by Liz K. Lorde
And for me. For Ana.
I should have thought to evacuate my building, but I simply didn’t have enough time. I hang my head; the deaths of my neighbors are partly on me too. All the more reason to seek vengeance for them.
It was through sheer luck that Nico and I were parked far enough way to avoid the utter carnage wreaked by the Rachmanoff mob. We had stopped by the local convenience store in case the employees had seen Ana. That was all that prevented our deaths.
I shudder. We really cut it close this time.
I look up and laugh abruptly.
Nico frowns at me, concerned. “Something tells me this isn’t a laughing situation, brother.”
I cut the noise from my throat almost as quickly as it started.
“I was thinking that we really cut it too close this time. This time. As if taking three bullets and bleeding out on a chapel floor wasn’t already cutting it too close.”
Nico has a complicated look on his face that I don’t quite understand, which suddenly turns to a look of recognition as he surreptitiously points out the window.
“Cas, that’s them. I’m sure of it. Ana’s in that limo.”
I follow the point of Nico’s finger, and, sure enough, there’s a limousine with blacked out windows driving away from the other side of the street.
I’m halfway out of the car before Nico hauls me back in.
“Cas! Don’t be stupid! We need to think this through properly. You head out after them on your own and you’ll die for sure. No near misses this time.”
I stare at him. I know he’s telling the truth. But they have Ana; they took my wife away.
Suddenly, another person catches Nico’s attention, and this time, it’s my brother rushing out of the car. I look out at who he’s aiming for, and my blood boils as if I really had caught on fire.
It’s the pawn shop owner, looking guilty and horrified as hell.
Nico crashes him into the side of the convenience store before the man even notices my brother.
“You son of a bitch!” Nico screams in his face. “It was you! You told them she was here!”
The man shakes his head in terror. “N-no, it wasn’t me, I d-didn’t say a word, I—”
Nico punches him in the face to stop him talking, then searches his pockets. They’re loaded with cash.
My brother glances back at me. “He sold you out for five thousand dollars, Cas.”
I stare at the man, as calmly and as coldly as I can manage, considering the fiery rage burning me up inside.
“So, you thought my wife’s life was worth a mere five thousand dollars, old man? Your sniveling pathetic self couldn’t find the honor to protect the life of a woman who saved yours?”
“T-they said she had been kidnapped, that her family just wanted her—”
“Did she look kidnapped to you when she saved your life?”
The man flinches at the tone of my voice. I reign it back in, more for my benefit than for anybody else’s.
I slowly remove my gun, taking care to polish it with the edge of my black t-shirt as I continue.
“You know, had you had the sense to come straight to me, to contact one of my men—”
The man’s eyes never leave my gun.
“—and told me about what had transpired between you and the Rachmanoffs, I’d have written off your debt immediately. Given you a clean slate. I reward loyalty; you should know that.”
I cock my gun and aim it at his head.
The man falls to his knees, tears in his eyes. “M-Mister Andreas, please, I have a family, I have—”
“Sorry, old man. You betrayed the only person that line would have worked on.”
I put a bullet between his eyes.
His head hits the brick of the convenience store with a sickening, satisfying smack; his blood stains the wall a muddied red color as he slides to the floor.
I nod at the money in Nico’s hands and gesture into the store. “Pay off the store clerk. She just watched the whole thing through the window.”
I incline my head through the glass at the terrified girl behind the counter. She just barely manages to echo the movement back at me, stunned as she is.
I get back in the car and wait for Nico to return from the store. He’s practically shaking with rage when he sits down beside me.
“Please don’t tell me ‘I told you so,’ Nico,” I mutter before he can say a word.
He punches me on the arm in retaliation.
“I can’t believe he’d sell Ana out after she saved his damn life!” Nico rages as I gingerly massage my arm. “And yeah, I did tell you so. You should have killed the old man from the very beginning. But Ana would have hated you for it, right? So I get it.”
I ashamedly feel tears threaten to sting my eyes. As if this is the time to fucking cry.
“Nico, I need to get Ana back,” I say, almost cringing at the way my voice breaks when saying her name.
Nico tries to punch me again, but I avoid it.
“Stop doing that!”
“Only when you stop being an idiot,” he scolds. “Who is this ‘I’ you’re talking about? We’re going to get her back, brother. After all, who found her in the first place? You can’t do this alone. Doing that will—”
“Get me killed, I know, I know. “I smile at him. “Thank you.”
Nico waves a hand at me dismissively. “Thank me when we have her back. First we need to get some Intel on Yuri’s home. We know they’re based in New York. I know a guy.”
“Who is he?” I query, curious. I wasn’t aware my brother knew ‘guys’ that I wasn’t privy to.
Nico chuckles. “Let’s just say he’ll be glad he can pay his debt off like this, rather than me squeezing money out of him.”
I raise an eyebrow in question.
“Gambling addict.”
“Ah.” Nico glances outside. “Okay, time to go, brother. The police are here…about time, too.”
We take one final look of the ruins of my penthouse.
