WASHED AWAY

by RC Boldt

He shakes his head, amusement tugging at his lips. “I offer him employment again, and he still refused.” He surveys me from head to toe, and his grin widens, evil joy shining through. “He was facing some…personal challenges. Then the unthinkable happened.”

  Expression morphing to faux pity, he pauses his pacing. “Tragedy fell upon his family. His father murdered his mother and sister before killing himself.”

  Ohgodno. An invisible fist reaches inside my rib cage to clench my heart in its unyielding grip.

  “But as it so happens, some critical information arose shortly thereafter indicating that it hadn’t been a murder-suicide after all.”

  Sergei’s voice drops lower, exuding pure menace. “We reached out to inform him that his family had been executed by none other than”—he pauses dramatically—“Grigory Yurchenko.”

  Chapter 69

  ALEXANDRA

  My head snaps back in shock. What?! Please, no. It can’t be true.

  “Yurchenko had always been known for his choice of weapon.” A mocking smile forms on his lips. “He favored knives over guns. Just like you.”

  He inspects his gun closely, tracing a finger lovingly along the barrel before darting the quickest of glances at Dev. “I don’t take well to being outdone, so I took it upon myself to find Yurchenko. I sent my men to kill him once and for all.”

  A deep, resounding laugh rumbles free of him, but it’s devoid of humor. Instead, it’s overripe with malice. “You see, my father was weak. He wasn’t a true leader like me. He granted Yurchenko leave.”

  Unadulterated hatred bleeds from his tone each time he speaks Papa’s name, and it acts like the sharpest of knives slicing me through to the bone. “My father was nothing like me. He accepted the disrespect from Yurchenko. Took it happily.” His mouth curls up in disgust. “So, I took charge. I set things right, finally, after all these years.”

  “You’re wrong.” My eyes flit briefly to Dev and his instinctive raising of his gun to hit me, but he pauses. I pin Sergei with eyes that blaze with hatred of my own. “You’re the one who’s weak and not a true—”

  This time, my jaw takes the bulk of the hit when Dev swings the pistol at my face once again. I crash into the wall, planting my palms against it to steady myself.

  The metallic taste of blood hits my tongue, and I spit it out. Glowering rage lights up the asshole’s eyes when it lands on the toe of his fancy shoe, and I revel in it.

  “As you can see, Dev is more…physical than I am.” Sergei raises one hand, spreading his fingers apart. “I consider it below my pay grade, so to speak. But I digress…

  “No one knew of your existence.” A brief pause suspends in the air. “Until you came after my men.” He narrows his eyes. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say, because your methods of killing my men were eerily similar to Yurchenko’s.

  “I assigned my best men to dig up what they could, and lo and behold, we found you.” He cocks his head to the side, dark amusement lining his features. “But you turned out to be more of a surprise than we ever expected.”

  His eyes cut to Dev before returning to me. “The six degrees of separation ring far truer than one might realize.” Ominous premonition tiptoes down my spine, as if I somehow know his next words will deliver a blow. “Especially when it turns out that you and Dev have much in common.”

  Confusion plagues me, and it must be evident because Dev chuckles darkly, drawing my eyes back to where he stands a few feet away in front of me. We’re nearly the same height, although he’s the slightest fraction taller.

  His expression sends unease coursing through me. An invisible force has me helpless to look away from him, and my eyes track the slow curve of his mouth as it forms a wide grin. His smile holds an odd quality, and it tugs on a discarded wisp of a memory…

  Recognition slams into me with the force of a freight train, and my breath suspends painfully in my chest.

  “You.” A single word is all I can utter, my tone nearly inaudible.

  His grin widens as he mocks me with, “Me.”

  Horrified, I’m held captive by his stare. By his arrogance. Nearly suffocated by his menacing presence.

  The man I’d always known was evil. My father’s half brother—my uncle—Roman Chidozie Medvedev.

  “You got away.” Each word emerges, enveloped in fury, as his gaze hardens to granite. “You weren’t supposed to.”

