I suspect if Ilya hadn’t followed his brother into the army, he would’ve ended up as a computer programmer or an accountant.
“Anything from the Americans?” I ask as we stop at a stoplight. Since my guys are fairly busy, I’ve been using the locals as backup security. Their job is to keep an eye on Sara when she’s not with me and alert us of any unusual activity in the neighborhood.
“No. Your girl doesn’t deviate much from her routine, but I’m sure you know that.”
I nod, scanning the row of neatly manicured lawns as we drive past them on our way to the safe house. Something is bugging me, but I can’t place my finger on what it is. Maybe it’s just that it’s too quiet, with no big jobs on the horizon and minimal progress with locating the North Carolina general who’s the last name on my list. The paranoid fucker disappeared along with his family, and he did such a good job of covering his tracks that even the hackers I retained are having trouble finding him.
I might have to go to North Carolina at some point, see what I can shake up in person.
“Tell them I want to review the next few reports myself,” I tell Ilya as we pull into the driveway of our safe house. “And tell them to expand the perimeter to twenty blocks, not ten. If anyone so much as sneezes in Sara’s neighborhood or around her hospital, I want to know.”
“You got it,” Ilya says, and I jump out of the car.
Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I can’t let anything fuck up what I have with Sara.
I need her too much to risk losing her.
* * *
She’s lounging on the couch with a heating pad and a tablet when I get home, her slender limbs gracefully arranged and her shiny chestnut hair caught in a messy knot on top of her head. Even dressed in sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt, my little bird looks like she could star in a black-and-white movie, the delicacy of her features accentuated by the loose tendrils of hair waving around her heart-shaped face.
My lungs tighten as she looks up, her soft hazel eyes locking on my face. Each time I see her, I want her, my need for her a clawing hunger in my chest. Over the past three weeks, I’ve had her so many times the craving should’ve diminished, but it’s only grown, intensifying to an unbearable degree.
I want her, and I want this—the quiet pleasure of sharing her life, of knowing that I can hold her in the middle of the night and see her across the kitchen table in the morning. I want to take care of her when she’s sick and bask in her smile when she’s well. And sometimes, when my grief wells up, I want to hurt her too—an urge I suppress with all my strength.
She’s mine, and I will protect her.
Even from myself.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, approaching the couch. I didn’t have a chance to fuck her this morning, and I’m semi-hard just from being near her. However, my lust takes a backseat to my need to make sure she’s healthy and well.
Sara won’t die from menstrual cramps, but I don’t want to see her in any pain.
“Better, thank you,” she answers, laying her tablet next to her. It looks like she was watching some music videos on there—something I’ve seen her do to relax.
“You can keep on doing that,” I say, nodding toward the tablet. “I have to make dinner, so don’t stop on my behalf.”
She makes no move to pick up the tablet, just tilts her head and watches me as I walk to the sink to wash my hands and take out the ingredients for tonight’s simple dinner: the chicken breasts I marinated last night and fresh veggies for a salad.
“You know, you never answered my question,” she says after a minute. “Why are you really doing this? What do you get out of all this domesticity? Doesn’t a man like you have something better to do with your life? I don’t know… maybe rappel down the side of a building or blow up something?”
I sigh. She’s back on that topic. My ambitious young doctor can’t grasp that I just like doing this—for her and for myself. I can’t turn back the clock and spend more time with Pasha and Tamila, can’t warn my younger self to forego work in favor of what matters because it could all vanish in an instant. I can only focus on the present, and my present is Sara.
“My wife taught me to make a few simple dishes,” I say, placing the chicken breasts in the frying pan before starting to chop up the salad. “In her culture, women tended to do all the cooking, but she wasn’t big on tradition. She wanted to make sure I could take care of our son if anything happened to her, so to please her, I agreed to learn a few recipes—and found I liked the process of preparing food.” A familiar pain tightens my chest at the memories, but I push the grief away, focusing on the sympathetic curiosity in the warm hazel eyes watching me from the couch.