Chapter 46—Olivia

“I’m coming,” Aiden said, and I knew he shouldn’t.

He’d thrown his jacket over him and jumped into the fire to come for me.

I know that just happened, but my head is so light and my mind so foggy it feels like a long time ago.

The smoke surrounding me is so strong I can barely think. Barely breathe. Barely see.

The explosions earlier knocked me to the ground, and then suddenly, the smoke came rising from the gap under the door.

I tried using the lamp to knock on the door, so someone would open it even though I doubted anyone would be around. There was no one up here when we first came on the floor.

I knocked on that door until my hands got tired, then the heat coming from outside was too much, and I had to back away.

Heavy smoke still flows in like a thick fog, and I’m engulfed by it. The air from the window helped a little, but it’s not helping anymore.

There’s too much smoke.

Too much, and I can’t breathe.

My knees turn to water as the lightheaded sensation overpowers me, and I’m falling.

I hit the floor, sinking into the plush white carpet, and darkness comes, then light.

“Olivia, wake up,” says a kind voice I haven’t heard in too long. “Wake up, my child.”

“Papa?” I ask, and my eyes flutter open.

His face looms brightly before me, and he looks so much like Eric.

I know this has to be a dream because he’s not able to see me anymore. Not when he was alive and not when he’s dead.

“Olivia Falcione, you have to get up.” His voice is like a gentle whisper, speaking a name I always wanted and never could have.

“That’s not my name,” I mumble, and his face turns sad.

“It should have always been, now please take my hand.” He reaches out his hand to me, and I think of his words.

How I wished I could have had him in my life, and he could have been the kind of father who belonged to us.

“Please,” he beckons, and just like always, I forgive him and take his hand.

The moment I do, he disappears, and my eyes snap wide open as someone shouts my name.

There’s a loud crashing against the door.

It’s Aiden, and it sounds like he has something heavy.

“Olivia, are you in there?” he calls out.

“I am!” I reply, but my voice is so hoarse and grainy I can barely hear myself. “Aiden,” I call out louder.

“I’m coming. Don’t worry, I’m coming to get you.”

He crashes against the door two more times, and then it flies open, cracking as it does.

He rushes in from the fire filling out the background around him, looking a mess but like my dark angel.

He scoops me up off the floor and holds me.

“Aiden,” I gasp, holding on to him.

“Come, we can’t waste any time. It’s really bad out there.”

He helps me stand and grabs the sheet off the bed, throwing it over me. He goes under it too and slips an arm around me to move through the door, but we stop when we see just how bad it is.

Before us is only fire. If we go that way, we’ll die. There is no questioning it. It’s the path to death, and I somehow think of Dante’s Inferno again.

I wonder if this was what he felt like when he was in fires of hell blazing like they were ready to consume your soul.

“Fuck, we can’t go through,” Aiden grates out.

He looks to the window and then at me.

In one swift move, he takes the sheet from me and gets another from off the bed, and ties them together.

“We’re going through the window.”

“Will that hold?”

“I will make it hold.”

He goes over to the curtain, tears that down too, and ties it to the sheets.

He reaches for me and ties the end to my waist.

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. I need to get you out. Come.” He grabs my arm and pushes me to the window.

Holding me steadily, he helps me out the window, and then I’m going down.

“Aiden, you have to get out,” I call back, but he doesn’t answer. He just continues lowering me down.

The sheet snags and tears when I’m nearly halfway then it rips, and I’m falling.

I scream and land hard on the solid path feeling broken again but not caring because all I can think of is him.

The sheet tore.

He stares back at me as the fire fills the room in a whoosh. He climbs out the window and manages to lower a little on what remains of our makeshift ladder, but it’s not down far enough when another explosion knocks him flying, and the building crumbles.

I fall backwards and call out for him amongst the smoke and debris. Pushing up on my elbows, I try to get up and look around for him frantically. I can’t see him anywhere.

“Aiden!”

I brave the flames storming out of the building and try to find him.

Then suddenly, arms surround me out of the smoke. It’s him.

Smoke covers his face, and all I can see are his eyes and his mouth moving, but he’s okay.

“Come, let's go.” He slips his arm around me and picks me up when I stumble.

I take the opportunity then to curl into his chest and allow the rapid beat of his heart to soothe me as he carries me away from the nightmare that nearly claimed us.