“Hope you didn’t have anything valuable inside,” Nico murmurs.
I look down at the ring on my finger, then at Nico, and think of Ana.
I shake my head. “No, everything worth anything to me got out okay.”
Nico gives me a foolish grin. “You getting sentimental on me, brother?”
It’s my turn to whack him on the arm.
He barks out a protest.
“Don’t make me regret it, you idiot.”
I start up the engine of our car and drive off, following the directions Nico recites to me as I mull over everything that’s happened over the past twenty-four hours.
How could I have had Ana in my arms just last night? How could I have married her in the early hours of the morning? And I don’t even remember it, I was so drunk.
“Nico.”
He looks over at me. “What is it?”
“When we get Ana back, make sure I’m completely sober when we have a second wedding.”
“Don’t you mean a third?” Nico cackles.
“You’re lucky I can’t punch you when I’m driving.”
Nico rolls his eyes. “I get you, I get you. We’ll have a proper ceremony for you guys and everything. Nothing spared. The two of you deserve it.”
“Damn fucking right we do.”
“Just need to get her back first. No biggie.”
“Shut up, Nico.”
I’m glad that Nico is keeping me engaged in banter so that I can’t dwell in my own head too much.
He’s right; I can’t do this alone. So it’s a good thing I’m not.
We’re coming for you, Ana, I think as I drive. We’re coming for you.
Chapter 26
Ana
A prison is a prison, no matter how beautiful it is.
And Yuri’s property in New York is truly, undeniably beautiful...not that the man himself has any taste whatsoever. He has simply used money to buy taste from someone else.
And so, even though
the house I’m brought to is gorgeous in an old-world-type way, I hate it with every fiber of my being.
I didn’t speak a word to either my father or Yuri on the way to the airport, nor on the plane, and I certainly don’t want to speak to them now that we’ve reached their destination.
Their destination. Not mine.
All they’ve brought me to is another place to escape from.
It’s Yuri who leads me out of the car, up the white-gravel driveway and the old stone steps into the house. My father looks at me once, an unreadable expression on his face.
I don’t even give him the satisfaction of seeing me angry or upset. I keep my face as expressionless as marble, just like him.
I guess I take after him more than I care to admit.
Yuri marches me through the impressive oak doors and up two flights of stairs with gently curving, wooden bannisters set atop decorative wrought-iron spindles.
The room he takes me to is just as beautifully ornate as the rest of the house: soft furnishings in cream and dove-gray, a wrought-iron bed frame that matches the staircase, a wide, gilded mirror that takes up much of the space of one of the walls, and a large bay window that overlooks the luscious grounds at the back of the house. A loveseat has been built into the base of the window and is laden with pillows.
Cas would have loved it here.
But it’s not Cas who’s here; it’s Yuri. I spare him a glance—he looks pleased with himself, as if he was the one who personally decorated the room.
“You like it?” he states.
I give him a look of disgust.
“Just because you bought it doesn’t mean you get to take credit for it.”
“Yes, I can. The man who buys it, owns it. This is mine, so I can take all the credit I want.”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I move over to the window to sit on the loveseat. I surreptitiously remove the pregnancy test from my waistband and nestle it underneath the pillows. I can’t risk Yuri finding it now.
With any luck, Yuri will simply leave the room. I’m dying for some time alone, after all, without him sneering and laughing and looking at me like I’m a piece of meat.
I have no such luck.
Yuri sits on the bed, facing me. He is uncharacteristically silent and serious.
“What do you want?!” I ask testily, the change in his mood driving an answer out of me involuntarily.
He cocks his head to the side as he regards me. “You’re not stupid, are you? I know you’re not.”
“What’s your point?”
He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he’s having to explain something to a child.
Talk about patronizing.
“You knew we’d kill your Italian sweetheart if you ran off with him. So why do it twice? Doesn’t seem like you care for him all that much if you’d so easily risk his life like that. You should have broken it off with him. Let him get over you. Let him bang some other blonde. That way, he wouldn’t be dead.”
I stare at him, horrified.
How dare he question my love for Cas?
“And, what? Stay in the Rachmanoff family and marry you? No fucking thank you.”
Yuri frowns at me.
“You didn’t hate me so much before you turned eighteen. I thought you might even have liked me.”
“Are you serious right now? I wonder what you could have possibly done on my eighteenth birthday that would cause me to hate you so much, Yuri.”
He chuckles at that.
“Touché.”
“And I didn’t like you before that, either. I merely tolerated you.”
Yuri feigns hurt at my words.
Speaking like this, anyone would think that we were almost normal. Almost a couple. And we would look the part, too—with his blonde hair tied back, his strong jaw and his tall, imposing figure, even I can objectively admit that Yuri is a handsome man.
It’s just what’s on the inside that makes him so repulsive.
I pause, considering what to say next. I wonder if there’s a way I can somehow manage to soften the man in front of me, at least until I find a way to escape. If I truly am pregnant, I don’t want Yuri’s fists anywhere near me.
