“I missed you so much,” I whisper against his lips when he pulls back for a moment to breathe. Then, his lips are on mine again, warm and soft and drowning me in feelings that I thought I’d said goodbye to forever.
There’s a sound from across the aisle, someone clearing their throat, and Max and I break apart to see Natalie smirking at us from her seat, looking sleepy-eyed and thoroughly amused.
“Well, I see the two of you are making up for lost time.”
I flush red, letting go of Max to slink back into my seat. Natalie laughs, tucking her legs under her as Max flushes slightly too around the collar, clearing his own throat.
“I’d say get a room, but this isn’t exactly private jet accommodations,” she says lightly, and I can’t help but laugh. After all, I’d been thinking the same thing just a few moments before.
“I think we’re both going to have to get used to some downgrades,” I tell her wryly, and Natalia raises an eyebrow.
“What wereyoudoing before this that had you flying on private jets? Or is this guy more well off than he looks?” She nods teasingly toward Max, whose reddened neck gets a little darker.
“Well–yes, but that’s not why.” I pause, my first instinct to wonder how much I should tell her, but I realize it doesn’t matter anymore. Natalia is in the same position we all are right now–on the run, wanted by dangerous men for the things she’s done.
There’s always a chance that under the right circumstances, she could sell us out for her own safety–a thing that I hate even coming into my mind–but I don’t believe that Levin would have brought her with us if he really thought that was a possibility.
It hits me then, looking at her, that something I had never in my wildest dreams imagined is here, now, looking back at me. A blood family member, asister, something I never knew or imagined I had.
A sister who helped save me.
Squeezing Max’s hand once more, I get up, slipping past him to walk across the aisle and sit next to Natalia. “Well,” I say slowly, tucking my feet up underneath me on the seat in a mirror of her, “we have about five hours before we get to Santorini, right? So if you want to hear about where I lived before this, I think we have plenty of time.”
21
SASHA
By the time the plane starts to descend, Natalia knows almost as much about my life in New York as Max. She’d listened intently, asking me dozens of questions, and it caught me off guard how much she seemed to want to know–how much she seemed tocare.
I left out some of the worst parts, feeling as if we haven’t known each other long enough to tell herallof it. I skimmed over how I got to New York, admitting that I’d been trafficked, but I skipped what happened on the warehouse docks, only saying that Viktor had ended up removing me from the situation.
Natalia pursed her lips at that, frowning. “Isn’t he the one who had you trafficked in the first place?”
“Trust me, I’ve spent lots of time, and he’s spent lots of money on therapy, focused on that very question,” I’d said wryly. “A lot of things changed after that. I know it sounds trite to say that he’s a different person, but–he is. And Max wouldn’t have kept working for him either, if he wasn’t.”
Max nodded. “It’s complicated,” he’d added, which I was grateful for. “It would take longer than we have to explain all of it.”
I hadn’t talked about what had happened at Alexei’s, either.One day,I’d told myself, to alleviate the slight prick of guilt I’d felt at the idea of not being entirely forthcoming when Natalia had shown so much interest in getting to know me.When it’s all further behind me, when I’m not vibrating with the aftershocks from the terror of nearly dying, when I can talk about it like something that happened long ago, not just a little over a year. I’ll tell her all of it then.
I’d stuck to the happier things–telling her about Caterina’s children, about the birthday party, about meeting Max. I picked and chose what to tell her about, and to my surprise, there was still plenty to tell. It was a reminder of how many good things there had been.
It was also a reminder of what I’d lost, what I might not be able to go back to. I try to push those thoughts away now, as the plane comes to a stop at a private hangar, and Levin gets up from where he was still seated at the front, motioning to us.
“There’s a car waiting for us outside,” he says calmly, looking out the window. “Let’s go.”
Getting into another strange car isn’t something I’m thrilled about doing, but I trust Max and Levin too much to argue. We all follow Levin down the steps and across the tarmac to the idling car, which has a driver already–an older man with a craggy face, sitting silently as he waits for us.
All of us are silent on the ride. Max’s fingers stay linked through mine, a connection that I’m grateful for. The uncertainty of it all makes me feel faintly nauseous. I’ve had enough fear and uncertainty in the past few days to last me a lifetime. All I want is to be somewhere safe, somewhere that I can hide away in the circle of Max’s arms and stop being afraid for a moment.
But I’d known that being with Max might mean exactly this. I’d said I didn’t care, if it meant us being together.
I’d meant that then, and I mean it now.
One day, we’ll be safe again,I tell myself as the car winds its way up narrowing roads, towards the smooth white houses along the beach. I peer out of the tinted window, the darkness hiding much of the scenery as the car crawls along, eventually stopping outside of a villa easily twice the size of most of the houses.
The driver says nothing, only gets out and opens one of the doors. We slide out, my hand still in Max’s, apprehension filling me in a tense wave. It’s not until I see the recognition on Max’s face that I relax a fraction.
“Do you know this place?” I ask in a whisper as Levin and Natalia come around to join us.