Page 121 of Mission Shift

My fingers moved to the clasp. I hesitated, then removed the pearls and laid them gently beside the photo. For now, they belonged with her.

Glancing up, I caught my reflection in the mirror and barely recognized myself. The shadows beneath my eyes were deeper than I’d ever seen them. God, I felt old. I’d always been pale, but now I looked like something dragged back from the dead. It had been a hell of a few weeks.

My arm throbbed, a pulsing pain radiating from the wound Braxton had patched up. I’d suffered torture and been beaten in the past, but the impromptu surgery in the freezer had been the worst pain I’d ever felt. The experience would haunt my dreams for the rest of my days. I untied the makeshift bandage and tossed it in the trash. The skin around the incision was swollen and a bit warm to the touch, the superglue holding the edges together barely enough to keep it sealed. The thought of stepping into the shower sent a fresh wave of irritation through me. Water might loosen the glue, and I wasn’t in the mood to rip it open just to get clean.

I exhaled hard and moved into the closet. Shifting through the items there, I found a pair of gray sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. They were soft and comfortable, nothing like the constricting dress I’d worn to Malinov’s party. I tugged them on, rolling the waistband of the pants down once to make them fit better. The comfort was a relief, but it did nothing to settle my thoughts. I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my fingers against my forehead, trying to sort through the wreckage in my mind.

Braxton.

Had it been a mistake to help this stray dog of a man caught in the crossfire of a war he barely understood? He was just a paramedic who’d come to volunteer and try to make the world a little better for those in need, and he’d been dropped straight into the Russian meat grinder. I probably should have left him there in that abandoned house. And the second the Russians took him, I should have walked away and let them do what they always did.

But I hadn’t.

Because there was something about him—his stubbornness, his quiet strength and empathy, the way he met my gaze without fear—that had cracked something open inside me.

I had risked everything to pull him out of that nightmare, blown my cover, and destroyed any hope of ever going back. And for what?

For a man who’d turned out to be working with the last person I would have ever suspected.

I winced as the memory surfaced, raw and ugly. Braxton wasn’t just an American aid worker who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was tied to Nikolai Volkov—the man who’d handed me over to the Kremlin, my father, and ultimately Malinov like I was nothing. When I’d laid eyes on Nikolai just now, it had taken all that was in me not to claw his eyes out.

But what gutted me most was that Braxton had never said a damn word.

I had trusted him. I had let him in, shared things about myself I’d never told anyone—not just details of my life, but real pieces of me. I’d trusted him with not only my secrets but also my body. Our fun little romp in the river had been a diversion we’d both needed, but the way he’d touched me that night…had been so much more intimate. I’d never fallen asleep wrapped in a man’s arms. And then, just like every other man in my life, he had betrayed me.

The rage had carried me through everything after that—through the torture, the interrogations, the pain. I had held onto it, let it fuel me, let it build until I was ready to tear him apart with my bare hands.

And then—he’d come back for me.

Braxton, not Nikolai.

I had seen it in his eyes, the determination to protect me.

And that should have meant nothing. But it did.

What I needed was to snuggle up in this bed and leave Braxton and Nikolai to figure out the next steps—but I was way too restless. My arm was throbbing, and my thoughts were circling like vultures. I pushed off the bed and strode to the door, shoving it open.

I needed air. I needed to figure outmynext steps.

And more than anything, I needed a reason to believe that saving Braxton Thorin hadn’t been the worst mistake of my life.

The main deck was quiet except for the steady hum of the engines beneath my feet. I moved through the open entertainment space, taking in the contrast between the yacht’s sleek luxury and the controlled chaos of Nikolai’s war room. The dining area—designed for extravagant feasts—had been repurposed as a command center. The massive round table, meant to seat twelve, was covered in monitors wired to laptopsand enough surveillance tech to rival an intelligence agency. Cables snaked across the polished wood, connecting screens that displayed real-time feeds of Malinov’s estate.

Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the water of Neva Bay outside. The yacht pushed us steadily away from St. Petersburg, the city lights shrinking behind us. Focusing on the screens, I moved toward the full bar that was stretched along one side of the room, hoping to find a bottle of water. I was still shocked that I’d actually gotten out of Malinov’s grip alive. The level of precision and sheer intelligence it had taken to pull off the rescue was impressive. Even I had to admit that.

“So, no rest for the weary, huh?”

I flinched ever so slightly. Normally, I was good at picking up on someone at my back. Nikolai’s voice had come from behind, low and amused. My spine straightened as my mask fell back into place. Turning to face him, I locked eyes with him. He would never intimidate me. We were equals in the mafia world we’d been raised in. He braced a hand on a chair, watching me like he had expected me to wander in eventually.

He smirked. “Did I startle you?”

I didn’t answer. He let out a chuckle, soft and smug. “Relax, Melnichenko. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have spent the last two weeks rearranging my life to save yours.”

He spread his arms in a lazy gesture toward the table. “Hell of a setup, right? I hated to take over such a beautiful space with all this equipment, but I needed eyes on everything during your rescue and for what’s coming.”

I dragged my fingers over the back of one of the chairs, keeping my distance from him. “And why would my rescue be so important to you?”

His smirk faded, and I noticed something cautious in his expression. “Maybe we should start properly.” He extended a hand. “Nikolai Volkov. But you already knew that.”

---