Updated Apr 20, 2026 • ~5 min read
Chapter 18: Our Life Now
Nadia
Riot doesn’t speak to her during the drive back to the airfield, doesn’t look at her during the flight to Alaska, and by the time they’re pulling up to the cabin, Nadia’s progressed from defiant to guilty to absolutely terrified that she’s broken something between them that can’t be fixed.
“Inside,” Riot says when they climb out of the vehicle, and his voice is flat in a way that’s somehow worse than yelling. “We need to talk.”
Nadia goes, her stomach churning with dread, and the moment the cabin door closes behind them, Riot rounds on her with an expression of pure fury.
“What the FUCK were you thinking?” The words explode out of him. “Viktor gives you an ultimatum and your solution is to just walk into his arms and hope he keeps his word? Hope he makes it quick?”
“He was going to kill everyone I know—”
“So you decided to die instead! That’s your grand plan—sacrifice yourself and leave everyone else to deal with the fallout?” He’s pacing now, that barely controlled violence she’s come to recognize as panic. “You think that’s what I want? What Marcus wants? What CLAIRE wants—for you to throw your life away?”
“It’s not throwing it away if it saves them—”
“It IS!” He gets in her space, close enough that she can see how his eyes are red-rimmed like maybe he was crying on the plane when she wasn’t looking. “You don’t get to make this choice alone! Not anymore!”
“It’s MY life—”
“It’s OUR life now! You said you love me—you said you were done running—and the first time things get hard, you run away in the middle of the night instead of trusting me to help!”
“I was trying to protect you—”
“I don’t WANT to be protected! I want to be your PARTNER! I want you to trust me enough to face this TOGETHER instead of deciding my life for me!” His voice cracks on the last word, and Nadia feels tears starting to slide down her face.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she whispers. “Viktor gave me twenty-four hours and I couldn’t—I can’t let people die because of me—”
“Then we figure out another way! We call Marcus, we assemble a team, we wear you with a wire and take Viktor down properly instead of letting you walk into a death trap!” He grabs her shoulders, not rough but desperate. “Why didn’t you wake me up? Why didn’t you tell me about the ultimatum so we could plan together?”
“Because you would have tried to stop me.”
“Of course I would have tried to stop you! Because I LOVE YOU and the idea of losing you makes me want to burn the world down!” He’s shouting again, but there are tears on his face now. “Don’t you get it? Surviving without you isn’t winning—it’s just a different kind of death!”
Nadia’s crying openly now, all her defenses crumbling under the weight of his fear and fury. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just—I panicked, and all I could think was that I couldn’t let him hurt you—”
“So instead you were going to let him kill YOU. How is that better?”
“It’s not. I know it’s not. I just—” She breaks off, unable to articulate the terror that drove her to run. “I don’t know how to trust this. Don’t know how to trust that you’ll stay, that Viktor won’t take you from me like he took everyone else. Running felt safer than risking you.”
Riot stares at her for a long moment, and Nadia watches emotions cycle across his face—anger and hurt and fear and finally, reluctantly, understanding. “I don’t trust ANYONE,” she continues, the confession torn from somewhere deep. “That’s the core issue, isn’t it? You keep asking me to trust you, to lean on you, to let you help—and I can’t because everyone I’ve ever trusted has been taken from me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Riot says it fiercely, pulling her close despite his anger. “Not by choice. And Viktor doesn’t get to win by making you so afraid of loss that you’d rather die alone than risk loving someone.”
“I know. Logically, I know. But knowing and feeling are different things.” She presses her face into his chest, breathing him in. “I’m sorry. For running. For not trusting you. For being so fucking broken that I can’t—”
“You’re not broken.” He tips her face up, makes her look at him. “You’re surviving. And we’re going to figure this out together—not by you sacrificing yourself, not by you running, but by trusting me enough to stand beside you when things get hard. Can you do that?”
Nadia wants to promise she can, wants to swear she’ll never run again. But what she says instead is honest: “I want to. I’m terrified and I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it right, but I want to try.”
“That’s all I’m asking. Just try.” He kisses her forehead. “And next time Viktor sends a death threat, you wake me the fuck up instead of deciding to die without me. Understood?”
“Understood.”
They stand like that for a long time, holding each other while the adrenaline fades and the fear settles into something manageable, and Nadia thinks that maybe, just maybe, she’s ready to stop running.
As long as Riot’s there to catch her when she stumbles.
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