Page 134 of Mission Shift

“Just so it’s clear,” I said, “I had no clue Nik was making you my wife. I found out the same time you did.”

She raised the wine to her lips and held my stare over the rim of the glass. “I get it. He changed our lives and didn’t tell either of us. That tracks.”

I nodded once. “Honestly? I was pissed. Still am. That wasn’t his call. And it sure as hell wasn’t mine. If I had known about it, I would’ve shut it down in a second.”

We stopped at the stern, and I turned to her, gently squeezing her fingers. “You deserve to choose every part of your life, Daria—not have it assigned to you like some character in a script. I get that we should have gotten your input when we made those decisions. But we needed to get things done before we grabbed you from Malinov’s. Nik and I only had good intentions—gettingyou out and providing a set of papers to get you somewhere safe.”

With a thoughtful expression on her face, she turned away, letting go of my hand and resting her arms on the railing. She stared out over the water. The wind caught the ends of her hair, sending the short strands skimming across her cheekbones.

I stepped closer. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be erased, to wake up and be told you don’t exist anymore, that the life you bled for is gone.”

Her grip tightened around the wineglass.

“And I know it’s not just about moving to a new country,” I added. “Any country would be a big change. But this? Getting dropped into the US, where everything moves fast, strangers talk like they’ve known you forever, and people smile at you for no reason…that’s a lot.”

She didn’t speak, but her shoulder dropped slightly.

“You want to go back,” I said.

She gave the slightest nod.

“Because you think they still need you there, that helping from a distance means you’re giving up.”

Another nod.

Daria balanced her wineglass between two fingers at the stem, rocking it back and forth as she continued to stare out at the gray water.

“I’m not mad at you,” she said, throwing me a sidelong glance and a half-laugh. “Not really. Nikolai blindsided me. And I took it out on you.”

“You had every right,” I said.

“No, I didn’t.” She finally turned her head toward me. “You were trying to help. Both of you were. I see that. I just…I wasn’t ready for it. No one ever helps me.”

I took a long, slow pull from my bottle, nearly finishing it, and turned to face her more directly. “Then let’s figure out a way foryou to keep helping with the war while you stay in the States, at least temporarily. I’m not saying you need to vanish into American suburbia and take up scrapbooking. I just want you to survive long enough that you can keep making a difference.”

Her expression softened just enough for me to see she might be open to the idea.

“You know, now that I’ve had a few minutes to think about it, I can see that you’re right,” she continued after taking a sip of wine. “It’s temporary. A placeholder until I figure out what comes next.”

“Exactly,” I said, nudging her shoulder with mine. “Nobody’s asking you to wave a flag and pledge allegiance. It’s just…for now.”

A gust of wind cut across the deck, tossing her hair across her eyes. She brushed it away and shook her head.

I gestured toward the sundeck. “Come on. I saw a place up there that looks way less windy.”

We crossed to the stairs, climbed up one level, and stepped onto the upper deck. The layout was spacious and protected by a windbreak of angled glass. A large, curved sectional wrapped around a sunken hot tub. Even with the looming storm clouds overhead, the pale wood and high-end upholstery made it feel like a beach resort in the sky.

We settled onto the cushions, close enough to feel the heat from the nearby jacuzzi. The steward reappeared with fresh drinks—another Sancerre for Daria, a darker beer for me this time—and then disappeared without a word.

I took a long sip, watching the storm edge closer.

“I still can’t wrap my head around all this,” I said after a few minutes had passed. “Not just the yacht or the mafia shit or the whole married-on-paper twist…but this world. Yours. Nik’s. I never imagined any of this was real. And now I’m in it.”

Daria’s fingers tapped her wineglass. “It’s not a world. It’s a war zone dressed up in Versace and blood diamonds. And we’re all either assets or liabilities.”

“Before Samantha got tangled up with Viktor Volkov because of her father, the only time I ever got close to this kind of danger was a tailgate brawl outside a Seahawks game,” I said, grinning. “And even then, it was some drunk dude in a tank top yelling about how the last play blew up his parlay.”

That made her smile—and it was an actual smile this time.

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