16. Behind The Ice
Behind The Ice
Solace
By evening, I’ve started noticing the things Nikolai doesn’t intend anyone to notice.
He reads when the safe house settles. Not on a phone. Not briefing files or maps or intelligence reports, though those are never far from him.
A battered paperback sits in one hand while the other rests close to his weapon. Dostoevsky, because of course the terrifying Russian with eyes like winter reads Russian tragedy while half the house sleeps.
He also feeds the cats.
That surprises me more than the book.
Three thin strays hover near the lower wall at dusk, cautious and clever, their tails low as they wait beside the bougainvillea.
Nikolai appears with a small dish of leftover fish and sets it down without calling them closer.
No coaxing. No soft voice. Just food placed far enough away that they can approach without fear.
Then he leaves them to decide.
I stand in the shadowed archway and watch him pretend he isn’t gentle.
Inside, the rescued women are spread through the main house and adjoining suites. Some sleep. Some shower. Some sit together because being alone still feels too much like being locked away.
Janice and Liberty have made a system of meals, fluids, medication, and quiet check-ins. Steve has made a system of exits, guards, rotations, and weapons.
A young psychologist from HAVEN arrives before sunset with Mercy at his side, both of them stepping out of the vehicle carrying bags instead of questions.
Dr. Joshua Tran looks too young for the calm he brings into the room, but the women respond to his quiet voice and careful distance almost immediately.
Mercy comes because she talked Victor into letting her join the support rotation, and because Jax is here.
He looks happy to be reunited with his fiancée.
She helps Janice without fuss, translating comfort into water, blankets, phone calls, and whatever else the women need before they’re ready to ask for it.
Nikolai moves between both worlds.
He checks the doorways, the balconies, and the path along the wall.
No one thanks him.
I’m not sure they realize he’s doing it.
I do.
He’s near the lower terrace when Steve steps outside, phone in hand and his expression already sharpened into mission.
“Nikolai,” Steve says quietly.
Nikolai turns at once.
I should go inside.
I don’t.
Steve glances toward the house, then lowers his voice. “Victor and Grayson finished interpreting the tracker data and the coordinates you supplied. The old warehouse you mentioned isn’t just historical.”
Nikolai stills.
My hand tightens on the edge of the archway.
“Stavros used it yesterday,” Steve continues. “The two women taken off Ariadne. Tracker pinged there for forty-seven minutes before the signal dropped. Grayson matched the route to a secondary property on the north side of the island, registered through one of Petrakis’s shells.”
“Alive?” Nikolai asks.
“Unknown.”
The word hits me harder than it should, considering how many unknowns have already tried to swallow us.
Steve’s jaw tightens. “But Victor intercepted a message routed through Giannis’s phone. Stavros moved them ahead of the main transfer and left guards in place. They’re waiting for him to collect the prizes.”
Prizes.
The word turns my stomach.
Nikolai’s face doesn’t change, but the air around him does. Colder. Sharper.
“Team?” he asks.
“Jax, Cole, Crew, Dimitry,” Steve says. “You too, if you’re fit.”
“I’m fit.”
Like that was ever in question.
Steve looks toward the windows where women sleep behind drawn curtains. “We move quiet. No noise unless there’s no choice. We bring them back here before dawn.”
Nikolai nods once.
No hesitation. No speech. No dramatic vow.
Just decision.
Steve heads back inside, already speaking into the phone again, and Nikolai remains on the terrace, looking toward the dark line of the island beyond the walls.
I step out before I can talk myself out of it.
“You’re going after them.”
His gaze comes to me. “Yes.”
“Now?”
“Soon.”
The cats creep toward the dish behind him, silent as smoke.
I look from them to the man who left food and walked away so they wouldn’t have to be brave while hungry.
That is when I understand something I missed before.
The ice is real.
So is what lives underneath it.
“You’ll bring them back,” I say.
It isn’t a question.
His eyes hold mine through the fading light. “Yes.”
This time, I believe him.
MacLeod’s Aegean, Santorini, Greece. 0830 hours
By morning, there are two more women at the breakfast table, and I notice them before anyone tells me.
One sits close to the wall with both hands wrapped around a mug of tea, taking small, absent-minded sips between long silences.
Her hair is still damp from the shower, and someone has given her a soft blue sweater that hangs loose over narrow shoulders.
The other is younger, maybe twenty-three, with one hand resting protectively over the gentle curve of her stomach. Second trimester, if I had to guess. Long enough that even borrowed clothes can’t quite hide the new life she’s trying so instinctively to protect.
