Chapter 37
Nadya
WE PULLED UP TO THE curb outside Nick’s parents’ house and cut the engine.
The sound died instantly, leaving just the tinniness of wind chimes from two doors down and the soft whisper of leaves on pavement.
The air tasted like cut grass and distant rain, and I could smell exhaust on my jacket even after the ride was over.
The place was modest, with red bricks chipped in a few spots, blacktop drive with a fresh oil stain, windows so clean you could almost see through the mesh of the curtains.
Nick took his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair, then looked at me like he was about to apologize for bringing me here but didn’t quite dare.
We came a day late because of the fire, but I wouldn’t back out of it. I had promised to be here for Nick, and I intended to keep my promise.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Always,” I’d faced worse than parents before, but my stomach knotted all the same. This wasn’t a happy meet the parents occasion, after all, but Nick needed my support, so here I was, despite the fact I was supposed to be locked up in some remote cabin away from traffickers’ eyes.
I mean, I was still technically protected by an FBI agent, even though he wouldn’t be the one responsible for my protection for long.
Technically, he was only allowed a relatively small part in the investigation, now that it was tied to his sister and he had told his superior that he was dating me.
Still, I felt safer with him than I ever had before.
I felt a lot of things when it came to Nick.
The door opened before we got there, and a woman with a soft face and wild brown curls stepped onto the mat. She was about a foot shorter than Nick, wearing a navy cardigan hanging from her shoulders.
She grabbed Nick in a hug before he could say a word, pinning his arms to his sides.
There was no conversation, just the tightness of her hold and the way she inhaled his scent.
She didn’t even look at me. For a second, I wondered if I should turn around and give them privacy, but Nick’s dad was already looming in the hallway, arms folded over a Steelers sweatshirt.
“Hi, Ma,” Nick managed, muffled against her shoulder.
She stepped back, eyes glistening, and swiped a thumb across his cheek. “You look skinny.”
“FBI doesn’t pay well enough to afford the kinds of rations I need,” Nick deadpanned, and his mother’s lips twitched at the corners.
Only then did her eyes land on me. She looked me up and down—not with the icy calculation of an American matriarch, but with the frank, slightly melancholy curiosity of a woman who’d never expected her son to bring anyone home, let alone someone like me.
“This is Nadya,” Nick said. “She’s my—” and then he hesitated. Girlfriend? Witness? The word failed to appear, so he settled for, “—she’s with me. Nadya, these are my parents: Sandra and Charlie.”
I gave a tiny wave. “Hi.”
His mom stepped aside to let me in, her eyes softening. “Come in, dear.”
The inside of the house was small but arranged with surgical precision.
Every surface had a use, every object a story behind it.
The air smelled like carpet cleaner, black coffee, and something sweet—probably whatever she’d baked in anticipation of her son’s visit.
There were no expensive appliances or decorator pieces, but everything looked worn-in and stubbornly clean.
Nick’s hand brushed the small of my back again, guiding me into the living room.
It was packed with family photos: graduations, birthday cakes, football games, a million staged smiles on the same blue plaid couch.
My eyes went straight to the photo above the mantel—a little girl with toothy grin and the same eyes as Nick, frozen in time next to a pink birthday cake.
The caption, scrawled in blue sharpie, read “ISABELLA, age 6.”
I looked away fast, pretending to study the carpet pattern.
Nick’s mom clapped her hands. “Sit, sit! Do you want tea, Nadya? Coffee? I just made banana bread.”
“Tea, please,” I answered.
As soon as Sandy left for the kitchen, Nick’s dad spoke up. “You look good, son.”
Nick shrugged. “Work keeps me in shape.”
Charlie glanced at me, then back at Nick. “Your ma almost gave up hope that you’d ever bring a girl home.”
Nick smiled softly at me, then his expression sobbered. “And you probably won’t see me or Nadya for a while longer. Nadya is going into protective custody while I catch the bad guys. Then...” His eyes were like a gentle caress on me. “Hopefully you’ll see a lot more of Nadya after that.”
Sandra reappeared and poured a cup for me, then Nick, her husband, and finally one for herself, then joined us around the large hardwood chest that served as a coffee table.