  My mouth parts, and I’m barely able to form coherent words. “You did that? You set it up that day?” Molten fury floods me, my voice rising in volume with each word. “You killed my parents!”

  He scoffs, making a derisive sound. “Don’t act like you mourned for your father. He practically hated you on sight.”

  I steel my spine against his barbed-wire words while my mind reels. Uncle Roman. He rarely came around when I was younger. Over what was likely four total times in my entire childhood that I saw him, it was always brief, thanks to my mother picking up on my discomfort and intervening.

  “Why?”

  He huffs out a laugh, as if I’m an imbecile asking the sum of one plus one. “It was necessary to tie up loose ends because I was on the brink of proving myself to be a leader not to be trifled with.

  “Your father was always trying to do the right thing. He kept getting in the way. Sticking his nose in my business.” He wrinkles his face in disgust. “He never understood my ambitions.”

  He pauses, eyes narrowing sharply, as though I’m to blame for what he considers my father’s shortcomings. “So, I played the small, local gangs like a fiddle, proving the strength of the Orekskaya Bratva. Proving I could lead and be powerful enough to eventually join with the Bolsevska Bratva and bring all others to their knees.”

  Emotions in turmoil, I wish I had the time to process this revelation. Because as much as I hate this man before me, he also played a role in my life—in bettering it.

  Without his nefarious actions, I would never have experienced the nurturing home and love of Papa.

  There’s a chance I would’ve never had the insight or confidence to grow into the woman I’ve become.

  I wouldn’t have had a father who adored me and loved me. Who protected me yet afforded me so many opportunities I wouldn’t have otherwise been granted.

  But he stole my mother. He stole part of my innocence. No child should ever bear witness to the murder of their parents.

  No child should ever be riddled with terror in the midst of a firefight.

  His gaze suddenly lifts, focusing on something or someone behind me. Perhaps his asshole lackey has returned.

  When I dart a glance at Sergei, satisfaction lines his features first before giving way to something else that resembles confusion and perhaps even disappointment.

  Sergei speaks first, breaking the oddly tense silence. “Ahh, look what the cat dragged in.”

  “You look surprised.”

  That voice… Every molecule of my being freezes in shock. It takes every ounce of restraint to suppress my reaction. But internally, the bottom of my stomach plummets to my feet.

  I should’ve known better than to think he’d let me do this alone. Though I haven’t known Liam for long, a man who would go on the run at a moment’s notice—all for a woman with no recollection of who she is—wouldn’t take to being abandoned. Even if my intentions were pure.

  Sergei narrows his gaze. “Let’s just say I wasn’t expecting you to look so…healthy for a man who refused treatment.”

  Refused treatment? My mind races to make sense of their conversation.

  Liam steps up beside me, and that same prickle of awareness bombards me. My fingertips twitch with the urge to reach for him, but my confusion suppresses it, locking it down tightly.

  “It’s because I don’t have cancer anymore.” Liam offers this calmly, so matter-of-factly, that shock bleeds through to the marrow of my bones and all oxygen lodges in my chest.

  Surprise casts over Sergei’s expression. His beady eyes practically bore
holes into Liam’s flesh. “How is this possible? You were barely given a few years to live.”

  Liam’s shrug may not be physical, but it’s present in his tone. “I wasn’t ready to die yet. Figured I’d give it a shot and try to heal myself.”

  This time, he lifts a shoulder in a partial shrug. “Who knew that living in the jungle with fresh air and plenty of sunlight and eating all the right things could cure me.” He doesn’t pose this as a question, but his tone takes on more than a hint of a challenge.

  A beat of stunned silence passes, then Liam offers in a deceptively casual tone, “You seem disappointed.” He lets a pause linger. “You weren’t planning to make me come on board to prove something to the other Bratvas and then kill me off since I was dying anyway, were you?”

  Disgust colors Sergei’s expression, and it ripens deeper before my eyes. “Bratva business is not for you to be privy of.”

  Inundated with details I’ve just been exposed to, my mind revolts. Liam had cancer and was expected to die? What else has he kept hidden from me?

