Page 100 of 10 Days to Surrender

Instead of answering, he bends down and kisses me. Not the desperate, hungry kisses we usually share in darkness. This is something else entirely—tender, achingly gentle, like he’s trying to tell me something his words can’t quite reach.

I should pull away. Should remind him of our rules.

Instead, I wind my arms around his neck and kiss him back, pouring all my complicated truths into the space between our hearts.

Downstairs, someone starts singing. The storm rages on. And in this quiet hallway, I let myself fall a little deeper into the life I never meant to build.

38

SASHA

I stay for as long as I can.

Cuddling Ariel to sleep in my arms is as close as it gets to salvation for a man like me. I can’t keep myself from touching the swell of her pregnant belly again and again. She’s soft, warm, and fragrant. Everything my life is not.

But eventually, I have to rise.

There is business waiting for me downstairs.

Even after I extract myself and get to my feet, though, careful not to wake her, I feel torn in two. I don’t want to leave this room. This moment.

So I linger in the doorway, watching the gentle rise and fall of Ariel’s chest. She’s curled on her side, one hand splayed over her belly even in sleep. The sight does something to my chest that I’m still not used to—a sharp twist followed by an expanding warmth. Like I’m growing into a dimension I didn’t know existed.

It’s quieter than it was when we first slunk up here. The storm has finally passed, leaving behind that particular stillness that follows summer rain. In the silence, I can almost pretend this is just another peaceful night. That I’m just a man watching his pregnant wife sleep.

But I know better.

My fingers trace the familiar shape of my gun, tucked into the waistband at my back. The weight of it grounds me, reminds me who I really am.

I am still Sasha Ozerov.Pakhanin exile, butpakhannonetheless. I am still the man who will do whatever it takes to protect what’s his.

Ariel shifts in her sleep, mumbling something that might be my name. The movement makes her dress ride up to reveal the curve of her hip. Even now, after all these months, the sight of her fucking floors me.

My beautiful little bird. No longer so broken.

I force myself to turn away. Feliks is waiting downstairs. But as I pull the door closed behind me, I allow myself one final glance at the life I never expected to want: my woman, my children, safe in our bed.

Whatever comes next, I’ll make damn sure they stay that way.

I find the men hunched over the kitchen table like vultures over carrion. Maps and documents cast long shadows in the candlelight, since Judas the generator is still refusing to cooperate. Feliks’s fingers drum an uneven rhythm against a stack of surveillance photos while Kosti and Pavel exchange glances loaded with meaning I don’t like.

“Tell me,” I say, settling into the chair across from them.

Feliks slides a photo across the table. “Let’s start with the damage. This is our Chinatown warehouse. Three days ago.”

I study the image. The loading dock where we used to move product into Queens is a blackened husk. Scorch marks climb the brick walls like vines. “Casualties?”

“Mikhail. Dmitri. The new kid—what was his name? The one with the stutter.”

“Yuri,” Pavel supplies quietly.

I grimace. I remember teaching Yuri to field strip a Makarov last spring. His hands shook so bad he dropped the slide pin twice. But he had potential.

Had.

“That’s not the worst of it.” Feliks produces another photo. This one shows Wei Huan, the Bratva’s liaison to China, emerging from a dim sum restaurant with Dragan four blocks away from the smoldering ruins of my warehouse. They’re both smiling. “The Serbs have been making moves on our Asian connections. Three meetings in the past week. Wei Huan is just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Fucking snake,” I mutter, but there’s no real heat in it. Huan is a businessman. We all knew he’d jump ship the moment someone offered him a better deal. “The Taiwanese routes?”

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