Page 64 of 10 Days to Surrender

The pharmacist blinks, my sarcasm lost in translation. Sasha’s lips twitch. “She says thank you.”

The man shuffles through more questions—due date, ultrasounds, any complications. Each answer tightens the invisible wire between us. Sasha answers in clipped Italian when I falter, his palm a brand through my shirt.

Finally, the chatty pharmacist bids us farewell. Sasha’s fingers brush against mine as he takes the bag from me. He starts for the door, but I pause. “Actually, my bladder is about to burst.” I turn to the pharmacist. “Can I use the, uh…il bagno?”

The man chuckles, probably because I just made an absolute mockery of his native tongue. “Si, si.Right this way.”

I follow him and pee quickly. When I’m done, I step back out of the shop and into the mid-morning glow. The pharmacy door jingles shut behind me. Sunlight stabs my eyes as I scan the sidewalk.

Which is… empty.

My pulse jackhammers, worst case scenarios immediately cropping up like weeds.He left. He actually fucking left me.

Or what if it’s worse? What if Dragan found us? What if?—

Then I spot him. Half a block down, Sasha stands frozen in front of a window display. When I catch up to him and see what’s captured his attention, my heart stills.

It’s a baby boutique. Cribs, onesies, little leather shoes small enough to fit in my palm. His throat bobs as he traces the outlineof one sole against the glass—a gesture so tender it wrenches something loose behind my ribs.

Don’t let this sway you,cold logic whispers.Leaving is survival. Fool me once, right?

But the man in the reflection—jaw slack, fingers hovering over ghost-children he’ll never know—isn’t the Bratva king who broke me. He’s just a boy who grew up harder than he should have, tossing wishful coins toward a future he still thinks he doesn’t deserve.

“Sasha…?”

He startles. When he sees it’s me, his mask slams down. “Let’s go.”

Yet as we walk away, he keeps glancing back—at the shoes, at my belly, at roadkill happy endings littering the cobblestones between us.

I watch the Peugeot’s taillights disappear down the drive, taking Sasha with them. He didn’t even look at me when he dropped me off at the villa—just waited until I was safely up the steps, then reversed like the devil himself was riding shotgun.

Jasmine materializes beside me, two gelato cups in hand. Pistachio drips down her wrist as she hands me one. “Where’s he off to in such a hurry?”

“He mumbled something about needing a drink.”

She scoffs. “No man ever has ‘a’ drink. Ten or twelve, maybe. However many it takes before he accepts his own bullshit.”

“There isn’t enough alcohol in all of Italy for that,” I mumble. I take a bite of gelato and sink to my butt on the stone stairs.

Jasmine joins me. “So. How many times did you bone in the car?”

“Jas! We didn’t?—”

“Relax, kiddo. I’m joking. Although it did look like I interrupted something below the belt in the cellar last night. Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Well, I do. So let’s talk about it.”

My face is burning. “It really wasn’t a big deal.”

Her eyebrow goes vertically skeptical. “That hickey suggests otherwise.”

I clamp a hand over my collarbone and curse myself for forgetting to cover it up. “Fine. It was more than ‘not a big deal,’ but still less than a big deal. It was… a moment of weakness.”

“Mhmm,” she hums. “And how many more ‘moments of weakness’ will it take before you two stop beating around the bush?”

I turn away from her, but the image of Sasha’s face pressed against that baby shop display follows me. The raw vulnerability in his expression as he traced those tiny shoes. For a moment, he wasn’t a wolf or a liar—he was just… Sasha. My Sasha.

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