Page 121 of Santa Daddy
In another world, it might have looked domestic.
First aid and weapons checks over bad coffee.
“What if we ran?” I asked suddenly.
The thought had been chewing at me since we left the city. It slipped out before I could decide if it was sentimental or stupid.
“Just… disappeared,” I said. “New names, new haircuts, some nowhere town where no one knows what the Bratva is. Where you’re just some ex-soldier with anger issues and I’m… a girl who makes bad coffee.”
Could we? Could we really walk away?
He didn’t dismiss it out of hand. He looked at me, then at the window, then back at me.
“Where would we go?” he asked. “What kind of life could I give you if we spend all of it looking over our shoulders?”
“The kind where our kid doesn’t grow up dodging bullets,” I said. “Where love doesn’t come with a casualty list.”
I reached across the table, covering his hand with mine.
“I don’t need you to give me a life,” I added. “I need you to share one with me.”
Something softened in his eyes at that. Like I’d said the right password to a door inside him.
He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again, as if the words weren’t ready yet.
“I’m going to get water,” I said instead, pushing back from the table. The cabin felt too small all of a sudden. Too full of air I’d already breathed.
“There is well out back,” he said, frowning. “You saw when we came in.”
I nodded. “I need to move. Just for a minute.”
He didn’t like it. I saw it in the way his brows pulled together, the way his good hand twitched toward the gun on the table.
“I go with you,” he said after a second. “You do not go past edge of clearing. You understand?”
Relief washed through me, sharp and quick. “Okay.”
Outside,the air bit at my cheeks, scented with pine and cold earth. The sky had that flat, washed-out look that said snow again sooner than later.
The well sat just behind the cabin, old stone ringed in frost. I hauled the metal bucket up, the rope creaking in protest. The simple, repetitive motion helped quiet the riot in my head.
I felt him at my back more than I heard him—warm presence in the doorway of the cabin, gun in hand, eyes scanning the tree line while I filled the bucket.
On the way back, halfway between the well and the porch, it hit me.
The prickle along the back of my neck. The subtle tightening in my gut. The feeling of being watched had nothing to do with his paranoia and everything to do with my own.
I stopped. Turned slowly, scanning the trees.
Nothing obvious. Just trunks and shadow and the whisper of wind.
“You feel it?” his voice came from behind me, low and sharp.
“Yeah,” I said. “Something… feels off.”
Every muscle in his body went alert. He moved off the porch, closing the distance in a few long strides until he was beside me.
Together, we walked toward the edge of the clearing where the trees started, the crunch of snow under our boots too loud in the quiet.