The smoke clears the further away we walk, and sirens wail in the distance.

We walk down the long paved path leading back to the house and out to the green grassy clearing where there are people waiting for us.

“Olivia,” a man shouts my name.

When I look properly, I realize that’s not just a man.

It’s my brother.

It’s Eric.

We found him.

It’s over. The nightmare really is over.

***

The doctors just checked my blood pressure again, and when the ambulance came, I was given oxygen because I inhaled so much smoke.

Reuniting with Eric was a lot of tears from both of us, but suddenly things felt better.

I saw Aiden with his son before we got separated. It was a good sight, but I was reminded of what he’d said.

They would go back to L. A. and Eric and I to San Francisco.

As the ambulance took me away, I wondered if that was it. If it was goodbye.

Eric was with me and stayed until the doctors asked for some privacy to check me over.

Now I’m by myself, lying on a hospital bed, left to my thoughts on all that happened and all that I did to get to this point.

Not even a handful of weeks ago, I left San Francisco and pushed aside my fears with the hope of finding Eric. I said by whatever means, and that’s what happened.

What I never expected was Aiden Romanov.

He was the wild card life threw at me.

The ace fate had up its sleeve.

I’m left in the vast expanse of uncertainty, not knowing if I’ll get to see the man who made everything possible for me.

From defeating Jude, the devil incarnate, to walking through fire to save me.

I don’t know what happened to Jude, but I know Aiden killed him. He would have had to to get his son back.

The door opens minutes later, and I sit up when I see it’s him.

He’s cleaned up but still looks like he took a beating.

“Lie down,” he says.

“No, I’m okay. I don’t need to. I feel better.”

“Yeah?”

I nod, and he comes closer.

“How are you feeling?”

“Don’t worry about me.” He chuckles. “I’m like a cat. I’m pretty sure I have at least three of my nine lives left.”

“I believe you.” I smile. “I saw you with Aleksei.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to getting to know him. I always felt like his father, even when I didn’t know he was alive. I had that sense of responsibility. It’s good to get to live it.”

“He’s lucky to have you.”

“I think I’m lucky for the chance to have him back. Feels like I walked through hell.”

“You did.”

“Yeah, but I lost people along the way.”

“Did… Ilya make it?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“I’m so sorry, Aiden. I truly am. I blame myself.”

“Don’t. I blamed myself too. Then I realized it would have happened wherever you were. Jude was working overtime to get you back.”

“I’m still sorry. What about Maksim?”

“He just came out of surgery. He was shot, but he’s going to be okay. He’ll probably be here for another week before we can move him back to L. A.”

“My God, I’m so sorry.”

“Maksim will pull through. He’s tougher than I give him credit for.” We stare at each other for a few moments, and I know from the shift in the mood the conversation is about to change. “Your doctor said you should be able to leave in a few hours, so we’ve arranged to fly you and Eric back to San Francisco tonight. Dominic will accompany you. I’m going to hang around Brazil until Maksim can be transferred.”

“Of course, and thank you. I keep saying I can’t thank you enough, and I can’t. I can never thank you enough for everything.”

“I might have helped you, but you made this all possible. I would have never found my son if not for you. So, thank you. I don’t know anybody who would have done what you did. They certainly wouldn’t have braved meeting me. That makes you one hell of a woman, Olivia, and I’m glad I met you.”

That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, and I wish goodbye.

“I’m glad I met you too.”

He reaches over to give my hand a gentle squeeze, and I savor his touch, but it’s unlike him, and the simple act is not the only thing I want him to do to me.

I stare down at his hand on mine with those prison tattoos on his knuckles. We are opposites, yet it feels like we belong together.

When we look at each other, the magnetism that always pulls us together is very much there, no matter that this is supposed to be a parting. It doesn’t seem to care about that. So when he moves to me, I do too, and I make sure I absorb every ounce of the kiss he gives me that’s very much him.

It’s enchanting and spellbinding, one that speaks of forever and beyond that.

It’s the kind of kiss you wish for, and when he pulls away, it feels like the energy that binds us together aches from the loss.

He doesn’t say anything more, and I don’t know whether to be happy he didn’t say goodbye or sad.

I just watch him walk away, and I take the click of the door closing behind him as our goodbye.