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Comfortable. Easy. Happy.
The window I was looking out of has already fogged up again. I rub it with my sleeve and peer out into the early morning landscape, savoring the brief illusion of peace before the world collapses on us again.
“You want me to come down there and help set things up?” Nikolai asks, knowing I’m not going to agree. He’s just being polite.
“Thank you, but the best way to set up the counter ambush is to trick Lorenzo into thinking that we’ve really abandoned the train. We don’t want any sign that we have help. As far as he’s concerned, we’re powerless, and the train will be easy for him to take back.”
“Always was an egotistical bastard,” Nikolai grumbles.
“And that will be his downfall,” I say with a smirk.
“Sounds like you have everything under control,” he says. “I look forward to seeing you and Lola at the house.”
“As do I. I will reach out to you later. You don’t have to worry.”
“I’ll always worry about my brother,” he replies, and I smile.
Family comes first.
Always.
24
Lola
The squeal of the train’s frozen brakes sounds like a death sentence as it slices through the dry morning air. Jasha assures me that this is our only real option to rid ourselves of the Pessolano Family and make it to Texas safely, but less than twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t know who Lorenzo Pessolano even was.
Jasha swears he wouldn’t turn back time, but I’m not sure that I feel the same.
I hold my belly with both hands as we walk down the warm hallway toward a door that’s at least seventy degrees colder. The metal has attracted so much condensation that it’s iced shut at first. Jasha has to kick it to break the seal and allow it to slide open.
I stumble back as a gust of wind invades the comfort of the train and gives me a taste for the weather outside. The temperature outside keeps dropping, even with the sun rising, and this whole idea feels like a cruel joke.
Whoever this Lorenzo guy is, I’m really starting to hate him.
I’m wrapped in not one, but two coats given to me by Jasha, snatched off the shoulders of the men left in the train. In this climate, even that doesn’t feel like enough, especially with a skirt on.
Fuck, and all I wanted to do was look cute.
I hope Jasha is happy.
He certainly looks like he is, marching through the snow with a rifle slung across his chest like some kind of winter soldier. He looks even more Russian with the crisp white snow as his backdrop.
“Spread out,” he commands to his men, gesturing with one hand at a cluster of the to the left of us. “Make the tracks wide. They need to think we all left the train.”
I admire the amount of thought he’s put into this in the short time he’s had to think. He’s a smart man with a quick wit and an even quicker tongue. I learned the latter well on the day we met. I feel a small surge of excitement just thinking about.
But the cold dampens my mood as a gust of wind blows through my double coats. I’d give anything to be in Texas with Jasha, wrapped up in a thick blanket in his bed with another cup of peppermint tea in my hands.
“Come closer,” Jasha says, as though he can feel the cold that’s wrapped itself around my tired bones. “My darling, I will keep you warm.”
I allow him to pull me close, resting my head on his chest and trying to avoid the bounce of his rifle hitting my face. Concentrating on that distracts me from the cold, and the smell of Jasha’s body comforts me as we reach the edge of the woods.
The sky darkens. We’re entering a thick weave of trees that will block us from being seen from the train. Three feet in, and I can’t see what’s behind me. Three more and we’re in total darkness. The only thing that’s visible is the white snow beneath us, but even that is just a dark gray glow.
“This is it,” Jasha mutters as we come to a stop. “We wait here.”
My feet are already numb, but thankfully, Jasha has considered that as well. He clears out a small circle in the snow, allowing us to bunker down against solid ground. There, he lays a plastic tarp down to keep the moister out.
