14. Breathing Salt Air
Breathing Salt Air
Solace
The wind hits my face so hard my eyes water, and I let it.
Salt spray catches in my hair, on my lips, across my skin, sharp and cold and alive. I keep one hand clamped around the rail while the boat cuts through the black water, leaving Mytilene port behind us in a scatter of lights that grow smaller with every second.
For seven days, the world was concrete, metal, stale air, and the sound of trucks moving women past the wall beside me.
Now the Aegean stretches open on every side.
Dark. Wide. Moving.
I drag in a breath, and it hurts because my body has forgotten how to take one without measuring sound through a locked door or waiting for footsteps in a passage.
Another breath follows. Then another.
No damp curtain. No chemical stink from a cloth over my mouth. No rusted bucket behind a stained sheet. Just salt, diesel, wind, and the faint copper taste left by fear burning itself out too slowly.
Beside me, one of the women from the container sobs into both hands. Another has her arms wrapped around herself, rocking slightly with each rise and fall of the boat. The youngest, a girl with dark hair matted against her cheek, stares up at the stars like she isn’t certain they’re real.
I know how she feels.
For days, those women were voices through a wall. Coughing. Praying. Pleading for water. Names I tried to catch and hold onto because names mattered when every system around us was built to erase them.
Now they’re here.
Alive.
Wrapped in foil blankets and oversized jackets, guarded by armed men who keep scanning the dark instead of looking at us like we’re cargo.
That difference is almost too much to process.
One of the HAVEN women hands out koulouri filled with meat and salad. I take one because I’m literally starving, unwrap it quickly, and take a healthy bite. I chew slowly, savoring flavors that have nothing to do with survival for the first time in days.
Nikolai stands near the stern, broad body angled toward the route we’ve left behind rifle low but ready. He hasn’t moved far since he helped me aboard. Even now, with the port falling away and the worst of the gunfire behind us, he watches the darkness as if it might decide to follow.
Steve speaks quietly into his radio near the cabin, calm voice cutting through the wind as he updates someone I can’t hear.
Crew drives with the kind of focus that makes the boat feel like an extension of his hands.
Jax and Cole stay positioned at opposite sides, while Dimitry checks on the women without crowding them.
No one relaxes. Not fully.
Maybe people like them never do.
I look back once.
The harbor lights blur through the spray.
Somewhere behind those lights is the room where Petrakis locked me away.
The container where women waited for men to decide what their lives were worth.
The office where I handed over proof and learned too late that monsters don’t always hide behind charity work.
Sometimes they run it.
Should I be upset that he was shot?
I’m not.
A hand brushes mine against the rail.
Nikolai.
He doesn’t take my hand. He doesn’t ask if I’m all right, which is wise, because I have no idea how to answer that. He simply stands close enough that the wind strikes him first.
“You are cold,” he says.
It isn’t a question.
“I’m breathing,” I say.
His gaze shifts to me, pale eyes catching the faint deck light. Something in his face changes, not soft exactly, but less severe at the edges.
“Yes,” he says. “You are.”
Behind us, one of the women begins crying harder, and another pulls her closer, murmuring in Arabic. I turn toward them automatically.
Nikolai notices.
“They are safe for now,” he says.
“For now isn’t enough.”
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”
The answer steadies me more than comfort would have.
I turn back to the water, fingers tightening around the rail as the boat surges over another swell. The island lights ahead are still distant, but they’re there. A place to land. A place with doors that open from the inside.
I turn my face toward the wind and let myself look east, toward the part of the sky where morning will find us.
Mandra, Aegean Sea, Greece. 2225 hours
The sea wind keeps pulling at the foil blanket around my shoulders, so I let it fall lower and keep both hands on the rail. Cold is honest. Cold tells me I’m outside, moving, free enough to feel discomfort instead of calculating how long one bottle of water will last.
Nikolai remains beside me, though not exactly with me.
His attention belongs to the water behind us, to the dim scatter of lights we’ve left in our wake, to every shadow that might become a vessel if he looks away too long.
The rifle hangs against him now, but nothing about him has stood down.