Dimitry is near the terrace doors, speaking quietly with Mercy, and I wait until he finishes before stepping closer. “The two women,” I ask. “From Ariadne?”
His expression shifts, not quite softer, but careful. “Yes. we brought them in before dawn.”
My gaze returns to the younger woman. “She’s pregnant.”
“Janice thinks so.”
The words sit heavy between us. A woman trafficked from a yacht route. Pregnant. Hidden in a Santorini property while men waited to move her again.
I look across the terrace. Nikolai stands near me, his attention moving between the women, the gate, and the sea. He looks rested to anyone who doesn’t know better. I know better now. There’s a faint shadow beneath his eyes, and his left hand is taped across the knuckles.
He must have gone straight from our kiss to the extraction.
Without hesitation.
I cross to him with two coffees and hold one out. He looks at it as if it might be a tactical complication.
“Drink it,” I say.
He takes it.
“You brought them back.”
“Yes.”
“Are they all right?”
“No.”
I appreciate that he doesn’t lie.
“But they’re here, in good hands,” he adds.
I look toward the table, where Mercy has coaxed the younger woman into taking a piece of bread while Dr. Tran sits at a careful distance, speaking only when spoken to. Janice watches from nearby, steadier now than yesterday, while Liberty records another note.
Steve sits beside Janice, close enough that his hand rests briefly against her back before he faces the table.
“I’m Steve Hollands. This is Janice, Liberty, Mercy, Dr. Joshua Tran, Dimitry, Jax, Cole, Crew, and Nikolai.
We’re HAVEN, and you’re safe with us.” His voice is steady, the kind that doesn’t ask anyone to believe too much too quickly.
“For now, you rest. Eat decent food. Drink water. Let Janice and Liberty check anything that needs checking, and when you’re ready, Dr. Josh is here to talk.
No one will force that before you’re ready. ”
He looks around the table, making sure each woman hears him. “You’ll have decisions to make, but not today. Where you go next, who we contact, whether you stay in Europe or come to the US, that’s your choice. Either way, HAVEN will back it.”
A ripple moves around the table, small sounds in several languages, surprise, disbelief, and the first fragile edge of hope as the women realize choice has finally been handed back to them.
Nikolai’s gaze follows mine.
“You care more than you let on,” I say.
His face closes almost instantly. “Caring is a liability.”
“Caring is the point, Nikolai.”
His eyes cut back to mine.
“It’s why we do any of this. Why Janice is still working when she should be resting. Why Mercy flew out here to help and see Jax. Why Steve sent you after those women before any of you had slept. Why you feed the cats when no one is watching.”
His jaw tightens.
Ah.
So, he didn’t know I’d seen that.
“You think you’re hiding it,” I say quietly. “You’re not.”
For several seconds, he says nothing. The sun strikes his face, turning his eyes almost colorless, and there it is.
The thing behind the ice. Not softness. Exhaustion.
The kind that belongs to a man who has spent years caring in secret, burying every act of mercy beneath discipline because naming it would make it harder to survive.
“I don’t know another way,” he says at last.
The admission is so quiet I nearly miss it.
I step closer, careful not to touch him in front of everyone. “Then learn one.”
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes. Dangerous man. Wounded man. Caring man, whether he likes it or not.
And now I’m certain the ice isn’t empty.
It’s only been keeping him standing.
MacLeod’s Aegean, Santorini, Greece. 1100 hours
By late morning, the house has settled into the strange quiet that follows too much food, too little sleep, and safety no one quite trusts yet. Most of the women have gone to their rooms under Janice and Liberty’s careful direction.
Mercy is making phone calls with one of the Ariadne women, Dr. Tran is speaking softly with another in the shaded sitting room, and Steve has disappeared with Victor on a secure call.
I find Nikolai on the side terrace, where the white walls throw the sun back hard enough to make me squint. He stands near the edge with a coffee he still hasn’t finished, watching the sea as though it owes him answers.
“Manchester was never this bright,” I say.
His gaze shifts to me. “No?”
“Gray. Wet. Stubborn. The sort of place where rain arrives sideways and everyone pretends it’s normal.” I sit on the low wall. “My father used to say Manchester weather built character. My mother said it ruined shoes.”
His mouth almost moves. “Both can be true.”
“They usually were with my parents.”
He looks back toward the water, but I can tell he’s listening. Properly. Not waiting for his turn to speak. Just listening.