Chapter 38
Nadya
Four months later
THE SNOW STARTED BEFORE dusk, and by the time I let myself out the back door, a thin blanket covered the ground. Each flake was huge and fluffy as dandelion seeds, and the air was thick enough to muffle the sounds of the busy Brooklyn neighborhood where Dan had bought a house.
I stood with my face tipped up, letting the flakes dissolve against my cheeks until my eyebrows were full of frost. I tried to match the quiet, but my insides were vibrating with anticipation.
I’d been officially out of protective custody for all of twelve hours, and my entire body still expected men with tear tattoos to come through the back gate and haul me off.
Behind me, the “porch bedroom” gave off a night-light glow through the frost-rimmed windows.
If you wanted proof the universe loved Ljuba, you could just look at the way Dan had converted the old porch for her.
She could still breathe the night air even with every door locked and alarmed.
The windows were never closed all the way, no matter how cold it got, so the whole place was an incubator for draft and chill, and it helped Ljuba sleep.
She needed to know the outside was always there—just glass and screen away.
Every trauma needed a hack. This was Ljuba’s.
I checked my phone for the third time in a minute. No new messages. No missed calls from Nick, who’d promised to be back by dark. I was being dramatic, but I needed to see his name pop up on my screen, just to make it real, to know he was out there and still cared about me.
After not seeing him for four months, I missed him so bad it hurt. In all the years of running from men and memories, I’d never once thought I’d end up the kind of girl who stood in the snow like a lovesick statue, waiting for her boyfriend to come home.
A light flared on the side of the house, and the big gate rattled open.
I heard him before I saw him, boots crunching deliberately.
His hair was a mess, and there were faint blue shadows under his eyes.
A day in the trenches, with an extra hour or two of paperwork hell, just so he could walk back through that gate and straight into my arms.
Nick saw me, and for a second I wondered if he’d say anything or just stand there like I was an animal he didn’t want to spook.
But he strode across the yard and didn’t stop until he had me wrapped up, hands on my face, mouth crushing into mine with a kind of wild hunger that made me forget about the snow or the cold.
I let him. I let him kiss me like it was the last oxygen on the planet, and I didn’t care that my lips were cold or that his nose was freezing or that I probably looked like a raccoon who’d just lost a fight.
He didn’t say my name, or anything at all. He just held me for a minute, his hands gentle and his body pressed to mine. When he finally pulled away, his breath steamed between us, and he leaned his forehead against mine, eyes closed.
“You’re safe now,” he whispered, voice so low it felt like a secret. “It’s over.”
Was it? What if they hadn't gotten all the bad guys? What if someone escaped? But they’d probably go into hiding, hoping the feds would stop looking.
The undercover op resulted in twenty-seven arrests all across the country. Thirty-two victims were rescued. Nothing to emphasize the importance of Nick's jobs like those kinds of results. It was numbers like those that made up for the other kinds of statistics his job brought in.
When he stepped back, his hands stayed on my waist. “You ready to get out of here?”
“Where are we going?” I asked, more because I liked the way he said “we” than because I cared about the destination.
He grinned, and the years fell off his face for a second. “Anywhere that isn’t your sister’s yard. Or a police station. Or the FBI office.”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking down at myself. “I’m not exactly dressed for a night out. I was just going to walk around the block and maybe scare some squirrels.”
Nick looked at my outfit—faded jeans, battered boots, oversized hoodie under my old parka—and shrugged. “You look perfect. If you want to change, you can, and I promise not to judge.”
I laughed. “You’re the one in the suit, hotshot. Maybe you’re the one who should change.”
He leaned in close and kissed the tip of my nose. “Then let’s both go as we are.”
I didn’t argue. We might be an odd pair, but we worked, and that's all that mattered.
We left through the side gate, Nick’s hand linked in mine.
I wanted to ask if we were going to take the motorcycle, but the roads were a hazard, and I didn’t think he’d risk both of us on two wheels with ice in the mix.
Instead, we walked, past the houses with lights in the windows, past the garbage bins half-buried in snow.
Nick was quiet. Every so often, he’d squeeze my hand, like a signal that he was still there, that I was still real. I didn’t push for a conversation, just matched his silence and watched our footprints stamp the sidewalk behind us, two sets side by side. I should paint that.
