Alexei turned to look at his uncle. Senya hadn’t moved a muscle, and he didn’t look at all surprised by what Alexei had done. Alexei didn’t know what to make of that. Alexei knew that mercy wasn’t welcome, but he also knew his uncle wasn’t a sadistic man. He doled out punishment, but didn’t exactly take pleasure in tearing people apart. There was no way to guess what he’d do to Alexei when this was all over.
Aaric let out a dark chuckle. With a grin still on his face, he grabbed a mallet off the table and attacked Alexei. But where Aaric was superior in interrogation, Alexei was better at hand to hand combat. He dodged easily and, in one swift move, grabbed Aaric’s hand that was holding the mallet, smashed it onto the table with the now-dead man, and jammed the scalpel into Aaric’s hand. He dug it in so deep that it reached the wood beneath and lodged in it.
He wasn’t ashamed to admit how good it felt. How satisfying it was to see the hands that he’d witnessed do so much damage, twitching with blood gushing out. He wanted to damage it for good, but he didn’t get his hopes up. It would leave one hell of a scar though.
Aaric was shouting expletives at Alexei and all he did was punch him straight in the jaw to shut him up. He then looked up at Senya, who still hadn’t moved, wiped his hands and walked away. He could hear Aaric yelling at him.
“I’m going to get you for this, Testova! One of these days, you’re going to let your guard down, and I swear I’m going to fucking kill you!”
Alexei guessed that Aaric was finally following up on his promise.
That son of a bitch.
I’m going to kill him. I’m going to find him and I’m going to fucking gut him like a fish.
Alexei needed to be able to get up first. Wait…When had he even fallen? He couldn’t remember. The ground was cold and rough underneath him. He tried to twist to put pressure on the wound, but that only made the pain worse.
That was when he heard the scream.
Amelia.
If he touched her, I will break every one of his fingers one by one, before using his own fucking scalpel to peel off his skin.
He turned to go inside, meaning to crawl his way to Amelia’s room. But she was standing at the entrance to the balcony.
Her face was twisted into an expression of pure, unadulterated horror. She was letting out gut-wrenching sobs, as she continued screaming. He reached his hands out to her, trying to beckon her closer and see if she was harmed.
“Hey, baby girl…Come here. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Are you hurt, sweetie? Come here. Let me take a look at you.”
Before he could reach her, she ran and laid her whole body on top of him, bawling her eyes out. She was getting soaked from his blood and he didn’t want her to be covered in blood when Kaelyn got back.
Oh, no. Kaelyn!
Where was she? And Saylor? Had Aaric seen them? Did he get to them before he got to the apartment? They probably heard the gunshot. Kaelyn would have come running back to save Amelia. What if he saw them?
What if he shot them?
What if they were also lying somewhere, unable to move, slowly bleeding out? They might even be already dead!
Alexei tried to keep himself conscious. Tried to keep crawling out of the balcony to see if anyone was hurt. But he couldn’t. He had no strength left in him and he was losing consciousness fast.
He felt pathetic. So much for their protector. All it took was one bullet, one moment where he let his guard down, and he was down. It hadn’t even taken a fight.
He should’ve been more attentive. Should’ve had his eyes and ears constantly alert for anything. Should’ve noticed any and everything that happened around.
Should’ve been better at his fucking job.
He used to be like that. Back with the Bratva, he used to be the best person to have around a job. He used to catch every stray sound, every breath, every twitch in the shadows.
Now, he couldn’t even tell when a son of a bitch with a gun was behind him, about to shoot him in the back.
His arm let out from underneath him and he collapsed completely on the floor. Amelia’s cries got louder and he wanted to comfort her, assure her that he was fine, but nothing came out. His throat felt clogged with something and when he coughed, there was a splatter of blood on the floor.
He wanted to talk to her, rock her, hold her, do something. All he could do was lie there, struggling to breathe, struggling to move, and all he could think in his fading consciousness was am I… Am I dying…?
He could see black spots in front of his eyes. They were becoming more and more until practically his entire vision was obscured and all he felt was Amelia’s cries and her soft little body pressed to him as he fell into oblivion.
8
Kaelyn
A haze. A dull, heavy haze has been blanketing Kaelyn for the past week. She couldn’t find her way out of it. It was too thick, too murky. She couldn’t see where it stopped and ended, where she stopped and ended.
It followed her everywhere she went. Not that she was going anywhere. It followed her as she moved from the hospital room, to the cafeteria, to the bathroom and back. She did it all, not really knowing where her feet were taking her, or what her hands were carrying, or what she was saying.
She knew she was probably speaking. She recalled a conversation with the doctor and one with Saylor and Stone. She even remembered talking to the nurse that was on duty in Alexei’s room.
But she didn’t exactly remember what she had said in any of these conversations. She didn’t remember much of anything anymore. Nothing except that one memory that will be forever branded into her mind. The memory of finding Alexei and Amelia that day.
Kaelyn had rushed back up the stairs to the apartment the second she heard the gunshot. Saylor was yelling at her, telling her to come back and that they needed to call for help. Kaelyn wasn’t waiting for help; her baby was up there and she would willingly throw herself at whoever was threatening to hurt her.
