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I shake my head. Tears are soaking into Cyrille’s sleeve, but I can’t bring myself to care. There’s a void where my husband should be, and the ice cream tastes like wet ashes on my tongue.
“It’s some mission.” I sniffle, swiping my nose with the cuff of Misha’s sweatshirt I stole from his closet. “We had one amazing day at the cabin, but then we had to leave. He barely even explained what or why or where or any of it.”
“Did he tell you when he’d be back?”
“No. He didn’t tell me anything.” I choke back another sob. Fear, frustration, and an overwhelming dose of baby hormones are making it impossible to turn off my tears.
“Okay, well, it sounds like he’s just—”
“How in the world did you do this?” I rasp before Cyrille can finish her sentence. “Be a Bratva wife, I mean. It’s like, he walks out the door and you know he’s going to deal with dangerous people. People who would love nothing more than for him to die. I keep thinking this will end when Petyr is dead. But when I woke up this morning alone, I think it hit me—this is going to be the rest of my life, isn’t it?”
Cyrille pats my hand sympathetically. “A good portion of it, yes.”
I drop my face in my hands. “I don’t know how long I can live like that.”
“I know you don’t believe it now, but you will adapt. You’ll develop a tolerance for these things.”
I’m not sure I could ever develop a “tolerance” for losing my husband. When Cyrille’s chin dimples, her lower lip shaking, I know she hasn’t developed a tolerance for that, either.
“He’s the man you chose, Paige,” Cyrille tells me when she catches me looking. “This is part of the package.”
I close my eyes and feel the tears slip down my cheeks. “I’m not sure I’m strong enough.”
“You have to be,” she says firmly. “If not for you, then for the babies you’re carrying. In the end, they’re the ones that will save you. Ilya saved me.”
“I can’t do this without him, Cyrille.”
“That weight in your belly, that sense of dread in your gut—it’s the price we pay for loving them. It’s worth it, don’t you think?”
I try to breathe through the terror surging in my veins, but every inhale is a struggle and every exhale hurts. “Probably. I mean, yes, it is, of course it is. I just can’t think straight right now.”
“Ice cream usually helps me.”
I laugh through the tears. “When I get my appetite back, I’ll let you know.”
A moment later, the door opens and Nessa walks into my bedroom. She takes one look at me and understands. “Misha isn’t back yet?”
Cyrille and I shake our heads in unison.
She’s eerily calm as she walks to the edge of my bed and sits down facing the two of us. She pats my outstretched leg. “This is always the worst part. The waiting.”
It occurs to me suddenly that I’m looking at two generations of women who have sat at home, miserable and afraid without their husbands just like I am. And just like that, my sadness turns to determination.
“Why should we have to sit here and wait?”
Cyrille arches a brow. “What does that mean? You want to be out there with him?”
“Why not?”
“You’re seven months’ pregnant with twins, for one thing,” Nessa points out wryly.
“And for another,” adds Cyrille, “your husband would lose his mind. He could barely stand to teach you how to fire a gun. He’s not going to come scoop you up and take you on a raid.”
“He wasn’t going to fall in love with me, either,” I remind them. “But that happened. He can change his mind.”
Nessa smiles. It’s sympathy, but of a limited variety—the kind that says,Pretend anything you want; we all know you aren’t going anywhere. “You can stand to be left behind, Paige. You’re strong enough for that.”
“And if you need support, you have us,” Cyrille offers. “Niki, too.”
