Chapter 13
Nick
THE DREAMS WERE ALWAYS the same. I’d be in a blank space, no walls or ceiling, with nothing but the smell of her— paint and sweat and the vanilla undertow of her skin.
Nadya. The one woman I couldn’t get out of my head all these years.
I’d try to catch her, but she was always just ahead, laughing that smoky laugh, until suddenly she was closer than seemed possible. My hands in her hair, my mouth on her neck.
This time, the dream was different. Her hair fanned across my cheek.
She fit under my chin, back to my chest, one of her legs trapped under mine and my arms holding her to me so she wouldn’t escape again.
I felt the impossibly real warmth of her, as if this time she was tethered here, with me.
Her vanilla scent was stronger than ever.
I ran my nose along her scalp, inhaling, and tried to stay in the dream forever.
Except, it wasn’t a dream.
Oh, fuck. I was spooning Nadya in the queen bed at the Ho Ton Inn.
For a long second, I just lay there, completely pinning her, one of my hands splayed over her stomach, and the rest of me flush along her back. Nadya was so tiny compared to me I almost completely engulfed her. And yeah, I was hard.
Then Nadya shifted in her sleep, burrowing deeper into the pillow, and that was enough to break the spell. I started a careful, millimeter-by-millimeter retreat. My hand peeled off her midsection, my legs unhooked, but it was too late.
Nadya grumbled something, then froze. So did I.
I cleared my throat, the sound volcanic in the quiet room. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
Nadya was a statue for three heartbeats, then she rolled onto her back, blinked at the ceiling, and said, “It’s no big deal.”
I tried to read her face in the blue haze of early morning. Eyes wide open, lips flat and unmoving. A flush crept up her cheeks as she climbed out of bed, grabbed her backpack, and retreated to the bathroom.
As the door clicked shut, I let out a breath that left me hollow. I had promised myself I would keep it professional, no matter how badly I wanted Nadya. I couldn’t go there. I just couldn’t.
From the bathroom, I could hear water running, and I wished I could go in, not to creep on Nadya but to take a cold shower.
Instead, I dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a black t-shirt.
I checked my phone to find a text from Renat, asking if I wanted to go out for beers.
The guy was working out of New York, but we had crossed paths a few times.
He was about to go undercover, so he was soaking up the last few days of freedom before being shipped off to another state.
There was another text from the Bureau, just a standard check-in reminder. I ignored both for now. There was nothing in the world I wanted to do less than update the FBI on my latest failure to keep boundaries with my witness.
The bathroom door opened, and Nadya came out in a loose navy sweater and faded jeans. Her stomach growled loudly, but she pretended nothing happened, like I wouldn’t hear that.
She glanced at me, then away. “Shower’s open.”
“Thanks.” I ducked in.
The cold shower would have to wait for tonight because if Nadya was that hungry, I had to make sure we got breakfast ASAP.
I splashed cold water on my face, ran a toothbrush over my teeth, and shaved as fast as I could without cutting up my face.
When I stepped out, she was perched on the edge of the bed, scrolling her phone. She didn’t look up.
“You ready to eat?” I asked.
She nodded, still locked onto her phone. “The website says ‘continental breakfast’ is included. What do you think are our chances it’s any good?”
I grinned, grateful for the lifeline. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and there’ll be a live omelet station.”
She put on her boots, zipped her hoodie, and finally glanced at me. “Let’s go before all the muffins are gone.”
This morning, the elevator reeked of burnt toast, which should’ve said enough about what to expect for breakfast. At the lobby level, we were dumped into a chaos of humanity.
Apparently, the basketball fans had multiplied overnight.
Now the lobby was overrun with teenagers in matching blue-and-gold warmups, their parents, and at least two dozen little siblings who ran circuits around the sofa island in the center.
It was a zoo. Nadya stood on tiptoe to see over the heads, then ducked behind me as we shouldered through.
Breakfast was in a cordoned-off space by the windows.
Long tables, vinyl tablecloths, and several industrial-strength coffee urns that steamed like nuclear reactors.
There was, as promised, a wide array of pastries and a mountain of bruised bananas.
Nadya eyed the buffet with the clinical suspicion of a seasoned survivor.
“Do you see any eggs?” she asked.
I scanned the perimeter. “Over there, next to the hashbrowns.”
She came closer and made a face. “They look like they were 3D printed from soy.”
“I bet you a dollar they’re at least ten percent egg.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I found the stack of Styrofoam cups and poured two coffees, then handed one to Nadya.
She took a sip, grimaced. “It’s water with a personality disorder.”
“You don’t sugar-coat it,” I said.
“Sugar-coating it might help make it taste better.” Nadya dumped three packets in, then added some half-and-half before trying a sip. “Now it’s a sweet personality disorder. Much better than being bitter all the time.”