He carries readiness the way other people carry warmth.
I follow his gaze across the black water. “Do you think they’ll come after us?”
“Yes.”
I look at him. “You could’ve lied.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Can you see other boats on the radar?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Any coming our way?”
“Not yet.”
There’s something oddly reassuring in that. After days of Petrakis smiling while he lied, after weeks of officials smoothing over missing women with language polished enough to pass inspection, blunt truth feels like a handhold.
Behind us, one of the women murmurs in her sleep, folded against another survivor’s shoulder. Jan kneels nearby with her medical kit open, checking pulses, wrapping blankets tighter, and murmuring reassurance while Liberty passes water and keeps each movement slow enough not to startle anyone.
Jax and Cole stay at opposite rails, eyes on the water, and Dimitry stands a little behind the group, watching the dark wake while Crew keeps the boat moving hard through the night.
Everyone has a task.
Nikolai’s task is danger.
He stands between me and the dock we escaped, between the rescued women and whatever might follow, as if his body is simply another part of the boat’s defenses. No speech about protection. No dramatic vow. Just position, weight, and vigilance.
“Thank you,” I say.
His eyes shift to mine.
The deck light catches the pale blue of them, and the wind seems louder while he weighs the words.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “We’re not safe until we dock.”
“Is that how you always accept gratitude?”
“I don’t accept it during an active operation.”
Despite everything, a tired laugh slips out of me. Small. Rusted at the edges. Real enough to surprise us both.
His expression barely changes, but something in his gaze moves.
“That sounds exhausting,” I say.
“It’s efficient.”
“Of course it is.”
His mouth almost moves. Not a smile. The ghost of one, perhaps, if ghosts had military training and a poor attitude toward emotional timing.
The boat rises over another swell, and my grip tightens on the rail. Nikolai’s hand comes up, not touching me, just close enough to catch me if my knees fail. I notice because everything in me has been trained to notice hands now.
Hands that grab. Hands that cover mouths. Hands that lock doors.
His waits.
That difference matters.
“I’m not going to fall,” I tell him.
“I know.”
“Then why are you doing that?”
“Because knowing and being ready aren’t the same thing.”
The island lights are long gone behind us now, swallowed by distance and dark water. Ahead, there is only black sea, black sky with a few stars, and hours of crossing before Santorini becomes anything more than a point on Crew’s navigation screen.
Today, Santorini means dry clothes, medical care, unlocked doors, and women who might finally sleep comfortably in a real bed without listening for keys.
But it’s still far away.
For now, all we have is the boat, the wind, and the fragile space between pursuit and morning. Nikolai shifts beside me, attention sharpening toward the horizon.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing yet.”
Yet.
I draw the blanket tighter around my shoulders and keep watching the water.
Morning is still out there somewhere.
So is whatever comes before it.
Mandra, Aegean Sea, Greece. 2245 hours
The boat settles into a steady rhythm as Crew leaves the throttles alone, the engines carrying us south through the darkness. Behind us, the rescued women have finally begun to drift into exhausted sleep under Jan and Liberty’s watch.
Every now and then a blanket is adjusted, a bottle of water offered, a quiet reassurance spoken. No one rushes them. No one asks questions they aren’t ready to answer.
The silence feels different now.
Not empty. Peaceful.
Nikolai hasn’t moved far from my side.
I glance at him. “Then let me thank you for opening the doors.”
His eyes leave the water long enough to meet mine.
“You would’ve opened them for someone else.”
“I would’ve tried.”
“You would’ve succeeded.”
The certainty in his voice catches me off guard.
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.”
I wait for him to explain.
He doesn’t.
That tracks.
The wind tugs at the loose strands of my hair and snaps the edge of the foil blanket against my arm. I look past him to the black water sliding alongside the hull, trying to understand how a man can offer so little and somehow say too much.
“What do you know?” I ask.
“That you stayed.”
My fingers tighten around the rail.
“You saw women in danger and didn’t look away,” he says. “You could have left the camp. You didn’t.”
“I nearly got them killed.”
“No.”
The word is quiet, but there’s steel in it.
