ONE HOUR EARLIER
I take a page out of Vince’s playbook and start pacing for a while.
It’s either that or tear my hair out at the root and scream until my voice gives out, so I suppose it’s the healthier of my available options.
Sitting still and going to sleep are definitely off the table. I’m buzzing with this toxic, turbulent energy. My skin still simmers where he touched me and my brain keeps throwing up these crazy, overwrought thoughts, like a vending machine spitting out one fortune cookie message after the next.
Passion is a double-edged sword.
The heart wants what it wants, whether that’s good for it or not.
Love and hate aren’t opposites. They’re two sides of the same coin.
Ain’t that the truth? I want to hate him so, so badly. Everything would be easier if I did. I’d just snatch up my daughter and we’d ride off into the sunset like Thelma and Louise.
Instead, I’m stuck burning up with this obsession. I pace the length of our bedroom—twelve steps to the wall, pivot, twelve steps back, repeat—hoping the monotony will exhaust me into unconsciousness.
No such luck.
Vince’s words in the nursery echo through my skull. I still want you so badly I can taste it.
And I—ugh—I want him, too. Even now. Even after everything.
He loves me.
He loves me not.
He loves me.
He loves—
The mental seesaw is exhausting. Let me off this stupid ride, please. I stop mid-stride and squeeze the bedpost until my knuckles whiten. This has to end. One way or another, the limbo has to fucking end.
The soft cotton of my nightgown clings to my skin as sweat beads along my spine. I stare at the locked bedroom door, the barrier I put between us, and wonder if it’s protecting me from him or from myself.
“Fuck this,” I whisper to the empty room.
I throw on a robe and yank the door open, decision made. The FBI’s ultimatum is poised over our heads like a guillotine blade, and that thing is sharp. If there was ever a time to clear the air between us, it’s now—before one or both of us ends up dead or behind bars.
The hallway is silent save for the distant hum of the security system. I check on Sofiya first. She slumbers, unaware that her world is hanging by threads thinner than spider silk.
I brush a curl from her forehead and wonder, not for the first time, if I should have kept running. Taken her somewhere neither Vince nor the FBI would ever find us.
But you can’t outrun blood. Not your own, not your husband’s, and certainly not the shared mix that flows through your daughter’s veins.
The stairs creak beneath my bare feet as I descend toward Vince’s study. There’s light spilling from beneath the door—of course he’s still awake. The man functions on whiskey and rage. Sleep is merely an inconvenient stopgap between vengeful thoughts.
I don’t knock. This is still my house, no matter how tenuous my claim on it feels.
But when the door swings open, my heart stops.
Vince stands in the middle of the room with the barrel of a gun pressed against his forehead. Arkady’s finger is on the trigger. I freeze in the doorway as my already-overloaded brain struggles to process the scene before me.
“—be my fucking brother now,” Vince growls. “Lower the gun.”
Neither man has noticed me yet. I scan the room frantically, looking for a weapon. There’s a heavy crystal paperweight on the side table by the door. I could grab it, smash it into Arkady’s skull before he—
“I’m sorry,” Arkady whispers, and something in his broken voice makes my blood run cold.
I lunge for the paperweight just as Vince’s eyes flick to mine.
“Rowan, don’t!” His command stops me mid-reach. “It’s okay.”
The absurdity of those words—It’s okay—as a gun presses against his head makes me want to scream.
“Lower the fucking gun, Arkady,” I snarl, stepping fully into the room. “Or I swear to God, I’ll kill you myself.”
Arkady doesn’t move, doesn’t even look at me. “This doesn’t concern you, Rowan.”
“That’s my husband! Of course it fucking concerns me.”
Vince’s eyes never leave his best friend’s. He’s strangely tranquil, like this is just another day. “Tell her,” he urges Arkady. “Tell her why you’re about to put a bullet in my brain.”
Arkady’s hand trembles. “Andrei has my family. My sister. My niece and nephews.” His voice cracks. “He said if I don’t kill Vince tonight, he’ll make me watch while he— while he—” He can’t finish the sentence.
“And you believe him?” I manage to spit out over my disbelief. “You think after you’ve murdered his son, he’ll just… what? Return your family and let you all live happily ever after?”
“I don’t have a choice!” Arkady roars, gaze still locked on Vince.
“There’s always a choice,” I counter, inching closer. “And putting a bullet in Vince’s head isn’t going to save your family. It’s just going to give Andrei exactly what he wants.”
The gun wavers. Just slightly.
