit down," he says. "Both of you." His hand moves to her belly.
Connor arrives shortly after, his scarred face softening when his eyes land on Anya, who came into the kitchen at some point during my bout of crying.
Then Rafferty.
He stands in the doorway and his eyes find mine across the room. He's changed his shirt. His knuckles are wrapped in what looks like a torn strip of fabric. There's a smear of something dark on his jaw that might be blood, but is probably not his.
Everyone sees him looking at me. Everyone sees me looking at him. And one by one, without a word, the room empties.
Saoirse ushers the others out with the quiet efficiency of a woman who has been orchestrating exits her entire life. A hand on Iris's elbow. A nod to Liam and Grace. A murmured word to Katya, who lets Killian guide her toward the stairs. Within two minutes, the kitchen is empty except for us.
Rafferty crosses the room. He crouches in front of my chair, bringing himself to my level. His wrapped hands rest on my knees. His eyes move over my face, cataloging the damage, lingering on the bruise, the split lip.
"It's done," he says. "He's gone. He won't be coming back. Not to you, or to your family, not to this city. I need you to understand that."
"I believe you." And I do. Completely. Without question.
"I'm sorry I was late. Fifteen minutes. If I'd been on time—"
"Don't." I put my hands over his. Feel the heat of his swollen knuckles through the fabric wrapping. "You came. That's what matters."
He turns his hands over and laces his fingers through mine. His grip is careful, measured. Holding me without squeezing. Anchoring without trapping.
"Come to bed," he says. "My room. You're not going home tonight."
"My parents—"
"Liam called your father. He knows you're here. He knows you're safe." He pauses. "He doesn't know the details. We told him there was an incident, that it's been handled, and that you're staying here tonight. He knows he can trust us."