25. Octavia
“You were hit?”
The words leave my mouth in a panicked yelp as I spin towards Vasiliy.
Damp, black fabric clings to his bicep, and as I step closer, I can make out a small rip in the sleeve.
I trace the wound like the appendage belongs to me.
It might as well, for the amount of pain I feel slicing through my sternum.
When we were in the cage, I grew into the habit of touching him with the freedom of ownership.
I wonder if that honor has since been revoked.
I don’t think so, I decide, considering the way his hands always seem to find a reason to make contact with my skin, and the way his unconscious body moved toward me in the middle of the night. At least, I hope not.
“I’m fine, it just clipped me,” he says, shrugging off my concern.
I shake my head, pulling his arm back to me. I must pull a little too hard, because a subtle wince falls over his features.
“I can’t believe you got shot, and you didn’t tell me,” I snap, rolling up his sleeve.
The wound, though bloody and weeping, does seem like one of the more minor injuries I’ve seen on his body in the past week, but the sight still makes my heart sink into a chasm. If I never have to see him bleed again as long as I live, it will still be too soon.
“This place isn’t secure anymore,” Dad cuts in, stepping up to us. “We’ve got to move. Immediately.”
I can’t really focus on what he’s saying, too busy tearing off a piece of my sweatshirt to press against Vasiliy’s gunshot. This fabric is thicker than that sheer dress I was wearing in the cage, so I have to use my teeth to separate the stitches.
“We’re not boarding your fucking jet until you tell us who orchestrated that attack and how they knew we were there,” Vasiliy bites out, even as he leans down to give me better access to his arm. I tie the strip as tight as I can over the wound, securing it with a knot.
“Funny. I don’t recall inviting you to fly back home with my family,” Dad says.
I shoot him a glare. “I’m not going anywhere without Vas.”
“Octavia—”
“Can we continue this discussion in the van?” Alex interrupts, stepping up to our little group. “I don’t recall giving an ‘all clear,’ and yet, here you all are, arguing like school children.”
Vasiliy and my dad don’t even glance in his direction, too busy glaring at one another with a fire that might never burn out.
Rolling my eyes, I turn and walk to the van.
Thankfully, both follow along, and it’s not long before one of the armed men already seated inside slams the door and tells the driver to pull out.
Seats are sparse, so I take the liberty of settling on Vasiliy’s lap, giving me better access to hold pressure to his arm. It’s not like the tension in here could kick up any higher. Dad and Alex settle on the bench opposite us, while two guys I’ve never seen before crowd us on either side.
“This will be the last time you bleed, Vas, or so help me God, I’ll kill you myself,” I murmur, sparing a glance of wrath towards those bright blue eyes.
“I’ve been shot many times, zlaya. I’m fine. Promise,” he says with a crooked smile, as if the declaration is supposed to place me at ease.
I grip his chin, hauling his face down to mine. “The last. Fucking. Time.”
The car is silent around his subtle nod. “Okay.”
“He’s fine,” I hear my dad mutter a few feet away. “It’s barely a fucking flesh wound.”
I press harder against the wound. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Didn’t realize I spawned a doctor.”
Irritation licks across my nerves. Vas grips me closer as the car takes a hard right turn, throwing us all to the side.
“You are climbing higher on my shit list,” I snap over my shoulder, not missing the way Alex snickers beside my father. “I’m going to say it again, just in case you didn’t hear the first time. I’m not going anywhere without him,” I repeat, enunciating each word. The hand around my waist tightens.
“Octavia, you don’t understand—”
“What don’t I understand?” I flip around, and Vasiliy’s arms yank me down like a belt until all of my weight is distributed on his thigh.
“I don’t know you! A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to pick your faces out of a lineup, and you want me to place trust in something as arbitrary as a few fucking chromosomes? ”
Dad stiffens, pressing back into the smooth leather of his seat. More secrets. The van ascends a ramp before skidding across the highway at a speed that’s definitely not community-approved.
“Unless you can give me a decent reason to believe—”
“He can’t go back!” My dad explodes, smacking his knuckles into the window.
Vas stiffens behind me. “That’s why he’s still hanging around by your side.
The second he left his post with Solokov, he was labeled a traitor.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mikhail had already dispatched hit teams to wipe him out—it’s what I’d do, after all. ”
I blink. I knew Vasiliy’s career was bad news, but…
“You think he’s still here because he cares for you, but he’s just hiding out—”
“Enough.” Vas doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to. “I am not hiding out. You’re the one with the hidden agenda. Why don’t you tell us who, exactly, broke into your safehouse, hm? I know you recognized their faces.”
