by Sophia Gray
I was losing the baby. I was sure of it. No. No! This wasn’t supposed to happen! The baby was supposed to come in eight months. The baby was supposed to be born naturally. The baby was supposed to be breastfed. The baby was supposed to grow up to be an amazing person who would change the world. His or her life was supposed to be amazing. And long. He or she wasn’t supposed to die before he or she was even born!
All I could do was cry and pray and cry some more.
Chapter 30
Anton
Time was not on my side, but I had to do something. No. I had to do everything in my power to get Lily back, and that meant playing dirty by involving the police.
No, I didn’t call them and explain the situation. I wasn’t stupid like that. And in case I was being tailed by one of Golovkin’s goons, I had to be very discrete. I walked into the mall and walked around until I found one of the men who participated in a few of the fights. I tailed him into a crowded store and made my move. I slid him a hundred-dollar bill and told him to deliver this anonymous file to the local sheriff station and that there would be five hundred more for him at the bar if he finished the job in five minutes.
Four minutes later, Dominic, the guy I had watching the sheriff station, told me the guy had made the delivery.
Good. Very good.
If Vanya Golovkin knew I had evidence of him embezzling money via Garcia Trucking, he would’ve mentioned it on the phone. I had done more digging online, and had been able to collect enough facts and details; combined with the paid transaction I nabbed from his office, this should help the police out. As it turned out, the police in the city where Golovkin had been before moving back here had been mounting a case around him, slowly but surely. Hadn’t been able to make a move on him yet, and from a snitch in the police station who liked to gamble with my men — I had only two friends involved with the men in blue — I learned the cops in my city were sniffing around him ever since he stepped foot here and were in cahoots with the cops from his previous location. The intel I sent their way should be what they needed to be able to finally arrest him.
Going about this elaborate plan, convoluted as it was, to ensure the police received the info without there being a connection to me was necessary. No way did I want the fact that I was helping the police to get out. Didn’t want Golovkin to know. Fuck, I didn’t want anyone to know. Wouldn’t be good for business.
Should I have used my time differently? Should I have tried to gather up the ransom money instead? I knew from Alec through Golovkin’s daughter that Golovkin was stockpiling weapons. He owed someone a lot of money, and he was using me to get the money he owed instead of earning it. The fucking shithead. No wonder he hadn’t made a move on me, hadn’t tried to kill me. He didn’t come back to kill me. He came back to steal my money. Then he probably planned on finishing me off.
Wasn’t going to happen. I would make sure of that.
I gathered all of my men together, every last one. If Golovkin wanted to wage war against me, he would get war in retaliation.
“You know what Vanya Golovkin did to me, did to us, to the Kovalsky mob. How he killed my parents, my family, your brothers and fathers. How he tried to wipe us off the map. Now he’s back, and he’s continuing to take. That’s all he’s ever done. Take. He’s a thief, a murderer, and a coward. He doesn’t deserve to live.”
There were a lot of cheers and grumblings about what they would like to do to Golovkin if given the chance.
I grinned. These were my men. Loyal to a fault. They felt my pain as much as I did. “Golovkin has crossed the line by returning here. He’s stockpiling weapons, and it’s not because he’s going after the police. No. He’s going after us. Are we going to let him kill our children, steal and rape our wives and girlfriends and daughters?”
“No!” they all shouted as one.
“Are we going to go down without a fight?”
“No!” they repeated.
“Alec was a good man. Golovkin had him killed. Lily was…is…” I shook my head. I didn’t know how to describe her or our relationship. “Golovkin won’t stop with Alec and Lily. He’ll keep on taking. Keep on coming. I say we give it to him. Give him slugs to the gut. Take his scalp. Reclaim what is ours. This city!”
The men cheered.
“Let’s move out and infiltrate his house!”
Their roar of approval and applause was deafening. Win or lose, we weren’t going down without a fight.
Only we couldn’t lose. I couldn’t handle that. Not again.
Never again.
