Caiden’s expression shifts at the name, getting his full attention. “Okay?”
I nod once. “I told him everything, that I’m leaving.” Caiden doesn’t interrupt. “It’s funny, he thought I meant deserting,” I add, and I can’t help the faint bite in my voice. “As if I’m going to do it like a drunk idiot with a stolen car.”
Caiden’s mouth twitches. “It’s not the worst plan I’ve heard.” I give him a look, and he raises his hands in surrender, but his eyes stay serious. “What did he say?”
“He told me to do it properly,” I answer. “He told me not to be dramatic and to have something in place before I do it.”
Caiden’s jaw tightens. “He’s not wrong.”
“I know,” I say, flatly, because admitting Niko is right is annoying.
Caiden leans forward slightly. “Did he... take it alright?”
I exhale through my nose. The truth is complicated. Niko doesn’t approve of anything in the sentimental sense. He approves of survival and control. He also approves of me not ending up dead in a ditch because I let emotion override sense. “He didn’t shout,” I say. “That’s his version of approval.” Caiden’s eyes soften for a second. “He gave me something.” His brows lift as I reach into my wallet, pulling out the folded scrap of paper I’ve been carrying around. I slide it across the bedspread between us.
Caiden picks it up carefully and reads the number. His eyes flick up to mine. “What is it?”
“Niko says it’s... private work,” I say. “Private military mostly. They approached him once and gave him this number, ‘just in case.’ He kept it.”
Caiden’s mouth tightens. “And now he’s giving it to you.”
“He didn’t say he gave it to me,” I reply. “He slid it across his desk and acted like it didn’t happen.”
Caiden lets out a short breath — half laugh, half disbelief. “That’s so him.”
I nod. “It’s not in Russia.”
Caiden studies the number again, then looks up. “So, you’re thinking... after.”
“Yes,” I say. “Not yet. But after.”
His gaze holds mine. “And Amsterdam?” I don’t answer immediately. The truth is simple, and it makes meuncomfortable. “Is that why you chose here?” I nod. “And because you’re thinking about where we could exist... together,” he adds quietly, in understanding.
I hate how well he reads me. “Yes,” I admit. “I can’t live in the UK.”
“Even if you leave the right way?”
“Especially if I leave the right way,” I say. “If I show up in England after years of joint operations, and shared intelligence, and everybody pretending not to notice me, it looks like something. It looks like coordination and recruitment. It looks like a problem.”
Caiden’s eyes narrow slightly, thinking. “And if you want to go back and visit Niko... If you want… any of your life back.”
“I can’t do that from England,” I say. “Not without it drawing attention. I need somewhere neutral. Somewhere no one cares about and I can disappear if I have to. But also it’s close to you.”
He leans back slowly, absorbing it. Then, because he’s him, he tries to cut the tension with humour. “You’re sexy when you’re strategic,” he says, lifting his eyebrow as if daring me to deny it. I take his mug from him, setting it down out of reach, then I climb over him on the bed, pinning him down with my hands on either side of his shoulders. “That’s one way to respond,” he says, laughing softly.
“Stop talking,” I tell him, then I kiss him hard enough to shut him up properly. He makes a pleasedsound into my mouth, his hands gripping my wrists briefly, then sliding up my arms. “Amsterdam could work,” he says quietly, breaking the kiss to speak.
“It could,” I agree. “Or somewhere like it.”
He reaches up and touches my jaw with his fingers. “You’ve got it all planned out, huh?” he says softly.
“Almost, anyway. Come, we’re going out,” I tell him, sliding off him and standing.
He blinks up at me in confusion. “Right now?”
“Yes, because if we stay in here, you’ll keep looking at me like that, and we definitely won’t leave this room. Get dressed, we’re going to museums or something boring. You like boring.”
He laughs again, softer. “You’re a romantic.”
