33. Gabby
Gabby
I can’t sleep.
I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in my head.
I was so close to telling him everything. My real name. About my husband. About the Feds and witness protection and five years of running.
For a second, keeping it from him felt harder than telling him.
Secrets are the reason Luke and I are still alive.
My entire life has been strategy. Doing whatever it takes to keep us alive.
Nikolai makes me question every instinct that kept us safe.
The rules Greg drilled into me. He makes me want to believe we could stop running.
That I could have a life where I’m not constantly looking over my shoulder.
Wanting that is dangerous.
If he hid the man in the park from me, what else is he keeping? What else is he deciding I don’t need to know? He says he’s protecting us, but I can’t protect Luke if I don’t have all the information. What if the man following Luke has nothing to do with Nik and everything to do with me?
There’s too much coming from too many different directions.
When morning comes, I’m exhausted but wired. I shower and dress. I need to think. Plan.
I need to be ready to run.
Luke is asleep when I check on him. His dinosaur nightlight is on.
He has a projector, too, but after an hour of dinosaurs dancing across his ceiling, we decided that’s not something anyone wants to wake up to in the middle of the night.
I head downstairs and find Irina in the kitchen.
I don’t want to see Nikolai. I don’t trust myself not to say something I’ll regret. Or worse, to forgive him too easily.
I take my coffee into the small sitting room Luke has claimed. It’s quiet, with some of his toys and books scattered around. I find the tablet Nik bought for Luke. It’s supposed to be for educational games and dinosaur videos. I power it on, open the browser, and start searching.
Small towns in the Midwest. Cheap rent and good schools. Somewhere a single mom and her kid can disappear without anyone asking too many questions.
I’m back in survival mode. I thought I’d left it behind when we came to Vegas six months ago.
When I let myself believe that Vegas could be home.
I have to do it without the government’s help.
I’m on my own. No one is securing an apartment or handing me the keys to a car. I am building the escape myself.
I hate that I’m doing this. But every instinct I have says the life we built here is about to fall apart.
“Mom?”
I jump, nearly dropping the tablet. Luke is standing in the doorway in his dinosaur pajamas, rubbing his eyes.
“Hey, buddy.” I close the browser before he can see the screen. “You’re up early.”
His gaze settles on the tablet.
“Come here.” I pat the couch beside me. He climbs up and curls into my side. I wrap an arm around him. “Want some breakfast?”
“Can Nik make pancakes?”
Something in me sinks. “Not today, buddy. Do you want cereal?”
“Okay.”
We have breakfast in the kitchen. I take Nik’s usual seat beside Luke. I don’t know if he’s in the house or already gone for the day, but I don’t go looking.
“Kylie’s coming today,” I tell him. “You guys can swim.”
“At the pool?”
“No. Here. You’ll stay in the shallow end.”
“Okay.”
Kylie arrives an hour later. She’s still staying in the guest house, but it seems silly to have her babysit my kid when I’m right there.
I’m grateful to have her today. I need time to figure out how to leave.
I grab the tablet again. I need to be smart about this. I need options.
I search for apartments in Omaha. Wichita. Des Moines. Places far enough from Vegas that no one would think to look. Places with good resources for kids like Luke. Places where we can start over.
Again.
I hear Luke laughing outside. The sound carries through the open window. It’s something I don’t hear often enough. I get up and cross over to the window that overlooks the backyard.
Kylie is teaching him to kick his legs. He’s doing it, splashing water everywhere. He looks so happy. So normal.
And I’m about to take that away.
But what’s the alternative? Stay and hope Nikolai can protect us? Trust him with everything when I don’t even know what he’s keeping from me?
I’ve done this before. I can do it again.
God, I’m so tired of running.
Footsteps approach in the hall. I close the apartment listing and pull up , pretending I’ve been shopping.
Pasha appears in the doorway, and some of the tension drains out of me. I wasn’t sure what I would say if it was Nik. I’m not ready for that conversation.
