Page 13 of Sapphire Tears

June used to do that for me at night—stroke her fingertips through my hair again and again. A meditation. A hypnosis. It doesn’t feel real, that week. One week after the wedding went from a fake threat to a real promise, and June Cole went from an obligation into my fiancée.

“As I said,” Milana resumes, “we need to re-focus, Kolya.Youneed to refocus. If you let this consume you, then we’ll lose everything. I don’t think we can afford that. Not when we’ve already lost so much.”

She’s right, I know she is.

I just don’t want to hear it right now.

“She couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air,” I say softly.

At the time, letting June run from me felt like a small mercy. A twisted kind of apology, even. She needed time after the revelation I dropped on her. She needed space. And if that’s what she needed, I would give it to her.

I expected her to go to the gardens, cool off for a bit. She was injured, bleeding from the arm. There was only so far she could go without money or ID.

But when I’d gone down to check on her, she was gone. A few drops of blood on the graying stone path from the kitchen to the back gate revealed how she’d left the property. But her trail dried up a quarter of a mile outside of it.

“Have you thought about the other possibility?” Milana asks cautiously.

Of course I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about every possibility.

Milana isn’t content to let it remain unspoken, though. “She may not want to be found.”

“She took a bullet to the arm for me, Milana,” I rasp in a hoarse croak. “I need to know that she’s okay. If she chooses never to see me again after that, then I’ll respect her decision.”

Milana looks at me skeptically for a moment. “Will you?”

I want to say yes. I want to believe it when I do.

But the honest truth is, I’m not sure I’m the type of man who can respect a decision that’s in direct opposition with mine.

“Look into other suppliers for now,” I tell her abruptly. “We need to show the Golubevs that we’re not reliant on them. And as for the other matter… Put the word out that informants will be given money and mercy.”

Milana nods with a tense grimace. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Kolya.”

It’s the first time in over a decade of working together that she’s ever said that to me.

5

JUNE

It’s midday and I’m in bed, staring at the mildew patterns on the wall and trying not to breathe too deeply. My bandaged arm twinges with pain as I adjust my position.

Adrian promised to find us a better place than the tiny back room of a boarded-up laundromat, but we’re still here. Still sweating at night and shivering by day while insects scurry restlessly inside the walls around us.

I wrap my arms around myself, igniting a shooting pain up and down my bicep. The motion brings another sensation with it—the prick of cold metal against my chest.

I’ve kept my engagement ring hidden from Adrian since the moment he picked me up. It’s tucked inside my bra at all times, except for when I shower, when it sits hidden beneath my clothes, far away from the sink and the drain and any questions he might ask me.

When I’m alone, sometimes, I pull it out and slip it back on my finger for a few moments. Most of the time, I just pass it from hand to hand, staring at it. Remembering all the possibility it held.

I’m still struggling. I’ve known Adrian for a long time. Years. Kolya, I’ve only known for months. And yet it’s funny how much time can be compressed when the connection between two people is strong enough.

That week leading up to the wedding, we’d fallen asleep together every night and woken up together every morning. I’d open my eyes to find his hand cupping my hip, keeping me close to him. Or to feel his beard tickling the insides of my thighs as I woke up and came on his face almost simultaneously.

But I haven’t forgotten the other pieces. The things that make sense now, even if I ignored the red flags before.

How he slept every night in a t-shirt.

How he never changed in front of me.

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