“Thank you,” I said, wrapping my hands around the mug. The heat seeped into my palms, grounding me.
“So,” Sandy said, her voice so gentle it almost didn’t belong in a room with two men built like linebackers. “Are you and Nick coworkers?”
I shook my head. “No. He’s... helping me with something. It’s a long story.”
She smiled, the lines around her eyes deepening. “Well, I hope he helps you so much you’ll want to keep him around.”
Nick cleared his throat. He glanced at me, then at his parents. “We found Isabella.”
For a second, no one moved. Even the wind chimes outside stopped, as if the world was holding its breath.
Sandy’s hands jerked, sloshing tea onto the saucer. Charlie stared straight ahead, jaw set so hard I thought it might crack.
Nick went on, his voice even, almost clinical. “They found her in the yard of a man who broke into Nadya’s apartment. She’d been there a long time, along with the bodies of ten more kids.”
Sandra set the tea down, her hands now shaking openly. She stared at the plate of banana bread like it might offer a solution.
“Is he in jail?” Charlie asked, voice like gravel.
Nick nodded. “He won’t ever get out. Not with what they found in the backyard or the surviving victim locked up at his place.”
I glanced at the wall behind Nick’s head, where the photos crowded together in a patchwork of memory. A lot of pictures had been dusted recently. A few were slightly off kilter, as if someone had picked them up, put them back, but didn’t have the energy to make them perfect.
Nick’s mother reached for her husband’s hand and squeezed. He stared at the spot on the table where Nick’s badge sat, face down.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, hating myself for how useless it sounded.
Sandra looked at me with eyes that had probably seen a thousand apologies already. “You don’t have to be sorry, dear. You did nothing wrong.”
For a while, we just sat there, the only sounds the tick of the kitchen clock and the distant hum of a lawn mower. Sandy served us banana bread, even though neither of us ate it, and Nick’s dad got up to pace the length of the room, hands jammed into his pockets.
I couldn’t help it—my brain started filling in the gaps, building stories out of every object in the house.
The throw on the couch was hand-knitted, probably from a church bazaar.
The end tables had little nicks at the corners, kid-height, years’ worth of collisions.
The bookshelf was lined with battered hardcovers and a few Reader’s Digest volumes, their spines faded to beige.
The last time I’d been in a house like this had been my own parents’.
I remembered my father’s obsession with keeping the windows streak-free, how my mother cut chicken leg quarters into small pieces and used exactly five so each of us would get a little meat in our plates.
I remembered the day they died for the awful sin of walking on a sidewalk while someone was trying to assassinate a businessman.
Well, businessman was probably the wrong term. There had been some noise about the guy being a mobster.
I pressed my palm flat to the mug, letting the heat seep through my skin. My finger traced the rim, over and over, a nervous tick I’d never managed to break.
Sandy caught the movement, and her lips curled into a sad smile. “Is that a tattoo?”
I looked at my wrist, realizing the stars were on full display. “For me and my sisters.”
And suddenly, I didn’t want to be here anymore. I wanted to be with Ljuba and Vera at the safe house. They were my safe place. Hell, they were my everything.
But it wasn’t about me. Nick needed support, so no matter how much I wanted to escape his sweet, welcoming parents, I’d stay put.
Nick cleared his throat again. “We can’t stay long. Nadya needs to be in protective custody. And I need to be in New York to make sure the everyone responsible goes down.”
Sandy nodded. “Isabella wasn’t abused by only one man?”
“I don’t know, but he wasn’t the only one who attacked Nadya.”
Sandy let out a strangled noise before asking me, “Did they hurt you?”
I shook my head. “Not in recent years. Nick made sure of that.” I finished my tea in one long gulp, then set the mug down with a click. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Santana.”
She waved the formality away. “Sandy, please.”
I smiled, but it felt thin.
Nick’s dad clapped his son on the shoulder, then surprised me by reaching out and giving my hand a warm, rough squeeze. “Take care of each other,” he said.
“We will,” I promised, and almost meant it.
Nick took my hand as we left, not letting go until we got back to the motorcycle.
***
NICK VEERED OFF ONTO a gravel side road that dead-ended in woods so dense you could smell the moss even through the exhaust and helmet.
He slowed the bike and coasted into a clearing, killing the engine with a practiced flick.