We all piled into cars and formed a long caravan. Ever since Alec started sniffing Golovkin’s daughter’s skirts and he located Golovkin’s house, I had two men casing the joint. Luckily for me, I had the foresight to do that. Unluckily for Golovkin, he moved Lily there. Why, I wasn’t sure, especially since I hadn’t found out where he had originally stashed her. If she had stayed there…it wasn’t something I wanted to think about. Bottom line, I knew where she was being held.
What if you’re too late? What if she’s already dead? a voice in the back of my head asked.
Then I would make Golovkin suffer as slow and as painful of a death as possible.
But if I knew Golovkin, and I was pretty sure I understood how his twisted mind worked, he would have Lily alive. He had more need for her to be alive…for now.
But that didn’t mean she hadn’t been seriously injured.
We couldn’t reach his house fast enough.
Chapter 31
Lily
I couldn’t stop crying. The cramping never went away. I was in a haze where only pain existed — physical pain, mental anguish, turmoil, regrets, fear. The minutes, the hours, maybe even the day melted together. I didn’t eat. Hardly drank. My body refused to accept whatever I did put into it. A few people came and left, looking me over, but I didn’t know what they wanted, didn’t care.
In my bubble, I was safe from them – to an extent. To cope, I imagined I was holding my baby instead of my stomach, that he was perfect, that he was so tiny and helpless and needed me to be happy. It got to the point that I didn’t know what was going on anymore. What was real? What was just my imagination? What were dreams versus daydreams?
A few times, I dreamed about Anton. We were house hunting, which was ridiculous because he didn’t need a new house. His house was perfect as it was. Well, it would be perfect if he would get rid of that horde of weapons. I hated guns, hated the need for them, but I was naïve to think he would get rid of them when he clearly did have a need for them.
For some reason, I wasn’t pregnant in the dream, and we were holding hands. Light glittered and reflected from my hand, and I realized I was wearing a huge rock of an engagement ring. Wow. While I loved being engaged to him, I didn’t need a diamond this big. It was as big as my knuckle!
A real estate agent was going over all of the features of the house — the proximity to schools and parks, how close it was to the highway, easy access to stores and shopping and gas. Then she showed us the master bedroom, and she disappeared, and Anton turned to me, with that certain look in his eyes, and suddenly we were naked.
It was almost perfect.
A strange sound cut through my dream, and I returned to my bubble. As if through a tunnel, from faraway, I could hear a sound that repeated endlessly. Cutting through the bubble to reenter reality wasn’t pleasant, but that was the only way I could recognize the sound.
It was gunshots.
And as much as I didn’t like guns, I loved hearing the sound of it right now because it meant one thing: Anton had come for me. My heart pounded, and I forced myself to uncurl from the fetal position. My arms were weak, but I managed to push myself up into a sitting position. Anton is here. He’ll save me.
The door was locked, and I sat there, staring at it, willing it to open, for Anton to be there, for him to bring me home and wash me and love me. But what if he didn’t win? What if Anton got hurt or killed? What if the rescue was a failur
e?
Don’t think like that. Don’t think at all.
Chapter 32
Anton
As soon as my car, the first in our caravan, arrived on the scene, I opened the door and tumbled out. “Let’s move,” I said.
We parked out on the street around the back of the asshole’s place. We could drive up to the front gate, ram it through with a car, and storm the place easily enough, but no way did we want Golovkin to lock his gate and trap us in here. Golovkin had to be paranoid or else he wouldn’t have loaded up on firearms, and he had to have at least considered my men and I might show up uninvited. If he knew me at all, he should be waiting for us all to arrive. There was no way in Hell I would bring him the ransom money.
I looked around for surveillance. The back of the house looked inconspicuous enough, and it didn’t look like he had any guards out so we hopefully had the element of surprise on our hands, though there very well could be some guys hiding away, which was why I waved my hands down, telling my men without words to sneak on in.
