Chapter 51
CHAPTER
FIFTY-ONE
Chelyabinsk isn’t so bad in the spring.
The trees are green, the frost begins to melt when the sun is at its peak, and flowers are yawning open for the first time in months.
I tug my jacket closer—Graham’s old jacket, now officially mine—and sweep my eyes across the forest. Chilly wind whistles through the towering pines, nudging the narrow tops into a swaying dance, as if they’re all eager to know why I’m here again.
Drawing a shuddering breath in, I force my gaze to what I’ve been avoiding for a half-hour.
Noah.
He lies somewhere beneath the third gravestone from a weeping birch, covered by a thin layer of snow. Shaking, I fall to my knees and grasp the grave marker with both hands. My forehead falls to the frozen rock.
The priest, an elderly man with a hunched back, had asked for Noah’s name when the grave was being dug. I couldn’t say it out loud then, just as I occasionally struggle with it now.
My mind was screaming about protocol and my body had gone numb.
Andriy Bondarenko was the name on the ID in his wallet. I couldn’t bring myself to see him buried with it, always remembered as a person that never existed, but I was too scared to go against protocol. Too weak.
Sentimentality was never a weakness, I realize now. It was what kept me human—alive long enough to know something other than emptiness.
A tear slips from the corner of my eye. I don’t bother wiping it away.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as rivers form on my cheeks. “I’m sorry I left you here.”
My legs are numb and the snow has soaked through my jeans by the time I hear crunching footsteps behind me. A warm hand lands on my back, thumb rubbing circles on the spot that’s relentlessly knotted.
“I’ll go if you need more time alone,” he says.
Sniffling, I shake my head and fall back into his embrace. “I’m tired of being alone, Graham.”
“Then you won’t be, ever again.” His arm tightens around my shoulders. He pulls me to my feet and draws me into a long hug, so long that the tears have dried and my bones have thawed when he lets go.
A trembling breath blows through my lips. “You said we could move him?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is,” I reply, nodding emphatically. “He deserves to be home—at least, the closest thing to home we ever had.”
Graham gives me that gentle smile I’ve come to love as much as his charming ones.
The type that settles my thoughts and cuts through the lies.
Sometimes I am still broken, the product of being a weapon for far too long.
Sometimes I need to be held and cared for, because falling apart doesn’t mean I’m fragile.
“I’ll make the arrangements.” He tugs me closer, and I melt, resting my cheek against his chest. “Would you like to tell me more about Noah?” he asks.
A small laugh bubbles in my mouth. Ever since I asked Graham to come with me to Chelyabinsk, I’ve been a veritable fount of information about my brother, as if all the things I’d locked away were bursting through at an uncontrollable rate.
He knows Noah’s birthday, his favorite dessert, and the time he went toe-to-toe with a kid twice his size because I was being picked on.
I would’ve liked him, Graham replied to that.
The sun kissing my cheeks, I open my eyes as the distant sound of buzzing filters through the birdsong. My hearing has never been quite the same since my ear drum burst, but I know without a doubt that what I’m hearing isn’t in my head. Not this time.
“Noah hated bees,” I say, quiet at first, then craning my face up so I can peer into the trees. “I mean—detested them. But only because he was terrified.”
“Is that so?”
“There was this hive outside our foster home,” I explain, “and one of the first times we ever spoke was when I found him planning to throw a rock at it.”
Graham’s chest rumbles with a gentle laugh.
I laugh a little as well at the memory. “It made sense in his nine-year-old mind.” Shifting away from Graham, I point up at the trees, blocking the sun with one hand.
“There—do you see the hive? Anyway, one of the homes I spent a few years of my life in had an apiary. I considered myself to be something of an expert.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “You become more and more fascinating by the day.”
“Once I explained it to him—that they only attack when they feel threatened—well, he thought I’d saved his life.” Another tear slips from my eye, but this time, I’m smiling. “He called me his honeybee. And he’s the one who ended up saving me.”
Graham wraps an arm around my shoulders, silent, watching the faraway bees go about their work as my cheeks become wet again.
Several minutes later, I turn back to the grave, patting my face dry.
“Let’s get him home.”
“Rome or Kyoto?” Graham asks.
We’re standing outside his estate, breathing whole lungfuls of fresh air, soaking in the calm that I mocked for years. I’d taken so much for granted—things I gave up for the ISA, and things I wasn’t even able to experience before deciding I didn’t want it.
I hope that I never forget what I went through to be free. The people who died without having tasted it for themselves. And people like Sophie Baudelaire, who was the hero I aspire to be one day. A real hero.
“Sloane?” he says, wrapping an arm around my waist. His mouth lifts into a devastating smile. “A few weeks back from the dead, and you’re already disinterested.”
“Far from it.”
“Where shall we go from here?” Graham peppers kisses up my neck and along my jaw.
I tuck his all-too-distracting lock of hair back into place. “Anywhere we want, I think.” A tiny thrill shoots down my spine at the truth of my words. “But Carmine did offer me a job.”
“Boo,” he murmurs, capturing my lips with his.
“We might owe him a favor for making your prison sentence disappear.”
He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “What shall I do, then? Live off the glorious wealth of your government salary?”
“Hm,” I hum, snaking my arms around his neck. “He did mention something about wanting a—” A tiny laugh bursts from my mouth.
“What?” Graham frowns.
“A consultant,” I reply, fighting a wry smile.
He casts his eyes to the sky. It’s been long enough that we can joke about it—tentatively. I’m not sure if anyone truly recovers from being tortured by their sister’s goons.
“Hey, Graham?”
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“I love you,” I say, standing on my tip toes to plant a kiss on his mouth.
Graham’s lips curl into an irresistible grin. His gaze, sparkling golden and alive with the glint that makes me flush all the way to my toes, traces every feature of my face before arriving back at my eyes.
“I love you more than words, Sloane, which is quite the feat.”
A groan of disbelief forms in my throat but I can’t fight my grin.
“Out of curiosity—” He clears his throat, cheeks uncharacteristically pink. “—what is the FBI’s policy on workplace marriage?”
“I believe Carmine has been happily married to his now-boss for twenty years,” I reply.
“Now that is fascinating new information,” he replies with a wink, and I’m positive my skin has become molten lava.
“We can discuss that later.” Graham tugs my hand into his, extending it into the air, and we begin to sway to the sound of birds chirping and a gentle breeze filtering through the garden.
He secures his other arm around my waist. Always solid, like an anchor in the storm.
“For now, mon amour, you must finally answer my question.”
My lips purse. For the first time in my life, the future has unfurled for me, and all I have to decide is what I want.
“Both?” I reply, resting against him, eyelids sliding shut with the assurance that I’m perfectly safe exactly where I am. “I think… I think I would like to see both.”
“Whatever you desire, Sloane.”
Whatever I desire.