“Alright,” Alex mutters in a placating tone. “Let’s all just calm down.”
“You want a reason?” Dad asks me, ignoring his brother’s contribution entirely. “Fine. That safehouse we’ve been staying in was a covert family asset. Do you know what that means?”
I don’t bother answering his condescending tone, opting to raise a single brow instead.
“It means there are only a handful of people who knew the location, and an even smaller few who had the opportunity to leak it to Popov’s syndicate.”
The attack—that was all Popov? I shake my head. What have I gotten myself into?
“Careful,” a low voice grounds out by my ear. That’s when I finally understand my dad’s implication.
“You’re the one treading water, boy.”
“He wasn’t the leak,” I intercede. “He’s been with me the entire time—”
“Really?” Dad’s eyes cut to mine. “You can’t think of a single moment where he had the opportunity to sneak away? Not once in the past two days?”
I freeze. Not because I truly believe that Vas could have been the leak, but because I can think of several times he had the opportunity to leave. He even managed to climb out the window with no one the wiser. Why hadn’t he left? Is it really because he’s been marked as a traitor?
Would he have come back if he had the choice?
I frown, pushing that thought to the back of my mind. “He wasn’t the leak.”
A hand squeezes my upper thigh in a silent message of sorts, but I’m not entirely sure what it says.
The men sitting on either side of us still haven’t said a word, eyes trained to the floor as if they’ve heard hundreds of yelling matches and remember none of them.
The others don’t pay them any attention, but their silent presence makes my skin prickle.
I’ve been that easily forgotten observer too many times to count.
“Sasha, we both know this accusation is unfounded,” Alex says, the calm voice of reason to our cyclone of anger. “We’ve been watching the Morozov boy’s every move, and he hasn’t even tried to establish outside contact. Without proof, all you’ll do is push your daughter away.”
Dad’s face tilts to the window, taking in the sparse fields whipping by the road.
Alex is right about his outburst only serving to push me away, but he’s also wrong.
I’m not sure there’s a single scenario in which I could flip around on Vas, even if they had collected every shred of proof and laid it on a table for me to inspect.
We’ve been through too much shit. We’ve heard each other’s broken pleas and shared too many puddles of spilled blood.
At this point, we’re an impenetrable cage of hidden secrets and sunken baggage.
If we’re going to sink, we’ll go down tied together.
That’s the thought that worries me most of all.
“I wasn’t your leak.”
All of our attention shifts to Vasiliy’s guarded expression.
His lips are pressed tight, brows lowered in deep thought.
He doesn’t seem angered by my father’s accusation.
No, he’s wearing the same expression he wore when he prepped me for today’s meeting, explaining the political landscape all the while weaving my damp hair into one neat Dutch braid that starts at the center of my crown and finishes in a tie that meets my hip. Was that really only a few hours ago?
“But you’re right about one thing,” Vas continues. “If Solokov hasn’t placed a bounty on my head already, then my uncle certainly has. I know far too much to go missing, even for one miserable week.”
A bounty.
“Can you please open the window?” I mutter to the stone-faced guy on my left.
I need some air. The car’s moving so fast that when he complies, a wild torrent of wind whips through the cabin, smacking my braid into the side of my cheek.
It helps, though. The nausea settles into something heavier that has my tight muscles collapsing onto the body behind me.
Vasiliy seems to sense the change, because he repositions me against his chest, tucking my head into his collarbone. His fingers catch the tail of my woven hair before it can whip me again.
Our pace slows as we leave the highway, taking a back road where a rustic farm is the only dwelling for miles.
Cows graze the pale green fields at leisure, and I can’t help but seek out the fuzzy creatures from my middle seat.
It’s been a while since I’ve traveled by car.
I much prefer the rhythmic consistency of the subway; the periodic starts and stops, and the gentle anonymity respected by all.
How has my track been altered so completely in such a short period of time?
I knew who I was.
I was stubborn to a fault. I was the last to leave the studios and the first to walk through the doors the next morning. I was a fighter and a worthy opponent in a battleground I’d trained in my entire life.
Now I’m nothing but dead weight being shipped from place to place. Actually, in the last hour, I’ve become something even worse than dead weight.
A killer on the run.