  Tone turning sharp and demanding, Sergei switches gears. “It certainly took you long enough. What was the delay?”

  Liam doesn’t hesitate, expression nonplussed. “You know what took so long. You sent assholes to kill us.”

  I can’t help but gape at the man who doesn’t offer me even the barest of glances. As if I’m nothing to him.

  And it dawns on me, at this moment, exactly what Sergei had asked Liam.

  “What was the delay?”

  Ohdeargod.

  Chapter 70

  ALEXANDRA

  “I see you’re putting the pieces together.” My eyes snap to Sergei as a fresh brand of terror rips through me.

  “Yesss…” He draws out the word, hissing like a snake. “Dr. King made us a deal that he would come out of retirement for me—”

  “For us,” my bastard uncle interjects sharply, his tone pure frost.

  Deep lines of distaste bracket Sergei’s mouth as he continues without so much as a glance at my uncle. “As long as he was given the opportunity to kill the murderer of his family.

  “Even though Yurchenko died, once we found you, you became the next best thing. The daughter of the guilty must suffer.”

  My mouth parts in disbelief, my lungs seizing in my chest while I stare in horror at the man I gave my heart to. The man I thought cherished me in his own way.

  And it’s all been a lie.

  Not only was I delivered to him on a silver platter, but I gave myself to him. Willingly.

  Faux concern pollutes Sergei’s voice. “Ah…you weren’t expecting that, were you, Miss Yurchenko?”

  Liam won’t even look at me. He can’t be bothered to even glance in my direction. He already deems me worthless.

  Betrayal suffocates me, blanketing me in thick layers while a different brand of agony hollows my heart, leaving a barren wasteland in its place.

  Now, I’m faced with a completely different man. Though his features are hard as granite and unreadable as usual, it’s the only resemblance he bears to the doctor who made house calls to patients in board shorts and a T-shirt. To the man who accepted various forms of payment in exchange for medical care.

  Dressed in all-black tactical gear, Liam resembles the man he likely once was before he settled in Panama.

  Perhaps I’m finally being granted an unvarnished view of the real Liam King. The Boogeyman, as they called him.

  The mercenary who came out of retirement in order to kill me.

  My stomach roils as I force out the question to a stone-faced Liam. “When? When were they murdered?”

  His eyes don’t flicker with an ounce of recognition. It’s as if I’d imagined the fire inside him. The glimmer of heat when he looked at me.

  The affection when he made love to me.

  No. Bitterness rapidly rises within me, nearly boiling over. No, he fucked me. In more ways than one.

  Icy disdain coats my voice as I repeat, “When did they die?”

  His lips barely move, each word forced from between clenched teeth. “Two years ago.”

  Determination surges to the forefront, edging aside a fraction of my pain. “When exactly?”

  “March tenth.” Jaw tight, a muscle in it flexes. “Two years ago, March tenth.”

  A tiny thread of resigned calmness flutters over me at his response, but it’s overshadowed by anguish.

  I hold Liam’s steely gaze with my own while the words are raked from my throat, scratching the insides with each heartbreaking truth. “You lied to me.” I despise how my voice cracks with emotion. “Everything was a lie.”

  “You have feelings for him!” Sergei tosses his head back, deep laughter echoing within the expanse of the hangar, drawing my attention. “This is better than I expected.” He lets loose another laugh before his amusement dies, features sobering and turning calculated.

  Gaze canvassing Liam, he frowns like a disappointed parent. “I put the bounty on your heads because you didn’t follow through accordingly. I allotted you time to torture her and dispose of her as you wished.”

  Eyes glittering dangerously, Sergei’s voice takes on a more lethal tone. “You forget that you are no longer self-employed. You answer to me. And I say no one affiliated to Yurchenko deserves to live.” Venom bleeds from every word, his lip curling up in distaste. “Now, you give me no choice but to finish it myself.”

  He raises his gun, aiming directly at me, but a split second before he fires that bullet, Liam shoves me out of the way. I lose my balance, teetering off to the side, while Liam’s vest absorbs the bullet’s impact.

