Chapter 52 Bastian
BASTIAN
TWO DAYS LATER
reservation /?rez?r?vāSH(?)n/: noun
I’m shaving for the first time in weeks.
The razor scrapes against stubble I’ve let grow too long, clearing paths through the mess I’ve become. Halfway through, I stop and study my reflection.
The man staring back at me is a stranger I’m still wary of getting reacquainted with. Hollow cheeks, eyes drained of color. A jaw that’s been clenched so tight for so long there’s probably permanent damage to the bone.
When my world first crumbled, it was hard to recognize myself without the armor I’d strapped on for years.
Suits and watches, glitz and glam, wealth and power I wore like jewelry.
All the trappings of a man on the cusp of billions.
I lost the taste for all that shit soon after I joined Aleksei’s side.
Then, while under his wing, I avoided mirrors for a while.
But now, I’m finding that it’s not so terrible to look at myself. I see just a man. Neither a saint nor a sinner. Just flesh and bone and exhaustion, fixing things one pass of the razor at a time.
In an hour, I’ll be sitting down with the FBI to tell them everything I know. I’ll be stabbing my brother in the back as I do, but he made his choices. I’m making mine.
I’m choosing my family.
I rinse off the blade and resume my work.
I’m almost done when the razor catches on my jaw and tears through the skin.
As I wince, a daub of blood wells up, bright red against the white shaving cream.
I watch it swell and slide down toward my chin, and I think, This is the smallest wound I’ve sustained in months.
I’ll take it. One last wound. Tonight, if everything goes according to plan, the bleeding will finally stop for good.
I pull on clean clothes and step out of the bathroom to find the safe house bustling. Zeke stands at the stove, spatula in hand, while Yasmin perches on the counter beside him, gesturing critically at whatever he’s got sizzling in the pan.
“You’re going to burn the garlic,” she warns. “It’s already turning brown.”
He scowls at her. “Are you aware that I am quite literally a James Beard award-winning chef?”
“Tell that to the burnt garlic, wise guy.”
“It’s supposed to be golden,” Zeke insists. “There’s a difference.”
“There’s about three seconds of difference, and you just blew through two of them.”
Sage wheels past me with a tablet propped on his lap, barely grunting acknowledgment as he navigates toward the living room.
I catch a glimpse of code scrolling across his screen.
He’s been teaching himself Python, apparently, because the kid can’t sit still even when the world is falling apart around him. My heart bursts with pride.
Across the room at the kitchen table, Georgia fusses over Eliana, trying to force-feed her olives. “You’re eating for two now, sweetheart. That means double portions.”
“Mom, fattening me up won’t make—”
“Less talking, more chewing.”
I lean against the doorframe and let the warmth of it all wash over me. This chaotic, imperfect family, cobbled together from trauma and circumstance, is everything I never knew I wanted. I want a thousand more evenings exactly like this one.
I decide not to make a fuss about my exit. This group has had enough dramatic departures and reunions to last a fucking lifetime. Instead, I just slip toward the door and slide out into the night.
I almost make it, too.
“Bastian.”
Eliana’s voice stops me when I’m halfway to the car. She doesn’t have her cane and she’s half an inch away from tripping over the edge of the sidewalk, so I double back to steady her.
“Jesus, Eliana. You’re going to break your neck.”
“And you were going to leave without saying goodbye,” she accuses.
“Caught red-handed,” I admit. “I’m all out of good speeches.”
Her hands go flat on my chest in that habit we’ve both become accustomed to, the thing that first brought us together all those months ago in my office, when she stumbled into me in the dark and neither of us knew how thoroughly we’d ruin each other.
“Your heart is racing,” she observes.
“Tends to happen when you touch me.”
“Sure it’s not just because you’re scared?”
She’s teasing, but it hits a little too close to home. “Of course I’m scared,” I confess freely.
“Then don’t go.”
“El—”
“I know.” She cuts me off before I can launch into yet another lecture. “I know you have to, it’s the only way, yes, yes, yes. I know all of it, Bastian. I just…” Her composure splinters and tears leak through the gaps. “I just got you back.”
I sigh. “Come here, you silly girl.”
I pull her against me, mindful of the belly between us. Eliana’s arms wrap around my waist and she presses her face into my chest, breathing me in. “I hate this,” she mumbles against my shirt.
“I know.”
“I hate that you have to be the one to fix everything.”
“I know.”
“I hate that I can’t come with you.”
I pull back just enough to cup her face in my hands. “You are coming with me,” I tell her. “Every second I’m in that room, you’ll be right here.” I touch her pregnant belly. “You and this kid are the only reason I’m doing any of this. The reason I’m still breathing at all.”
A tear trickles down her cheekbone. “When did you get so poetic?”
“I’ve died and come back to life a few times now. Makes a man philosophical.”
She laughs and rubs at her tears. “It’s not funny,” she scolds, hitting me in the chest. “None of this is.”
I can sense that she needs something concrete to hold onto. She’s lost so much, again and again and again, so I can’t really blame her for that.
“When I get back,” I say slowly, “we’re going to start planning our new life. Properly. We’re going to name our baby, okay? And then, not a minute too soon, I’m going to make you my wife.”
I feel her go still. “Bastian—”
“I don’t have a ring yet, and I’m in no hurry to pick it out, because once I do, you’re going to be wearing it for the rest of your life, so it needs to be the right one.
I’m a fucked-up man with a fucked-up past, Eliana.
But it doesn’t have to be a fucked-up future.
If you’ll have me in spite of everything, then I want you forever. ”
She’s silent for so long I start to worry I’ve misread everything. That maybe the sex in the garden and the nights we’ve spent tangled together were just comfort, just survival, just two desperate people clinging to each other in the dark.
Then her hands fist in my shirt and she yanks me down to her level. “You absolute fucking idiot,” she breathes against my lips. “Of course I’ll have you. I’ve been having you. In every possible way a person can have another person.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a ‘yes, you moron; now, kiss me before I change my mind.’”
I kiss her. Hard enough to bruise, soft enough to worship. I pour every terrified, hopeful, desperate thing I’m feeling into that kiss, and she takes it all. She takes everything I have and gives it back doubled, tripled, infinite.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“I need to go,” I whisper. “But one more thing first.”
I sink to my knees on the cold concrete. Eliana’s hands root through my hair as I press my lips to the swell of her stomach.
“Hey, kiddo,” I murmur against her skin, too quiet for Eliana to hear me.
“I know we haven’t officially met yet. But I need you to take care of your mom for a few hours, okay?
Keep her company. Kick a lot. Make sure she knows you’re still here.
And I’ll be back soon, alright? I’m coming home to you.
Both of you. I swear it on everything I am and everything I’m going to be. ”
When I stand, Eliana pulls me into one last kiss. “Swear it again,” she says against my mouth. “Swear you’re coming back to me.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die, Ms. Hunter.” I brush my lips across her forehead, her eyelids, and the tip of her nose. “Savor that—it won’t be your last name for much longer.”
I pull away and get in the car. She’s still standing there when I back out of the driveway. I watch her in the rearview mirror until the road curves and she disappears from sight.
Then I turn my eyes forward and drive toward the end of everything.