When we reached the subway, he paid for both of us, and we found a seat at the end of a mostly-empty car.
The train rocked as it pulled away, and the motion was a comfort, the rhythm predictable and safe.
I leaned into Nick, letting my head rest on his shoulder, and for a few seconds I was so relaxed I almost fell asleep.
He turned and pressed his lips to my hair. “Tired?” he asked.
“Not really,” I lied. “Just... happy.”
He made a noise, somewhere between a hum and a laugh, and shifted so he could hold my hand in both of his.
“I missed you,” he said.
“The longest four months of my life.”
We let the silence stretch. The train jerked, and an old woman shuffled past, giving us a side-eye that wasn’t entirely disapproving.
“You don’t have to do anything for me, you know. I’m not like one of those girls who needs flowers or fancy dates.”
Nick looked at me, brow furrowed, like he was trying to solve a puzzle. “I know you’re not. That’s why I want to do them.”
It should have made me roll my eyes, but instead it made my heart do a weird hiccup. I looked down at our hands, at the way his thumb was tracing the faint lines of my knuckles and wondered how I’d ever gotten so lucky.
The train slowed, and Nick nudged me. “There’s a place a few stops from here. Coffee shop. They’ll still be open.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said, because a coffee shop would allow us to simply enjoy each other's company, and that’s all I wanted.
I looked at the people on the train. Two college kids in beanies debated whether it was “problematic” to order pumpkin spice lattes this late in the season.
A man in a suit argued with his Bluetooth headset about a contract extension.
A woman in gym clothes spread out her yoga mat and started stretching because apparently, that was now a thing people did in a subway train.
Nick watched them all with that same quiet, tactical focus, but he never let go of my hand.
After a while, he said, “They’re processing my transfer now. It’s basically a done deal. I’ll be in New York full time before the end of the month.”
My face lit up. “That fast?”
He nodded. “I don’t want to be away from you any longer than that.”
“My old apartment is gone. I didn’t feel like continuing the contract while we were in hiding, so I have to find a new place.”
“You want to move in together?” Nick asked with that irresistible grin.
I loved that he asked again, even though we had talked about it before I had gone into protective custody.
It would be a huge step, considering how few days we had actually spent together, but certain life experiences could turn one day into a year.
Nick knew me about as well as my sisters did, and I knew him, trusted him with my life.
I let myself imagine waking up to Nick every morning, making coffee for two, watching him try to wrestle Meatball into a pet carrier for vet appointments, because yeah, Sean had caught the moody, probably demonic cat and was keeping him at his place that had not only been fixed up but got a security upgrade, turning it into a tiny fortress.
“I would very much like to move in with you,” I answered.
“We’d need an office, and since I don’t like sleeping on sheets covered in paint, you’ll need a studio,” Nick pointed out.
“So, we need a three-bedroom apartment.” Rent math while living in New York was not my favorite, but I had painted so much while we were locked away in that cabin that I should be good for a while, assuming Lara could sell it all.
She had promised to organize a solo show for me next month. “Do we need it close to your job?”
Nick hummed. “Maybe we can find something between the gallery and the FBI office? I don’t want you to have to travel that far, either.”
“Subway stations are more important than distance for me,” I reminded him. “The gallery is on the Q line, so any area with a station on the Q line would be perfect for me.”
Nick turned to the subway map hanging by the door and nodded. “I think we can find something that will work for both of us.”
Somehow, this moment right here was all I had ever wanted. Riding the subway, surrounded by weirdos doing yoga on the train, talking about moving in together, just being close to each other felt better than any fancy date at an expensive restaurant.
We approached our stop, and Nick took my hand as we stepped out. The city below the station buzzed. The snow fell softly all around us.
“Is it weird that I’m so stupendously happy to be here?” I asked.
“In this grimy subway station?” Nick asked with amusement.
I shrugged then shook my head. “Just with you, even if we’re in the grimy subway station.”
Nick put his arms around me, his eyes growing intense. “Why do you think I was so eager to transfer? I love you, Nadezhda Almaznaya.”
“I love you too, Nick Santana.”
He claimed my lips, and the world turned into the most perfect winter paradise simply because I had him in my life.