The words sank down over the group. The truth of it. They’d known that Navuka, the very group that the Malashoviks had fled Belarus to escape, was in the Spokane area. But the reality of Glory’s words was like a hot, heavy blanket over everyone. Anton’s family tried hard not to look at him. He wouldn’t like that. But they all knew how much Glory’s words must be affecting him.
Glory, perhaps unaware of the building tension, turned to him, taking his hand in hers. “Tell me what they did to you. Anton, right? Tell me what Navuka did to you and how you got away.”
Just like that. So simple. Anton’s heart raced as he looked into this pretty woman’s eyes. No one had ever asked him so simply. His family tiptoed around his past with all the pain, and regret, and guilt that their hearts could hold. He knew that each of his family members felt responsible in one way or another, for the day he’d been captured in Belarus. For the year that he’d been held hostage by Navuka, tortured and changed. Even now, he could feel that experience putting him on the outside of everybody. Separating him from even his brothers.
But now, here was this lovely woman who had felt it all, too. And she shared it so easily. She’d taken her pain and stepped right into the group with it. And now she was looking back at him, holding out her hand and inviting him in. Anton took a deep breath. He wanted to.
For the first time in a decade, since it happened, Anton wanted to tell his family about it. But there was one set of eyes that he could feel on him. A midnight-blue pair of eyes, half hidden beneath a sweep of dirty blonde hair. AJ. He could never tell this story in front of AJ. She already knew how fucked up he was. Because there was no hiding it. But he didn’t particularly need her having all the proof.
“I will tell you sometime, little cat,” Anton said, giving Glory just the smallest of smiles.
“Can I interview you?” Dora asked, leaning forward in her seat like she couldn’t possibly stay there.
“Dora!” Danil groaned, affectionately glaring at his overzealous wife.
“What?!” She turned back to Glory. “I’m a reporter. An investigative reporter. And I’ve been writing an article on Navuka for more than a year. It’s almost done. I want to blow the story wide. And I just think that your perspective could really help the story a little.”
“I don’t understand any of that,” Glory said, smiling. “But I love helping. If you need my help, I’ll always help.”
The spell that had been cast over the room was officially broken. The family rose, getting the dining room ready for dinner. All of them noticed that for the first time in living memory, Anton wasn’t slipping out the back door the first second he could. He was lingering. Not talking, because that wasn’t his style. But he was there. In the room with his family in a way he hadn’t been in years.
CHAPTER SIX
Glory insisted on going home with Emin that night. In her mind, Emin’s home was her home. Already.
He didn’t have it in him to argue, but in a lot of ways, it would have been much easier if she’d just stayed at his mother’s house. He knew he needed distance from her, for his own sanity.
But he thought about everything she’d been through. The literal loss of her mother. The torture at the hands of bad people. The six months alone and scared in a foreign place. No one to talk to. No one to trust. He thought about the way she’d opened up Anton that night. And he couldn’t deny her.
Which is how he found himself sleeping on the floor for the second night in a row, staring at the ceiling. Trying hard not to get hard just from the sound of her even breaths across the room.
She rolled. And then rolled again in her sleep. He could hear the whisper of the sheets over her skin. He could hear the steady beat of her heart, knew that she was sleeping. But he could hear something else, too, a gasping moan.
He sat up straight. She was dreaming.
She moaned again, whispering a word. Was that… ? Did she just say his name?
He was in hell.
***
Glory was in a splash of sunlight, as warm as soft fire. Green spring leaves filled her vision, above her and below her. She was alive and electric, feelings washing over her like the waters of a river.
She’d never felt this way before. Everything was a new, tumbling sensation but she didn’t have it in her to be scared. All she could feel was exhilarated. She wasn’t alone.
There was a golden hand on her belly when she looked down. And another on her thigh, gently pulling her legs apart. She knew whose they were.
“Emin,” she breathed as she turned to him, her mouth parted for his. And he took the invitation. His mouth closed over hers.