We snagged a table wedged between the window and the breakfast bar, half-hidden behind a decorative ficus.
Nadya picked at a muffin, peeled the wrapper, then shredded the top and left the rest. She kept her gaze on the window, but I could see her eyes flicking to the reflection—checking the room, clocking every stranger.
I poured three creamers into my coffee, stirred with a plastic stick, and watched her.
"You sleep okay?" I asked, knowing the answer but needing to say something.
She shrugged. "Yeah. Had some weird dreams, but nothing new." She didn't look at me, just kept tearing her muffin into smaller and smaller pieces. I considered saying sorry again, but it would make it worse. Instead, I tried to redirect. "You ever play basketball?"
She blinked, surprised. "Me? No. Hand-eye coordination isn't my thing. I'd end up murdering half my team with accidental headshots."
I smiled, pleased to see some of the old Nadya surface. "Want to see if we can find better food somewhere?" I asked, already knowing there was a diner a block away. I had checked for these things before booking the hotel, so that we wouldn't have to drive anywhere.
"Hell, yeah." She smiled, a genuine one, and it did things to me l didn't want to examine too closely.
We wound our way through the busy lobby, past the front desk where the same kid from last night still held vigil.
Outside, the morning air was cold and sharp, the sky the color of a TV tuned to a dead channel.
Good thing Nadya dressed warm, or she'd get cold on a motorcycle with the wind blowing all the body heat away.
As we stepped onto the sidewalk, Nadya pulled her hoodie tighter around her face, then looked up at me. "So, where to?"
I led her down the block, past the bakery with the empty cake stand. I could feel the tension evaporate as soon as we put distance between ourselves and the hotel. The diner sat on the corner, fronted with glass blocks that turned the morning light into a grid of blue and gold.
The sign said "Penny's," and the only thing older than the sign was the woman at the register, whose arms were tattooed with roses.
Inside, it was exactly what I had expected: battered red booths, chrome-edged Formica, faux wood paneling hung with black and white basketball team photos from the late 70s.
Best of all, there were no screaming teens, just two old men in work shirts and a pair of hungover grad students picking at their pancakes.
Nadya slid into the booth and rested her chin on her fist as she scanned the menu, then looked up at me and said, “I’m getting the biggest, greasiest thing on here and if you judge me, I’ll find a way to sabotage your bike.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, but she was already half gone into her phone, researching which breakfast meats had the highest sodium content, probably as a dare to her arteries.
I ordered coffee again— better than the hotels’, though that was a low bar— and Nadya ordered orange juice, which surprised me.
“Vera keeps bugging me about getting my vitamins,” she explained.
Right, she had told me about that. The older sister that seemed more like a mother.
With her vitamins taken care of, Nadya ordered the breakfast sandwich with triple bacon, extra cheese and a side of fries. I went with a ham and cheese omelet, and we both got another round of coffee.
The server took our order and winked at Nadya. “I like a girl who’s not afraid of grease. Does your boyfriend know what he’s getting himself into?”
Nadya smiled, not denying or correcting. “He’ll figure it out soon enough.”
I coughed into my fist, and the server cackled before heading off to the kitchen.
“Did you always want to be an artist?” I asked. It was a classic date question, but it was safer than "So, what brand of trauma would you like to sample today?"
Nadya gave me a long look, elbows braced on the table.
"No way," she said. "When we got adopted, I was determined to be a pop star. Or a YouTube prankster with a million subscribers. The art thing happened because I needed to get all the ugliness out. Art therapy is probably the only good thing I took away from my one and only therapy session.”
“Just one session?” I asked.
Nadya nodded. “The therapist had more issues than I did, and apparently she was relatively okay with me. She told Ljuba her aura was all messed up.”
Oh, it was one of those. I hated when that happened, but unfortunately there were bad eggs in every profession.
The problem with getting therapy was that it was hard to open up to someone about all that trauma, especially when it was as bad as Nadya’s situation.
So, when the first person wasn’t good at their job, it could completely stall the entire process.
“I had to get therapy, and it was actually pretty good,” I offered. “Helped me learn to deal with some of what I’ve seen while I served.”
She shrugged it off. “Art helps enough. Besides, it’s not like there’s any therapy that can erase what happened.”
“No, there isn’t. For me, it was more like a guide to life, you know? Like, why am I reacting to a certain situation the way I am, and can I do better?”
Again, she dismissed it. “I think I figured out my life.”
I didn’t push it again. This wasn’t something that could be forced.
Even after I’d started therapy, it had taken me over a year to talk about my baby sister. Until then, I kept insisting that the only nightmares I had were what I had seen in the military. So, yeah, I got it, even if I knew she’d benefit from it.
I’d bring it up again after a while and see if anything changed. Although, it did make me wonder if that one therapist was licensed and what her education was. Or had it been one of those online counseling scams?