Page 133 of Santa Daddy
“Wherever you stop running,” she said.
Home.
She said it like it already existed.
For the first time, I believed her.
We got back in the car. Miles of road stretched ahead, the late-day sun turning the asphalt to gold.
For once in my life, I wasn’t heading toward a war or away from one.
Just forward.
We had fake names, good papers, a full tank, and each other.
It was enough.
More than enough.
It was everything.
28
NEW SKIN, OLD SOUL
DANI
The Canadian motel room felt different now.
Not just like an anonymous box on the side of a highway, but like a threshold. Same faded bedspread, same humming heater, same ugly curtains—but the light slanting through the dusty window turned everything soft and gold, like the world was holding its breath to see what we did next.
Konstantin stood by the window, watching the empty parking lot with that low-level vigilance I was starting to accept would never leave him. Angry red patches marked his ribs where the Bratva ink had been chemically burned away.
New skin for an old soul. Or maybe for the man he’d always been under all that ink and blood.
“Still expecting trouble?” I asked, moving in close enough to see his profile in the dying light.
He didn’t quite smile, but something eased around his mouth. “Old habits. Though I’m starting to think the biggest danger now might be happiness.”
Happiness.
Such a strange word in his mouth. In mine.
“Dangerous how?” I asked, taking another step until I could smell his cologne over the faint antiseptic tang of tattoo remover.
He turned then, and the look in his eyes stole the rest of my breath. Raw. Open. No masks, no distance, no calculated anything.
“Because I’ve never wanted anything this much,” he said quietly. “And wanting makes you reckless.”
The space between us crackled. Nine days of running and bleeding and surviving pressed down to this one point—this one choice.
We’d talked about baby names and his grandmother’s garden and small towns with boxing gyms. We hadn’t really touched—not like this—since before the cabin burned.
“Maybe reckless isn’t always bad,” I said, reaching up to trace one of the raw patches on his chest where the Bratva eagle had once spread its wings. “Maybe some things are worth the risk.”
His breath hitched under my fingers. I felt it—the moment his careful control started to crack.
“Dani,” he said, my name a warning and a plea. “If we do this?—”
