I search his face. “You trust them?”
“I trust what they want,” he says. “That’s usually safer.”
He walks to the table, opens a folded map, and lays it flat. His finger taps a few key points. The city, the roads, the cracks between things.
We choose the first location and start packing before the sun rises.
I stop thinking in terms of days once we move into the safehouse above the dentist’s office. A week later, we shift again, this time to the dacha in the country.
It settles into routine. Time now moves in windows. How long we can stay. How fast we have to leave. How much we say before someone hears too much.
The beds change almost every week. Some are stiff. Some warm. Some barely more than a cot with a clean sheet. No two kitchens smell the same. No neighborhood feels familiar long enough to trust.
Dominik picks the places. He knows how to make things look lived in just enough to pass. And with him, time seems to slow down just enough to be bearable.
When it’s just us, it doesn’t matter where we are. He fucks me like the world’s ending. Always controlled at first, hands roaming slow and heavy, mouth dragging down my spine as he pulls my hips up and spreads me open across unfamiliar sheets. Then it changes—his grip tightens, his voice drops, and he fucks me hard, the kind of hard that makes me claw at the mattress and bite my own arm to keep from making a sound.
Some nights, I ride him slowly until he groans my name like it’s breaking him open, and other times, he flips me over and holds me down with one hand between my shoulder blades while hedrives into me from behind, deep and ruthless, until I come shaking, teeth clenched around his name.
There’s a condom in his wallet. A lock on the door. Always the rough growl against my throat when he finishes. And no matter how many places we pass through, I never forget how it feels when he looks down at me and says, “We’re not done.”
Outside, the world keeps moving like we’re not hiding inside it. New faces every morning. Kids kicking balls in alleyways. Maids hustling for side work. They look at me once, then look away like they don’t care. But people always notice. They notice when the pattern breaks. And we’ve become the break.
Dominik doesn’t stay with me in every safehouse. But someone always brings groceries, no matter where we land. Milk, bread, sometimes paper bags with newspapers or magazines. Tissue rolls and soap.
They drop it outside and vanish. I’ve tried to keep a tab on who comes and goes, but they’re very clever with being careful.
Sometimes, I see closed faces around me, silent, watching. I force myself not to run with it. But the next time Dominik shows up, I ask.
“Who are they?” I say, not letting it sound like a question.
“My people,” he says as he looks at me.
I frown at him. “Your people?”
“They’re my responsibility.” He pauses at the door handle, fingers still on the panel. “All of them. That includes you.”
It’d be reasonable after all that’s passed between us, and yet, something in me snaps tight.
“You’re watching me?” I say, and the words scrape on the way out. “Me in a cage isn’t enough?”
He turns to the panel by the door, checking the feeds and locks.
I stand there for a long second, breathing slow and steady, because if I move, I’ll break something.
“What would you have done, were you in my place?” he finally murmurs, and I don’t have a reply to that.
That night, he holds me close. “The council’s split,” he says, stroking my hair as he leans me back against the kitchen counter. “One faction wants you quickly. They think you’re holding something they need. The other wants to wait.”
“For what?” I ask, lifting my face to kiss him lightly on the lips.
He looks at me for a long second. “To see who reaches for you first.”
I don’t like the way that lands in my body.
“And you?”
“I’m already accounted for,” he replies. He traces a finger down my neck.