“She’s right,” Vince says. “My father never intended to release them. He’s using them to control you, and once I’m dead, he’ll have no reason to keep them alive.”
The grandfather clock groans past midnight. I watch Arkady’s finger on the trigger.
“If we work together, we can find them,” I promise. “Vince and I, we’ll help you. But you have to lower the gun first.”
Tears stream down Arkady’s face now. “You don’t understand. I’ve tried everything. For months, I’ve been searching—bribing, threatening, torturing—and nothing. It’s like they’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“And Andrei suddenly promises you’ll get them back if you kill me?” Vince scoffs. “Convenient timing, don’t you think? The same day I tell you about the FBI’s ultimatum?”
The pressure on the trigger eases, though only a bit.
“I can’t lose them, Vin,” Arkady whispers. “My niece…”
“What about my daughter?” Vince responds. “Are you going to make her grow up without a father? Make her ask her mother why Uncle Arkady put a bullet in her daddy’s head?”
I take another slow step closer.
“Give me the gun, Arkady,” I say gently. “Let’s figure this out together.”
His eyes finally shift to mine, desperate and pleading. “He’ll kill them.”
“Not if we find them first,” I promise. “But if you pull that trigger, we lose our best chance at stopping Andrei for good.”
A pause.
A long pause.
And then… slowly, infinitesimally… the gun lowers.
I exhale for what feels like the first time since entering the room.
Vince doesn’t move, doesn’t lunge for the weapon or attack Arkady. He just stands there, shoulders sagging slightly with fatigue or relief or both. “We’ll find them,” he says, and despite everything—despite his father’s betrayal, despite Arkady’s gun at his head, despite my own abandonment—there’s conviction in his voice. The same unwavering certainty that once made me believe he could keep us safe from anything.
Arkady hands me the gun, grip first. I take it with shaking hands, flicking the safety on and placing it on the desk between us.
“I’m so sorry,” he chokes out, collapsing into a chair like his strings have been cut. “God, Vin, I’m so fucking sorry.”
Vince crosses to him, places a hand on his shoulder. The gesture of forgiveness is so startlingly gentle it makes my heart constrict painfully.
I watch Vince absorb this fresh betrayal with quiet dignity—his best friend, his brother-in-arms, nearly executed him on his father’s orders.
And yet, there’s no rage, no violent outburst.
Just grim understanding.
It hits me then, like a bullet to my own chest: Vince has spent his entire life surrounded by people who are supposed to love him unconditionally—his father, his right-hand man, me—and all of us have betrayed him in our own ways.
I fled with his daughter.
Arkady held a gun to his head.
Andrei orchestrated it all.
And still, he stands. Still, he shows compassion. Still, he promises to save Arkady’s family despite everything.
The unwanted empathy floods through me, cracking the ice I’ve carefully packed around my heart. I don’t want to feel for him. Don’t want to understand. It’s easier to hate him, to hold him accountable for all the darkness in our lives.
But watching him now, I can’t help but feel his pain.
Vince takes Arkady to a spare room. I sit in the empty, silent office and stare at the gun on the desk. My hands tremble with aftershocks of adrenaline.
Eventually, Vince slips back in. I look up at him.
“Your own father,” I say. “Your own fucking father would murder his son.”
Vince’s eyes meet mine from across the room. “And you’re surprised?”
“I shouldn’t be. Nothing in this goddamn life should surprise me anymore.”
I take a step forward, then another, until there’s barely space between us. His pulse throbs visibly in his neck—the only sign that he’s affected by nearly dying tonight.
I reach up, my fingertips hovering just above the spot where Arkady’s gun pressed against his skin. “I hate that I still care,” I confess. “I hate that watching you almost die just now felt like my own heart stopping.”
“Rowan—”
“No.” I press my palm against his chest. “Shut up. Just… shut up for once.”
Tears I didn’t know I was holding back spill hot down my cheeks. I curl my fingers into the fabric of his shirt as I clutch him like he might disappear.
“I want to hate you. I’ve tried. God knows I’ve fucking tried.”
“But you don’t.”
“No,” I whisper, my voice a shattered thing. “And that’s the cruelest part of all this.”
In one swift motion, he pulls me against him. “I’m not leaving,” he murmurs into my hair. “The FBI, my father, all of it—we face it together or not at all.” His thumb brushes away a tear. “I’d rather die on my feet with you than live on my knees without you.”
It’s not forgiveness. It’s not even trust restored. But as his forehead presses against mine, our shared breath creating a tiny universe between us, I know it’s a beginning.
Tomorrow, we face hell together.