I turn my head toward him.
“Petrakis did that,” he says. “Stavros. The men who built this route. Not you.”
The answer reaches somewhere I don’t want touched yet, so I look back at the sea. Another swell lifts the bow beneath our feet, and the wind finds its way through my borrowed blanket.
Despite myself, I shiver.
Without a word, Nikolai reaches for the fastening at his neck.
“You’ll be cold,” I say as he shrugs out of his tactical jacket.
“I’ve been colder,” he says. “Comes with being Russian.”
Before I can protest again, he settles it carefully around my shoulders.
The weight surprises me.
It’s warm from his body, heavy enough to block the wind, carrying the scent of saltwater, gun oil, and the faint trace of cedar soap beneath it all.
He steps back immediately, leaving no chance for the gesture to become awkward or intimate.
Just practical.
Just Nikolai.
Except my hands close around the edges, and nothing about it feels simple.
The jacket hangs far past my wrists.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He gives a single nod, already watching the darkness again.
I don’t know what to do with that yet.
My work has always been forward-facing. Find the need. Meet the need. Keep moving before the next crisis swallows someone whole.
But his jacket is warm, and his silence asks nothing from me.
For tonight, maybe that’s enough.
His jacket on my shoulders feels like armor.
After days of protecting everyone else, someone is protecting me.
I like it.
Mandra, Aegean Sea, Greece. 2315 hours
The hours stretch ahead of us, measured by the steady pulse of the engines and the endless rise and fall of the sea. Most of the women are asleep now. Even the conversation around the cabin faded leaving only the wind and the rhythmic crash of waves against the hull.
I pull Nikolai's jacket tighter around myself.
It still holds his warmth.
“You should take this back,” I say quietly.
“You need it.”
“So do you.”
“I’m fine.”
His eyes remain on the sea.
“I’m Russian.”
A laugh escapes before I can stop it.
“So that’s your explanation for everything?”
“It usually works.”
The corner of his mouth almost lifts.
Almost.
Around us, the boat carries on as though nothing extraordinary has happened. Crew stays focused on the dark water ahead, Steve speaks quietly with Victor through his headset, and Jan checks another sleeping woman before covering her with a blanket.
Life aboard hasn’t paused because two strangers shared a look. It keeps moving, steady and purposeful, carrying us farther from Mytilene with every passing minute.
I tell myself that’s all this is.
I tell myself that’s all this is, a rescue, a long crossing, and a man making sure the woman he pulled from captivity doesn’t freeze before sunrise. It should feel no more significant than that, but it does.
The boat climbs another swell. Crew eases the bow over it, but the next wave strikes from the side instead.
The deck drops beneath my feet.
My hand slips from the rail.
For one impossible second, gravity disappears.
Then I collide with Nikolai.
His arm catches me before I even realize I’m falling.
One hand braces against my back, the other around my waist, holding me securely against the solid wall of his body while the boat lurches beneath us.
Everything else disappears.
The engines.
The wind.
Even the sea.
I become aware of ridiculous things instead. How warm he is despite the cold night. The steady rhythm of his breathing. The rough fabric of his shirt beneath my fingertips where I grabbed hold without thinking.
I lift my head.
He’s already looking at me.
Those pale blue eyes search mine, then drift lower.
My gaze follows.
My gaze drops to his mouth, strong and unsmiling.
For one suspended heartbeat, neither of us moves.
Something shifts behind his eyes.
Not uncertainty.
Restraint.
The boat settles again.
He helps me back onto steady feet with the same care he used lifting frightened women from the container barely two hours ago.
His hand slides from my waist.
His thumb brushes lightly across the inside of my wrist before he lets go.
Perhaps he doesn’t even realize he’s done it.
I do.
Every nerve in my arm seems to wake at once.
“I’ve got you,” he says quietly.
The words are practical.
Nothing more.
Yet they settle somewhere far deeper than they should.
His jacket still rests around my shoulders like armor.
A wave threw me into the arms of a man who flinches from being touched.
And for one heartbeat, he held on like letting go would cost him something.
I’m beginning to think it would cost me, too.