Saylor eventually followed her up and grabbed her right on the staircase.
“Kaelyn, we need to be smart about this. The attacker could still be inside. We won’t be any help if we just barge in there.”
Kaelyn could barely register what her sister was saying. All she thought about was Amelia, Amelia, Amelia.
But on some level, she knew that Saylor was right; she wouldn’t be any help to Amelia or Alexei if she barged in and got herself killed. She made herself take a deep breath to calm down.
“Okay, now I’m going to text Stone to tell him what’s going on. Then, I’m going to call one of the security guys standing around your block. If someone’s in the apartment, we want to be armed too.”
She was nodding along, only half listening to what Saylor was saying.
That was when she heard the scream.
Amelia.
Logic and common sense both flew out the window at the sound of her daughter’s terrified howl. Nothing – nothing – was going to stand between her and whatever had made her daughter scream like that. She would tear them limb from limb. She would hunt down the entire Russian mob and claw their eyes out. She would find the bastard Senya Ruskov himself and show him exactly what it meant to hurt Amelia Owens.
She climbed up the stairs like a mad woman, taking two and three steps at a time. When she reached the apartment and saw the door slightly opened, she didn’t stop to think about who might be there on the other side, just waiting to shoot her. She just barged in.
There was nothing in the living room. But she could hear Amelia’s cries, could hear her pain and misery and she had to find her. Needed to find her.
She burst into the bedroom and her heart stopped. The entire world disappeared down to the pinprick point of Amelia lying on Alexei’s body, both soaked in blood.
Amelia getting shot. Amelia dying. Amelia bleeding out.
All the thoughts that had plagued her since all this infernal shit with the bratva happened came pouring in all at once. And this time they weren’
t thoughts. No, they were a reality. There was Amelia, bleeding, crying. A gunshot was heard.
She was numb. Her body didn’t exist anymore. At least, she couldn’t feel it. She felt like throwing up. She felt like falling. She felt like screaming. She wanted to crumple into a heap on the floor and die herself.
Amelia was the one who pulled her out of her haze. She had finally noticed her standing in the doorway, and sobbing, she came running to her.
“Mommy! Al-Al-Alex! Th-there was-man-and loud-and-and-mommy-Alex isn’t-he’s not mov-moving!”
Kaelyn wrapped her daughter in her arms, her hands checking her body, looking for the wound, but she found nothing. Amelia was covered in blood, but not a single scratch on her. That meant…
She finally looked at Alexei. He wasn’t moving. And right in the center of his back was a small hole that kept gushing out an endless torrent of blood.
Alexei.
Without releasing her hold on Amelia, she walked over to him. Amelia had begun incoherently sobbing again. Kaelyn held her close, turning her face away from Alexei. But she couldn’t turn away.
Alexei dying.
How could she not have thought about him? He was the one they were after. She had just been blinded, but now that she was staring at him, lying too still, she hoped she could be blind once more.
Why had Amelia been there then? If she was there when the attacker had come then he probably wouldn’t have left her alone? She was so grateful that that hadn’t been the case, she didn’t care how it had all gone down.
But Amelia had thrown herself at Alexei when she saw he was hurt.
She knew he was special.
She loved him, just as much as he loved them.
Even at five years old, probably not really understanding what was going on between her mother and Alexei, she knew that he was important to her. Important to them.
They had developed a bond. Kaelyn had underestimated the strength of that bond. She thought it was friendship. But it was so much more. And for Amelia, who had always found it difficult to form those kinds of relationships with strangers? It was extraordinary. She had put her trust and love into someone other than Kaelyn or Saylor.
And he was dying.
She grabbed a discarded shirt thrown on the floor and pressed it to the wound on his back. But her hand was shaking so badly, she wasn’t sure she was doing much help. Too quickly, the shirt and her hand were soaked with blood.
He was losing too much of it too fast. She was literally watching as his life poured out from his body onto the floor, the more it puddled around him, the less his chances of survival became.
Unless it was already too late.
She knew she shouldn’t think of that. Had to stay positive for Amelia. But the thought clawed its way into her mind and settled in. She couldn’t see his chest move. That could have been because of her panic, or the fact that he was lying on his stomach. Or it could have been that he was no longer drawing breath. She tried checking his neck for a pulse, but her own was beating so loudly in her ears that it was impossible to tell.
Her sobs were now mixed in with Amelia’s. She couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t stay positive. Alexei couldn’t die. While, at first, she’d been numb, she was now feeling every spike of pain lancing through her chest. All she could do was sit on the floor, next to Alexei’s still body, agony piercing her body, and rock her daughter in her arms.
And that was where Saylor and the security team had found her.
That was a week ago. And she still hadn’t recovered from it. Neither had Amelia. She hasn’t spoken a single word and had been crying at night from the nightmares ever since.
She was staying at Stone and Saylor’s. Kaelyn didn’t want her spending too much time at the hospital. Or seeing Alexei lying in his hospital bed. There was an air of melancholy and pain around the place. Or perhaps it was simply around Kaelyn?