“There must be easier ways for you to solidify your rank in my father’s family than having to put up with me running off twice.”
“I did think about that, you know. When you left me at the altar.”
Yuri stands up and walks over to stand, looming, above me. For a moment, I wonder if he’s going to hurt me, but instead he crouches down to my eye level.
I can see the gray flecks in his green eyes. They’re not warm at all—not like Cas’.
“But it’s a matter of pride now,” Yuri continues. “You were supposed to be mine, and he kept stealing you away. You kept running away. It only increased my desire to tie you down to me.”
I force myself to not break eye contact.
“There must be some other girl you care about—or at least did care about, at some point.”
Yuri laughs uproariously.
“As if I need that fucking trouble in my life.”
He holds my face in his hand, keeping his grip steely and immovable.
“And that’s why this marriage works out just perfectly for me. No love. Just a hot wife who I can fuck when I want to, who will bear my children and do nothing to get in my way.”
He kisses me, biting down my lower lip so hard that it bleeds. His eyes are steady and devoid of any emotion.
“And if it so much as looks like you’re trying to do anything suspicious, I swear to fucking god—I’ll break your legs so you can’t go anywhere. I’ll break them every time you try to get away until you get the picture. Got it, honey?”
I nod as much as I can with Yuri’s hand still locked on my face, the blood from my lip slowly oozing onto his fingers.
Not breaking his gaze from mine, Yuri removes his hand and brings it up to his mouth; he licks the blood off with his tongue, grinning like a maniac as he does so.
“I’ll see you in the morning, my love. I have business to attend to.”
Okay, so I can cross off trying to soften Yuri down—he’s a hopeless, ruthless sociopath.
Once he leaves the room, I sigh heavily, then promptly remove the pregnancy test from its hiding place.
I feel like I’ve been staring at it for hours.
It’s my one lifeline, my one, remaining connection to Cas.
I get up and hide it beneath counter in the bathroom, a much safer hider place than under a few easily removable pillows.
And then I scour the room.
There must be something—anything—that I can use to defend myself, should the need arise. I’m perfectly positioned to take my own revenge against my father and my psycho ‘fiancé,’ if I can only figure out how.
Plus, keeping busy stops me from thinking about Cas.
My heart twinges painfully every time he crosses my mind. I just want to break down and cry, but that’s what Yuri is expecting. I don’t want to give him any more fuel he can use to torment me.
I inspect the windows. They can’t be opened, but as is standard with these older houses, the glass isn’t double-glazed. Easily breakable. I can use the glass as a weapon and escape at the same time.
I peer downwards through the glass and only just notice a trellis supporting creeping ivy underneath my room. I’m not particularly tall nor heavy, so I’m reasonably certain it could hold my weight…at least long enough for me to get to a height that’s safe enough to jump down. There are no bodyguards standing in the grounds at the back of the house; I could definitely make my way to the trees before anyone noticed I was gone, possibly even to a car.
All I need to do is get to a house and a phone. Preferably a police station.
I can do this. I just have to bide my time.
And not think about Cas.
Chapter 27
Cas
The artificial smile feels strange on my face. Presenting a
cheerful personality, is driving me crazy.
I push past the annoyance, pretending to be the kind of person who thrives in these situations.
“And you’re both experienced in high end customer service?” The woman before me asks, grinning across at me.
“Absolutely.” I answer, seeing Nico nod at my side.
“Well I must say, this is rather perfect timing. We’ve had a few of the catering staff drop out of the event. Honestly, I was worried we might be shorthanded.”
“My, that is fortuitous.” Nico purrs, his face pulled into a mischievous grin.
The woman, an upscale party planner by the name of Helen, blushes slightly in response, her eyes seeming to lock onto Nico’s intently.
“It is, indeed.” She chuckles, “I’m so glad you boys came by! Just in the nick of time, too. We’d be glad to have you join the team.”
“Fantastic!” Nico says, playing up the enthusiasm a bit too much if you ask me.
“I’ll just go grab a couple of uniforms then,” she says.
That simple. Mission accomplished.
Well, step one of the mission anyway, but I’m feeling optimistic without progress.
Nico and I walk outside minutes later, each with our waiter’s uniform draped across one arm.
It’s been three weeks since the day of the fire, since the day that Yuri once again snatched Ana from my life. Each day has passed slowly, the hours blending together into a haze of searching and frustration. After I finally got Ana back the first time, I thought my days of scouring the earth were over.
Turns out, I was wrong.
Thankfully, this time it didn’t take years to find her. With Yuri understandably eager to tie the knot, their wedding is fast approaching.
It’s kind of hard to keep that kind of buzz under wraps for very long.
Yuri and Ana are to be married at his mansion, where Nico and I are now strolling around in. It’s a colossal monstrosity, much like the man himself. Situated on the edge of town and well-guarded, it’s a damn impenetrable fortress, to most people anyway.
Lucky for me, I’m not most people, and neither is my brother.
In the next moment, Nico and I stand in Yuri’s enormous garden, talking in hushed tones.
