She sighed.
“Alexei thought his brother hung the moon.” Katya’s mouth moved in something that wasn’t a smile. “He adored Pav. He wanted tobehis brother. The way younger ones do.”
She swilled the last dregs in her glass and downed them. “They served in the same theater. Different teams, but close enough that Pav could keep watch.” She looked at Harper. “You know how he is.”
Harper nodded.
“They were working together when it happened.” Katya ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “A mission went wrong.” Her voice didn’t change pitch or speed. “Bad intel. Compromised position because of flooding. Comms failed in the storm, and suddenly there were two objectives and not enough people for both.”
She fell silent for a moment, her mouth compressing into a line.
“Pav was the team lead. The decision was his. Save the mission—extract the primary asset, protect the team, complete the objective. Or break off and go for Alexei, whose team was pinned down and taking casualties in a position that was rapidly becoming indefensible.”
Harper’s chest tightened. She knew what was coming.
“He chose the mission.” Katya’s voice was stripped clean of anything that might soften it. She’d packed this story down into something she could carry without it breaking her.
“Alexei understood the decision. That’s the worst part.” Her mouth compressed. “He would have made the same one.”
She sighed. “The primary asset was extracted, and the mission was classified as a success.” A pause. “Alexei’s team was overrun. No survivors.”
Harper spread her fingers wide on the table.
God. His watch.His brother’s time still running on his wrist.
He’d built walls.
That was the logic of it.
Don’t let anyone matter.Then you never have to choose.
“He blames himself,” Harper said.
“Every day.” Katya traced a line through the condensation on her glass. “He thinks if he’d chosen differently, Alexei would be alive. Maybe he’s right. Maybe not. The mission would have failed. Other people would have died. He knows that.” She looked up. “It doesn’t help.”
Katya ran a hand through her hair. “He disappeared shortly after that.” She paused. “This is the first time I’ve seen him in years.”
She assessed Harper across the table. “But he’s different with you.” She said it as if stating the weather. “He’s let you in.”
Harper’s throat closed. The luminous weight of being chosen by a man for whom choosing was the thing that had destroyed him.
“Be careful with that.” Katya stood and collected the glasses. She carried them to the sink. The conversation was over. Everything that needed to be said had been said, and Katya was not a woman who repeated herself.
She rinsed the glasses, set them on the draining board and dried her hands. “Get some sleep,” she said from the doorway. “Long day tomorrow.”
Then she was gone. Her footsteps receded down the corridor. A bedroom door closed softly.
Harper sat at the kitchen table, the world outside muffled by snow.
Everything she thought she understood about him shifted. His words in the crash aftermath.
I chose you.
Now she understood what that had cost him. And what it might cost him again.
She stood and left the kitchen, not giving herself time to think about it. Floorboards creaked under her socked feet as she walked down the corridor. The door to his room was open.
He was on the bed and wasn’t asleep. She could tell from his breathing.
