I cupped her cheek. “I’m,” I promised. “I’ve by no means been extra critical.”

“How will that work?”

Actuality was pushing into our hazy bubble of happiness, however I knew she was proper to ask. There was a lot to think about going ahead. “I don’t know,” I informed her actually. “I imply, you might return to St. Francisville as soon as Elias is completed with therapy, or…or you might come to DC with me.”

Nataliya was quiet for a very long time. “I believe Elias and I would want to remain right here for some time,” she admitted. “It will likely be some time earlier than the therapy is completed.” She checked out me once more, and there was this pervasive shyness that I’d by no means seen in her face earlier than. “However afterward, if you happen to really didn’t thoughts?—”

“I would like you to,” I stated. “I would like us to be a household: you, me, and Elias.”

Her smile was dazzling; she dropped a kiss to my chest. “I would like that too.”

“We’ll get your ID again too,” I stated. “I would like you to reside your life as Nataliya Koza once more. No extra aliases for both of you.”

“You possibly can’t promise that.”

“You helped to convey down a world legal,” I stated. “I believe we will leverage that to get you a correct Inexperienced Card.”

“I gained’t maintain my breath, okay?” she stated. “I’ll allow you to do no matter you suppose is greatest, however?—”

I squeezed her to me. “I get it.” It will be troublesome for anybody to belief the identical organizations that screwed them over previously. However now that Ian Hayes was caught, I used to be assured issues can be totally different. I hoped, anyway. “Thanks for trusting me.”

“Thanks for being reliable.”

TWENTY-SIX

NATALIYA

Six Months Later

Hospital antiseptic was certainly consuming a gap in my nostril. I squirmed within the uncomfortable ready room chair and rubbed my face for the hundredth time. “Sweetheart,” Adrian stated from beside me, leaning into me, “you’re too fairly to put on a gap in your cheek.”

“I hate ready.”

“I do know,” he soothed.

“What if it’s unhealthy information? They’ve been again there a very long time.”

Sam had come to DC to test on Elias’s progress. She had gotten hospital privileges and commandeered part of the lab so she might personally see to his lab outcomes. Out of the entire contributors who had been testing her vaccine, she saved a particular eye on Elias, and for that, Sam would at all times be a good friend of mine.

“Sam simply desires to make sure,” Owen, who had give you Sam, stated kindly. I appreciated that he got here along with her, and I’d stated as a lot once they arrived the night time earlier than, however Owen and Sam each shrugged it off. They had been going to do some sightseeing in DC whereas they had been in, and Myles’s paternal grandparents had been relishing in attending to spoil the little boy rotten for just a few days again house in Birmingham.

“I do know,” I stated. “I’m simply?—”

“Anxious,” Owen provided.

“Freaking the hell out,” Adrian added.

“Each.” I wished to twist up right into a ball to cry, however I settled for Adrian slinging his arm over my shoulders and pulling me into the comforting heat of his physique.

“How do you want DC?” Owen requested, doing his stage greatest to distract me. Bless him.

“It’s totally different from dwelling in Louisiana,” I stated. Elias and I moved as much as be with Adrian shortly after Elias’s final dose of the Loorer’s vaccine. By then, Adrian had already been again in DC for some time, having to return to work when his go away ran out. That point aside had solely confirmed for the each of us what we already knew: that we wished to be collectively any longer. “I imply, the summer season was nonetheless humid, nevertheless it wasn’t fully terrible.”

Adrian snorted. “Winters are a contact colder than Louisiana although.”

That made me smile, and I poked him in his abs, making him flinch. “Did you neglect the place I grew up? Winter within the RoW was brutal and?—”

“I do know,” Adrian lower off my rising rant with a teasing eye roll. “My lady’s a badass like that.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek.

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