Pasha surveys the room, then walks in. He came looking for me. Did Nik send him? Is he here to tell me to pack my shit and go?
He drops into the armchair across from me and stretches out his legs. Then, he picks up one of Luke’s plastic stegosauruses and turns it over in his hands.
He looks at me, and I know this isn’t a casual visit. I smooth my expression and sit a little straighter.
“I don’t know what you’re hiding, but I know you’re hiding something.”
I shrug. “Everyone has a past.”
“I’ve looked into you,” he says unapologetically. “Gabby Collins was born in 1912. Your records only go back a few years. That tells me something, but not everything.”
My heart rate kicks up, but I reveal nothing. I keep my breathing even and resist the urge to lick my lips, even though my mouth has gone dry.
“Is there a point to this conversation?” I ask.
He sets the dinosaur down and looks at me.
“Not one you’re going to like.” He leans forward, his eyes fixed on mine.
Calm in a way that makes me more nervous than if he were angry.
“He cares about you. I’ve known him since we were boys, and I have never seen him move someone into his home.
I’ve never seen him allow a woman into his bed, much less his life, and then fight to keep her there. ”
I hold his gaze. The words shouldn’t surprise me. I already know how much he cares. Hearing Pasha say it only makes leaving harder.
“He’s a brother to me,” Pasha continues. “Not by blood. By choice. His brothers know one version of him. The version he lets everyone see. The soldier. The strategist. The middle son who never needed anything.” He pauses. “I know the other version.”
“And?”
He sits back. “His father was cruel. To all of them, but especially to Nik. There are parts of his childhood his brothers don’t fully understand.
He’s never spoken about it to anyone except maybe me, and even then, only in pieces.
” He picks up the dinosaur again, rubbing his thumb over the scales.
“His mother was the only one who understood him, much like you understand Luke. Tatiana showed him how to navigate the world in a way that made sense to him. When she died, a version of Nik died with her. At least that’s what I thought. And then you showed up.”
Something pulls beneath my ribs. I don’t like how much it makes me think of Luke, and about what happens to little boys no one understands. I press my fingers against the edge of the tablet and focus on the sharp corner of the case.
“He keeps people in the dark because he thinks that’s how to keep them safe,” Pasha says. “He doesn’t see it as control. Protection is the only language he knows. Growing up, he learned to keep the people he loved safe by solving the problem before anyone else knew it existed.”
He looks at me. “He does it with Sergei. With Maksim. He solves problems before they reach them because he’d rather carry the weight than let them see what it costs him.”
I swallow. “I understand that’s his way, but Luke is my son.”
“I know.”
“I can’t be kept in the dark about threats to my son. That isn’t a preference, Pasha. It’s the line.”
“I agree with you,” he says simply.
I wasn’t expecting that.
“I told him the same thing.” He sets the dinosaur on the side table. “I’m not here to defend what he did. But before you decide whether to stay or go, you should understand that Nik has his own way of doing things. It’s not wrong. It’s different.”
That’s exactly what I say about Luke. He’s not wrong. He’s different.
“He doesn’t know how to ask for what he needs,” Pasha goes on. “Most of the time, he doesn’t know what he needs. But I’ve watched him with your boy, and I’m telling you that what he feels for Luke is real. He will protect Luke like he’s his own. No second-guessing. No hesitation.”
I press my lips together and blink hard. I will not cry in front of a man I barely know.
“I appreciate you telling me that,” I say.
He stands and straightens his shirt.
“You’re hiding something. We all have our secrets. But understand this: The way you feel about Luke is the way I feel about Nik. What you would do to protect your son, I’ll do to protect my brother. Right or wrong, I won’t hesitate.”
Then, he turns and walks out.
I believe Nikolai would step in front of a bullet for Luke without thinking twice. And I know he loves him like his own.
That’s what makes this so hard.
It would be easier if Nik gave me a reason to hate him. A reason to fear him.
But protection isn’t love if it costs you your choice.
And I will not teach my son that it is.