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I glance up at the rearview mirror and watch Nikolai in the back seat. He stares out the window, but he’s listening. He’s holding his jaw so tight it looks like it might crack into pieces. He’s been ignoring me since my outburst, and a wedge of silence is slowly forming between us. I don’t like it, but now’s not the time to coax him out of it. I’ll wait until we have some time alone at the safe house.
“What do you want to call me?” he asks, his voice tight as he stares straight ahead at the highway.
I shrug my shoulders, knowing he’s watching me from the corner of his eye. “Do you have a preference?” I ask lightly, sounding like a brat, but I have a right to be pissed. Why are they acting like I don’t?
“Eden, I’m still your father,” he replies firmly. “That hasn’t changed.”
I fold my arms tighter over my chest. “But I’ve changed,” I mutter.
I glance up at the mirror and see a slight smile playing across Nikolai’s lips. I have no intention of letting my father off easy now that he’s back in my life. He has done some awful shit, and I will remind him of it daily. He won’t be the one to tell me what to do, not anymore. Not after discovering he’s not the straitlaced, law-abiding citizen he pretended to be.
“So, was it all an act?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” replies Zakhar.
“I mean when I was home at night under curfew, were you out somewhere, playing target practice with people’s lives?”
“Eden,” his voice warns me, but I continue.
“Do you even get the hypocrisy?” I demand, but I don’t wait for an answer. “You kept me in that house, telling me to be a good girl while you were out in the streets, killing people for the Bratva or the Mafia. Who knows which one? No wonder people call you a traitor.”
“Eden.” Nikolai’s calm voice shuts me down. He stares at me in the mirror, that cool gaze freezing me in place, and I know I went too far.
I relax my arms and hold my hands in my lap like a child who has been scolded. And it makes me angry. Suddenly, the tension between them is dumped on me. What did I do wrong? Do they realize how unfair it is? I have a right to be pissed, and they’reganging up on me. I guess the Bratva sticks together no matter how shitty they act. The scenery blurs as I hold back angry tears.
Nikolai places his hand on my shoulder and rubs circles gently against it, and my father doesn’t say a word. The gesture calms me, and maybe that’s all I wanted—for Nikolai not to hide his feelings now that my father is here. When we got into the car, Nikolai held the passenger door open for me, and I sat beside Dad as if he were our chaperone. That simple act scared me. It felt so ordinary. So normal.
Yet also so far from what we are.
But now, Nikolai is acknowledging that we’re a couple, no matter what my dad wants. Bullets at my wedding won’t stop us from being together.
Grinning, I sniff and lean my head back against the seat.He will give me everything he’s got and not be afraid of my father.
Sneakily, I glance over at my father while Nikolai’s hand remains on my shoulder, but my father stares at the road, his knuckles turning white. I don’t feel ashamed, but I gently take Nikolai’s hand off my shoulder. I turn and smile at him, and he smiles before he leans back in the seat and stares out the window again. With a small gesture, he claims me.
Nikolai spends the rest of the ride checking his phone, and I look at Pavel’s armored black SUV now trailing behind us. Pavel and his men keep up, though Dad hasn’t revealed the safe house’s location. I glance at the signs on the parkway and see one for the Oranges. We exit, and the single-family homes disappear as commercial buildings become numerous. The light is fading as Dad turns onto an isolated road that’s more gravel than pavement.
Will we spend the night huddled in the dark in a rundown shack? My hands go to my belly, and I take them away quickly.
“I can’t believe I’m actually hungry after all I’ve been through.” I sound silly, but Dad can’t know yet.
“We’ll get food after we’re safe,” replies Zakhar.
“I have news,” Nikolai interrupts. “Gunsyn is secure. Vito has his men guarding him.”
“Did he say where?” asks Zakhar.
“An undisclosed location is all he would say,” replies Nikolai. “Vito went to the Lanzzare mansion to speak to Christian Genovesi.”
Dad nods but doesn’t speak as his suspicions probably run through his mind.
“What about Larissa?” I ask. “Is she safe?”
Dad seems startled by my question and glances in my direction. I’m involved as much as they are, and I have questions too.
“Rurik and his men will guard Larissa,” replies Nikolai. “In case Alexander attempts to do something.”
I manage a slight smile, pleased that Larissa is safe and I’ve been taken seriously. I give Nikolai a mental hug. But my smugness fades when the SUVs stop in front of a rundown cinder block house on the edge of a wooded area. A chain-link fence surrounds the small house; maybe there’s a reservoir close by, and this is an old pump house.