The trauma was too much for Amelia. Kaelyn was trying her hardest every time Saylor brought her over to visit to try and get her to talk. She’d have to make an appointment with Amelia’s therapist. This was serious and Amelia needed a safe environment to express everything she was feeling. And she needed her therapist, a professional, to help her sort through all her emotions and understand what had happened. She needed to know how to proceed now, especially with Amelia’s condition.
As much as it pained Kaelyn constantly that she couldn’t help her daughter enough, she had to accept the fact that Amelia needed professional help.
Maybe she should get some help too, after everything.
It was all too much for her haze-filled brain to process. She has been having this issue lately. She couldn’t think too much or about too many things before her brain decided to shut down.
Saylor suggested compartmentalizing her thoughts, and only focusing on one thing at a time.
Alright, she thought, let’s try this.
She was on her way back to Alexei’s room. She was carrying a cup of coffee. She took small, slow sips. Amelia had visited and now she was gone, probably sound asleep with Saylor. There was a nurse already there when she reached Alexei’s room.
They’d lied when they brought him in and told the hospital that she was his wife. It was the only way they would let her stay with him even after visitation hours. The nurses had gotten used to her and tried to get her to sleep or eat more than soggy sandwiches and coffee from the cafeteria. She couldn’t stomach anything else though. It was like she had lost all sense of taste.
The room was just the way she’d left it fifteen minutes ago. Alexei’s bed with all the tubes and the equipment attached to him, and her chair, pulled up right by his head.
She sat down and the nurse offered her a blanket that she wrapped around her shoulders. She continued sipping on the coffee, watching his chest rise and fall. This had been her night routine for the last seven days.
The doctors said he was fine. No permanent damage. According to them, if the bullet had stayed in his back any longer, he may have suffered paralysis. Thankfully, as they kept reassuring her, he was perfectly fine.
Then, why the hell wasn’t he waking up?
Apparently, with all their collective PhDs and years in medical school, none of the doctors could answer that question. All they could tell her was that sometimes these situations would cause extreme stress on the patient’s body and the coma could last a long time.
How long?
Nobody fucking knew.
So, she waited.
Every day, she sat by his bed, stroking his hair, holding his hand, hoping for some glimmer of life to appear. Hoping for Alexei, her Alexei, to come back to her, hold her, run his hand through her hair and listen to every crappy story or rant she had to say. If he could just open his eyes, and look at her with that expression so filled with love that she wouldn’t know how to react.
As they did every night, tears streamed down her cheeks as she leaned her head on the bed and whispered.
“Come back to me. Please. I love you. With every beating pulse of my heart, I love you. I can’t imagine what my life would be like if you were suddenly gone. I need you here with me, through everything. Amelia needs you. She needs you to play bubble kingdom with her and sing Disney songs with her. She needs you to be her father. Alexei, please-”
She startled. Her hand. She was scared she was imagining it, but there it was again.
He squeezed her hand.
She looked up.
His eyes were open. Barely, but they were open. She let out a gasp of disbelief. The nurse, seeing this ran buzzed the doctor to come quick. He gave a weak whisper of her name, with a smile before his eyes drifted shut again.
She didn’t care. Alexei was awake.
9
Alexei
Alexei’s blood was pumping.
He sat in Stone’s private jet, counting down the seconds till they arrived at their destination. The plane was buzzing with activity. Everywhere he looked, people were talking, assessing ammunition, a
nalyzing the bunker’s floor plan, and even training in the small gym-like corner at the back of the plane.
Stone really outdid himself. There were about thirty other security teams there other than his own. They were some of the most highly-trained individuals to ever live.
And Alexei was still worried it wouldn’t be enough.
It’s not that he doubted their skills, or Stone’s ability to hire the best teams money could buy, it was his knowledge of their uncle. He was the only one there who really knew Senya Ruskov. The man didn’t get surprised, didn’t get outmatched, and didn’t lose.
Kaelyn had tried to reassure him that this time it would be different. Before he and Stone had gotten on the plane, Saylor, Kaelyn and Amelia had come to send them off. Kaelyn, taking one look at Alexei’s face, had seen that he had a million doubts about this mission.
“Alex…He’s not invincible. He’s human, just like everyone else. You can beat him.”
He hadn’t exactly looked reassured.
“Hey, you found his bunker! His most secret hideout and you were able to locate it!”
“That took us six months.”
“So? You’re one step ahead of him. I can feel it.”
He knew she was trying her best, but it hadn’t made him feel better. None of them understood how Senya’s mind worked. He could’ve let them figure out the location of the bunker. This could all be a trap and he was leading his brother and his men straight down the belly of the beast.
Six months ago, Alexei had been perfectly content living the rest of his life quietly in New York with Kaelyn and Amelia. He thought – or, more truthfully, hoped – that his uncle had just forgotten about him. He wasn’t doing anything to affect their operations. They didn’t need to cross paths again.
Love Affair with the Billionaire’s Brother Page 5
