I pull her closer. She murmurs in her sleep, presses into me, and the feeling in my chest is so large I can't name it because I've never had it before. I've built empires, won wars, ended lives. I have never felt this.
I should sleep. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I could. Her presence doesn't trigger vigilance. It quiets it. With her breathing against my chest and her hand over my heart and the silk nightgown pooled on my floor like evidence of the bravest thing anyone has ever done for me, I could sleep.
But Viktor Reznikov has a photograph of my wife. And the war isn't over.
I hold her tighter. I watch the city through the east-facing window. I sleep better than I have in years.
Andthatterrifies me more than Viktor Reznikov ever could.
Chapter 18
Nico
Morning
* * *
Light wakes me.
East-facing windows. I chose this bedroom for the tactical advantage. Morning light means I see dawn before the city does, which means I track the first movements of the day before anyone knows I'm watching. I've woken to this light for six years. It has never looked like this.
She is in my bed.
Her head rests in the hollow below my collarbone, her hair dark against my chest, her hand over my heart like she fell asleep holding it in place. The morning light falls across her bare shoulders, and I see freckles I didn't know existed. A scatter of them, faint, across the tops of her shoulders and the bridge of her nose. Two weeks of watching this woman in dim light and hallway shadow, and I missed the freckles. I missed the way her eyelashes cast shadows on her cheekbones. I missed the pale line on her left wrist, small and old, a childhood story I don't know yet.
The Beretta is on the nightstand beside the water glass. She's sleeping six inches from a loaded weapon, and her breathinghasn't changed. After the warehouse, after last night, the gun is just furniture.
I don't move. My arm is around her waist, and her body is warm against mine, and I lie in the morning light memorizing her in a way the dark didn't allow. Darkness was desire. Daylight is something else. Daylight is waking up beside a person who chose to stay, in a bed that has only ever held one, in a room I built to keep everyone out.
She stirs. Her fingers curl against my chest. Her eyes open. Unfocused, blinking against the light. I watch the sequence: confusion of it not her room, not her bed, not her ceiling, then memory of the hallway, the knock, the door, the night, then a smile.
Not a careful smile. Not the one she uses to navigate rooms full of dangerous men or negotiate terms she didn't choose. An open, unguarded, morning smile that knows exactly what happened and holds no regret.
That smile undoes me worse than the knock.
"Good morning."
"Good morning, wife."
The word is different now. I hear it leave my mouth and it sounds nothing like the word I used at the altar or in meetings or when introducing her to men whose respect I require. That word was a title. This one is a claim. She hears the difference. I see it register in her eyes, the slight widening, the flush that starts at her throat.
"How long have you been awake?"
"Long enough."
"Watching me sleep?"
"Memorizing you in daylight."
She laughs. A real laugh, unguarded, still half-asleep. "That's either romantic or creepy."
"Both, probably."
She sits up. The sheet falls to her waist, and she doesn't grab it, doesn't cover herself. She lets me see her in morning light the way she let me see her last night. On her terms, by her choice. The freckles continue down her chest. I file them beside every other piece of evidence I've gathered about this woman and the file is getting dangerously large.
"Shower?" she says.
"Shower."