28
KATERINA
This is insane.
That’s the first clear thought in my head as I slip through the break in the wall, one hand holding my coat closed at my throat, the other lifting my skirt just enough to keep it from catching on the wet stone.
If my father finds out, he will lock the house down so tightly I will need permission to breathe. If Irina finds out, she will enjoy it. If Vika finds out, I will never hear the end of it, not even when I’m old and dying and finally free of all this.
And yet. I’m here.
Because three days of thinking have done nothing except make everything worse. Because I cannot shake the feeling that the danger isn’t just outside our walls.
And because, for reasons I do not want to examine too closely, the only person I wanted to tell was Roman.
I had almost convinced myself he would be gone.
I was late. Not carelessly late. Desperately late. I waited until I was sure the maid had left, then longer because I thought I heard footsteps outside, then longer still because I almost lost my nerve and had to stand there in the dark telling myself that if I turned back now I would only spend the whole night hating myself for it.
So, by the time I finally slipped out the side path and made it to the road, I was sure I would find nothing.
An empty car track, maybe. Cold air. Proof that even a dangerous man has a limit when he asks for trust and gets silence.
Instead, he’s still here.
The car is parked under the trees, lights off, dark enough that I only fully recognize it when the rear door opens from the inside.
Roman.
Of course he opens it himself.
I get in quickly and shut the door behind me before I can think too hard about how absurd this is. The leather is cold. The air inside the car smells faintly like clean wool and him.
For a second, neither of us says anything.
Then he says, “Hi.”
It’s so ordinary that I almost laugh.
“Hi,” I say back.
The awkwardness settles over us immediately, thick and alive and impossible to ignore. Not because we are strangers. Because we are not. Because too much has happened too quickly, andnow we are alone in a car at night after sneaking me out of my father’s house like this is something people do when they are not entirely out of their minds.
Roman looks at me for one beat too long. “You came.”
I look down at my hands. “You waited.”
He starts the car.
The engine is quiet, expensive, and annoyingly smooth. We pull away from the road without headlights for the first few seconds, then he turns them on once we’ve cleared the wall and the trees are behind us.
I watch the darkness slide past the window and only then realize I have not asked where we are going.
“Wait,” I say, turning toward him. “Where are you going?”
He doesn’t look at me. His hands stay steady on the wheel. “We can’t stay there.”
“I know that, but?—”
