I manage a quick rinse in a cold shower. When I walk back out, there’s a black dress laid out on the bed. Leo’s nowhere in sight, but I know he’s the one who picked it for me. It screams of his influence. Sleeveless, tasteful, with a modest hem and a sweetheart neckline. I slip it on and pull my hair up into a severe knot.
When I’m dressed, I sit myself in front of the mirror and stare at my bare face. I look the way I feel: burned out and hopeless. I have dark circles around my eyes and caved-in cheeks. I apply just enough foundation to make me look presentable and then I head downstairs.
Leo is standing in a loose circle between Jax and Gaiman. All three men turn to me.
Gaiman stays where he is, but Jax moves towards me. “Need a hand?” He offers me his arm.
I take his elbow gratefully, and we proceed down the forest path towards the column of vehicles.
“Where are we burying her?” I ask Jax.
“There’s a cemetery in the area, just down from the village. Leo handled arrangements with a pastor. It’s a fitting place for her. She…”
He trails off, and I chance a glimpse at his face. His usual bright smile is gone.
“Were you close with her?” I ask.
“We had our moments,” he says. “I didn’t know her that well. Her mission kept her away a lot of the time. But I respected her.”
I nod. “She was probably the bravest woman I’ve ever known.”
“You and me both.”
We get into the jeeps. I’m glad when Leo takes the wheel. He said he’d be strong for me, that he’d protect me, and God, how I need that. I need to be close to him so I can absorb some of that strength.
But I’ve learned how to be strong on my own, too. Maybe that’s what he means by a queen: someone who can accept help as often as she gives it.
The drive down to the cemetery is quiet. Just the thrum of the engines and the crunching of rocks beneath our tires.
When we arrive, Jax helps me out of the car and we turn to survey the area. Gravestones dot the frozen ground, but the space is wide open. The mountains are visible all around, a hedge of protection against a gray and unforgiving sky. The village is just down the hill. Smoke rises from the chimneys and swirls overhead.
It’s a beautiful location. Austere, remote, but then again, she was also those things. And even though Ariel isn’t in a position to care either way, I feel better about it.
Jax walks me to the burial site. The brass coffin is already set up and ready to be lowered into the ground. I don’t have the faintest idea how they managed to dig six feet into this icy rock, but I don’t ask. Leo proved long ago that he is capable of regular miracles.
Speaking of Leo, I don’t see him. I turn and look around, but his face isn’t among the rows of Bratva men waiting at quiet attention.
“He just likes to keep busy,” Jax says, interpreting my confusion correctly.
“How’s he doing?” I ask. “Really?”
“I think he’s feeling everything. Grief, sadness. Guilt. Not that he’s said a word, of course. That’s never been his way.”
“So he doesn’t talk to you guys, either?”
“No. He keeps his emotions pretty close to his chest.”
“Has he ever opened up to anyone?”
“Once. Then he died.”
The way he says it tells me everything I could’ve ever known about Leo.
I stare at the coffin, wondering if Ariel is really in there. The part of her that was sent to us, at least. My stomach twists again as the memory rushes back to me in vivid detail.
My hand tightens around Jax’s arm as I struggle to stay on my feet.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I… I… I will be…”
“You look pale.”
“I just—”
I turn and see Leo walking towards us. He looks so handsome in his black suit and his slicked back hair, but his eyes are a million miles away.
“I’ll take it from here,” he rumbles.
Jax transfers my hand from his arm to Leo’s. I expect him to stand beside me, but instead, he pivots me around and starts walking in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?”
“The pastor isn’t here yet,” he says. “We have some time before we lower her down. I thought we could take a walk.”
I know the walk is for my benefit. Leo knows everything. He could tell I was close to losing it.
“I’m trying,” I whisper. “But how do you get used to it? All this… death?”
“You just do,” he says. “Ariel always knew that it might end like this. So did I.” He shakes his head. “But there’s no point going back, Willow. No point playing and replaying what happened. What we could have done differently. What’s done is done.”
“I am grateful to Ariel,” I say softly. “And I respect and admire her. But… I can’t stop thinking about Pasha. That he’s alone in there. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No,” he tells me. “That just makes you a mother.”
“Do you feel that way, too?” I ask, almost hopefully. “Like a… like a father?”
“All the fucking time,” he says.
I turn around to face him. His expression gives nothing away. It might as well be a normal day. We may as well be a normal couple out for a normal walk. The fantasy from our dinner the other night lives on, as sick and twisted as it’s become.
“Is this how you handled your brother’s death?”
He laughs bitterly. “Not at all. I was out of control when he died.”
“And now?”
“I’m older,” he says. “I’m wiser. I know that raging against fate never changes anything. So I choose to focus on what I can change. I can’t bring Ariel back, but I can save our son. I can avenge her death. I can avenge Pavel’s death.”
“I’m surprised you’re taking the time to bury her. I figured you’d be on the warpath already.”
“Ariel believed that death was the end. She never much cared what happened to her body after she died.” He shrugged. “I may not be raging, but we all have to figure out a way to say goodbye. This funeral is mine.”
I reach out and curl my hand around his arm again. “I’ll give you one thing: she has a great view.”
“She deserves it,” he says. “She deserves so much more.”
We stand silently for a while, surveying the valley opening up below us. The village is clustered on the side of a steep mountain, clinging on for dear life. The horizon looks like it goes on forever.
“I have to go in, Leo,” I say softly. “I have to give myself to Belov. At least on the surface. I have to—”
“Enough.”
He doesn’t raise his voice. In fact, he seems to get quieter. Yet the command in that one word stops me immediately.
“You are not going in. Especially now. I won’t let you put yourself in danger. Don’t bring this up again.”
“Then what do I do, Leo? Do I just sit back and do nothing?”
“No. You just trust me.”
I do trust Leo. And he told me once that fear can be a powerful tool. It can cause you to freeze in place, to falter and die.
Or it can drive you to act.
I believed him when he said that. I trusted him. And it’s how I know that, right now, my fear is pushing me to act.
With or without him.
35
WILLOW
I’m wide awake when Leo gets into bed beside me.