Page 119 of Power's Fall

“Where will we live in America?”Vadisk asked as the three of them cuddled in bed a few hours later. They’d woken up after a short nap, discussing the idea of scheduling massages. They’d dismissed the suggestion almost instantly, deciding that for the rest of today…and probably tomorrow…the only place they wanted to be was wrapped up in each other’s arms in bed.

Montana stretched on his side to face them. “I share a house with my fellow Warrior Scholars in Boston, so my place isn’t really an option for us.”

“I have a small apartment just outside D.C., in Arlington. I use it more as a closet and an office, because it’s basically where I keep all my stuff and work on putting my documentaries together between trips. It would be pretty cramped with all of us there.”

“Are you tied to Arlington?” Montana asked.

Dahlia shook her head. “Not at all. I’m assuming you’d want to stay in Boston while you finish up your dissertation?”

Montana nodded. “I would.”

“Boston,” Vadisk said aloud. “That’s on the Eastern Coast, yes?” He needed to brush up on the geography of the United States.

“It is. I think you’ll be okay though,” Dahlia said. “Because Boston winters are a lot like the ones in Ukraine. Cold as shit, snowy.”

Vadisk grimaced. “Maybe we should pick a hotter state.” He didn’t know the names of all the states, but he was familiar with the main ones. “Texas? Florida?”

Dahlia and Montana both said, “No!” in unison.

Vadisk lifted up, resting his weight on one elbow. “Okay. Does Selene live in Boston?”

Montana chuckled. “No. According to Tate, Selene and her partners live in Georgia.”

Vadisk made a mental note to see how far Georgia was from Boston.

Dahlia ran her hand over Vadisk’s chest, toying with one of his nipples playfully. “What do you think you might like to do for a living, Vadisk?”

Vadisk knew exactly what he planned to do. “As long as you’re traveling, I plan to go with you. To keep you safe.”

Her bright smile let him know she didn’t have a problem with that. “But there must be something you want to do foryou, something you’ve never had the opportunity to try.”

He stroked his beard. He didn’t even need to think about his response because it was something that had always been there, tugging in the back of his conscience. “I like to cook.”

“What?” Montana asked with a grin.

“I love cooking. I always thought…in a different life, I’d like to be a chef.”

Dahlia sat up, clapping her hands excitedly. “Oh my God. I can totally see you doing that. Going all Gordon Ramsey on your sous chefs.”

“I’ve got mad knife skills,” he joked.

Montana was as excited about his revelation as Dahlia. “Cambridge School of Culinary Arts is literally only a five-minute subway ride from Boston. You could study there.”

“It’s just an idea,” Vadisk said, even though he was touched by their support, by the way they were encouraging him to chase a dream he never expected to realize.

“One you’re going to pursue once we’re set up in Boston. I have spoken and it is so,” Dahlia said regally.

Montana had hit the nail on the head. Their wife was definitely going to keep them on their toes.

“I’ll need to call my landlord and get out of the lease, and you’ll have to let your roommates know,” she said to Montana. “We’ll need to start looking at houses. As soon as we’re back in the States, I’ll call a real estate agent. Maybe you can help us narrow down good neighborhoods around the city, Montana.” Dahlia started ticking things off on her fingers. “We should probably make a list. We have so many things to do once we get back home.”

Home.

Vadisk let that word sink in deep. He hadn’t called a place home since he’d joined the military. He’d lived in the barracks, then a shitty apartment in Kyiv, that he left when he took over as Nikolett’s bodyguard. Since then, he’d kept a room in Hungary’s headquarters.

Now, as he looked ahead, he pictured more than four walls and a roof. He saw Dahlia in front of her computer working on her documentaries, Montana flipping through a stack of albums as he tried to decide what to play next, fights over the remote control, a couple of cats—he prayed Dahlia and Montana weren’t dog people—cooking dinner together as their kids did homework at the kitchen table, family vacations to the beach, and climbing into bed and kissing these two incredible people good night every night for the rest of his life.

Home.