The silence after was massive, so loud it rang in my ears.
The only sounds were the soft ticking of the engine cooling off and the crush of pine needles under our boots. There were no houses around us.
“We walk from here,” he explained.
We left the helmets on the bike, and Nick led the way.
I walked by his side, hands linked like we were afraid the other would vanish.
The path was muddy, churned up by tires and rain.
I almost slipped once, but Nick steadied me with a squeeze.
There was a weird comfort in being here, at the edge of the world, where everything else was stripped away.
We climbed a small rise, and at the top, I could see the safehouse.
It looked like every rural cabin in every horror movie: wood siding gone gray with age, one lopsided porch light casting a circle on the steps, a metal roof flashing dull in the dusk.
But there were details you only noticed if you knew what to look for—new locks on the door, fresh footprints, the faint glint of a camera lens above the eaves.
Nick stopped, turning to me before we reached the porch. He looked like he wanted to say something, but the words got tangled up in his throat. Instead, he just stood there, jaw flexing, thumb brushing the side of my hand.
“I’m not going to see you for a while,” he said finally.
“I figured,” I answered, keeping my voice light. “You have to go catch all the bad guys.”
He almost smiled. “You’ll be safe here. Vera and Ljuba are already inside.
A couple of agents will be with you just in case.
They have a phone you can use that won’t be traced back to you, but you can’t tell anyone anything that will give away your location.
Not even what state you’re in. You’ll have everything you need, so there’s no reason to leave.
If you need anything else, just tell the agents, and if it’s something they’re not able to find on their own, you can order it online.
It’ll be delivered to the FBI office in the area, addressed to one of the agents working with you. ”
Art supplies. With all the free time I was about to have and no alcohol to self-medicate with, I’d have a lot of time to paint. Knowing Nick was out there, facing danger, and after seeing the old ghosts coming after me, I would have plenty of inspiration.
There was something they wouldn’t be able to provide, though— Nick. He’d be out there, risking his life to save others.
He took a deep breath, exhaled slow. “There’s something I need to tell you, but I don’t want to screw this up.” He took another breath, the words slow, deliberate. “I love you.”
It wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t even what I thought I wanted, but when he said it, the world flickered back to color for a second.
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a gasp. “Me?”
“You,” he said. “It’s been you since the first time I woke up to your elbow to my eye and your hair in my mouth.”
I felt heat crawl up my neck, but I didn’t look away.
He leaned in, voice gone low and rough. “When this is over, I’m coming back for you.
I’m going to move to New York, get a real apartment, buy groceries like a normal person.
” His lips twitched like he was hiding a smile.
“Maybe even catch Meatball and domesticate that bastard. He can have the couch as long as he doesn’t attack me in my sleep or steal my pizza. I draw a line on pizza.”
I snorted, the laugh raw and a little wild. “New York pizza is sacred.”
Nick’s face turned serious again. “I want to give us a real chance.”
His words hung between us.
I thought about running. He was too good for the likes of me, but he could decide who was and wasn’t good enough for him, and I wanted to be selfish.
“I want that, too,” I said.
He nodded, but there was a tremor in his hands when he cupped my jaw, kissed me soft and urgent, like he wanted to memorize every second. I kissed him back until the taste of him was burned into me.
When he pulled away, his eyes shone with longing.
“If you can’t transfer, maybe I could come to Philly. Or we could do long distance for a while, if you want.” I bit my lip nervously. “I love you, too, in case you didn’t notice.”
He grinned, for real this time. “You look good on a motorcycle. Maybe we can figure out something about treating your phobia enough for you to get a driver’s license and then a motorcycle license?”
I wiped my eyes, a little embarrassed that I’d be losing it over something so normal as talking to a man about the future we might be able to build, but I had never imagined I’d be this lucky. “Maybe.”
Nick squeezed my hand one last time, then let go. “I’ll see you soon, Sleep Brawler.”
“Be careful,” I said, hating that he’d be in danger, but knowing how important this was to him.
He walked me to the rest of the way to the cabin, gave me one last kiss, and stepped back, leaving me in the capable hands of the other agents.
For the first time in a long time, I let myself believe that I could be loved by the most incredible man I’d ever met.