  It’s a blur with how quickly Liam draws two guns and fires twice at Sergei, his body now collapsed on the floor.

  I reach out for the wall to steady myself, but a strong arm bands around my arms, and the muzzle of a gun digs into my temple. My bastard uncle rushes us backward, away from Liam and out the open hangar door.

  Holding me tight, he uses me as a human shield once again. Liam advances but halts when Roman warns, “Don’t do it, King. Unless you want her brains splattered everywhere.”

  Liam visibly hesitates but doesn’t lower his weapon. Roman’s laugh is filled with malevolence. “I’d planned to eliminate Sergei soon enough. You did me a favor just now.”

  He moves us closer to where the helicopter sits. “Your mother and sister suffered greatly. Did you know that, King?”

  Liam’s features are pure granite, but it’s his eyes… God, how they splinter with pain at Roman’s ugly taunt.

  The bastard continues his venomous words, and arrogance oozes from his tone. “And then you played right into our hands.”

  We’re only a few steps away from the helicopter, and I can practically feel frustration roll off Liam in thick waves. Roman maintains his punishing hold on me, keeping me in front of him while he crouches slightly to match my height.

  “I thought you were a man of your word, King.” His taunting voice holds a caustic edge. “You were supposed to kill her. Not fuck her for months on end.”

  Emotions war within me, swirling hot and fast. To Liam, everything may have been a lie. But it wasn’t for me.

  I still love him—even if I wish I didn’t. Even though I was only a pawn in this sick, twisted game they’ve all been playing.

  Roman’s arm bands tighter around me, making my lungs burn. Addressing me now, his tone turns arctic. “It was a misfortune that you got away when I killed your family, but now I’m leaving you in the hands of a murderer. The man who’s planned to kill you all along.”

  A step away from the base of the helicopter, Roman abruptly shoves me forward, thrusting me toward Liam, and fires his gun.

  Searing pain radiates through me as my body jerks, and I tumble at Liam’s feet. The helicopter’s blades begin their whip, whip, whip, preparing for take-off.

  A thick line of red streaks down my arm, trailing down past my wrist while debilitating pain lances through my left side. My vision grows h
azy around the edges, and I instinctively reach for my side, only to bite back a hiss when my hand encounters wetness.

  Liam hovers over me where I lie on the ground, eyes furiously searching my body before returning to my face.

  “Get him.” My command is delivered far weaker than I’d prefer.

  Liam barely offers the helicopter a glance as it lifts off and rapidly speeds away into the night sky. A muscle in his jaw flexes wildly, and I use all my effort to sit upright, clamping my lips tight to suppress the agonizing cry the movement elicits.

  When he reaches out for me, I jerk away from his touch, and a pained sound rushes past my lips before I can stifle it. His brows descend sternly. “Be careful.”

  Be careful? I inwardly scoff. I was just shot by my murderous uncle and left with the man who’d planned to torture and murder me.

  Incredulity must show on my face because his expression shutters. “I need to make sure the bullets haven’t hit anything crucial.”

  Steeling my spine, I lift my chin. “There’s no need to play games anymore.” Anguish and regret cleave at my heart while a part of me wishes there could’ve been a different outcome. “All I ask is if you’re going to kill me, do it quickly.” I close my eyes, bracing myself.

  Because although he shoved me out of the way of Sergei’s bullet, his alliance doesn’t lie with me. That much is crystal clear.

  Silence follows, and every fiber in my body grows more tense by the second as I sit slumped over in pain. Dread that he’ll prolong this just as he’d planned overwhelms me with tsunami-like force.

  Suddenly, what feels like two tons of pressure is placed over the wound at my side, sending scalding agony rippling through me with a vengeance. I wish I had the strength to shove it away, but it takes all my effort to mash my lips together to suppress whimpers of pain.

  My limbs grow weaker as a sense of finality settles in deep.

  This is the end.

  The only consolation is the hope that I’ll be reunited with my mother and Papa. That none of the physical or emotional pain Liam caused me will linger.