Climbing over a metal fence while carrying guns wasn’t easy, and it sure wasn’t a quiet undertaking, but we all made our way up and over. I was there first, and I loved the weight of the gun in my hand. I had been shooting since I was eight. Some might consider that irresponsible, saying kids shouldn’t shoot weapons, but when your parents were murdered, you had to try to do whatever you could to reclaim a little bit of power and control back in your life, and for me, that meant going to the shooting range and learning how to master guns of various sizes.
It was impossible to really sneak up to the house since it wasn’t nighttime and there weren’t any shadows, but we made it to the back door without a single shot being fired. I considered that a win.
Nathanial, one of my men, picked the lock of the back door and swung it open.
That’s when the first gun went off — one of theirs.
Nathanial slumped over without even gasping first. There wasn’t time to move his body out of the way. It was either push our way inside now or allow them the chance to pour out of the house, and we pushed our way in all right. We forced our way inside the door, and from the sounds of glass shattering behind me, it sounded like some of my men forced their way inside through windows, too.
I had expressly forbidden any of them to bring along semi-automatics or full automatics. I did not want to risk a wild shot hitting Lily. The same couldn’t be said of Golovkin’s men, however, and I ducked behind a side table and took my time, using my gun as if it were a rifle, and I mowed down those firing the mega rounds off.
Golovkin himself wasn’t anywhere around that I could see. He had been busy, those years after he killed my family, and the sheer number of men he had in his house meant he had definitely planned for an attack, and damn it all if he wasn’t adequately prepared for it.
My ears were already ringing. There was a reason why people wore mufflers when firing at a shooting range.
Each time one of my men fell, I winced and sent up a mental prayer for them. I hadn’t wanted this. I may have wanted my revenge, but I had wanted it to come down to Vanya Golovkin and myself. No, that wasn’t completely true. I had drawn it out myself by wanting to ruin him through his family, as he had done with mine. If I hadn’t been so damn selfish, if I had just sought out my revenge immediately instead of playing bullshit games, none of this would have ever happened. Lily would still be safe. Lily never should have ever been involved in this at all. Once again, Golovkin had found a way to hurt someone I cared about.
I shot and shot and shot some more. My hands didn’t shake, and I hit more than I missed, but inwardly, I was trembling with rage. This was all my fault. I wouldn’t blame Lily if she blamed me for this. It really was my fault. She would be better off without me. What can I give her but more of the same?
If she wanted out, if she wanted to be free, I would let her go. I never understood the saying about loving someone and letting him or her go so that if they came back, you would know it really was love. But now I did. If I had to let her go, I would hope and pray she would come back to me. I would do anything for that. I would change. I would become a better man. Hell, I wanted to be a better man for myself. All of the rage and anger I had been living off of for so long had blinded me to how good my life had been. I hadn’t cared about my money or my family — my men, my mob. Out of the tragedy of losing my parents, I had forged myself a new family, but that hadn’t been enough for me and it should’ve been. I never should have been so caught up in revenge.
Bullets flew, and one whizzed so close to me I had to duck. We were in the house, but none of us had left the entranceway. It was time to move forward, to press the attack. I nodded to my men and signaled for them to fan out. We moved onward and pressed inward, and I darted into the first room I saw, closing the door behind me just in case anyone was following me. It was a bathroom. Empty. I turned to leave, when I heard rustling.
I shoved aside the shower curtain. Cowering in the tub was one of Golovkin’s men. “Please,” he begged, his eyes wide, his hands raised. My ears were still ringing from all of the gunshots, but I could hear him, even if just barely. “Please don’t kill me. I…I have a family. A wife. Two young kids.” He reached toward his side.
I aimed my gun at him. “Don’t move.”
He winced. Maybe I was talking too loudly. “I just want to show you… their picture,” he said. “My wallet…”
“Where?”
“Back left pocket.”
I made him stand up and turn around and grabbed out his wallet. He slowly turned back around as I opened it. Cute pictures of a little boy and girl playing in the sand, a picture of the guy and a beautiful woman in front of a nice but small house.
Not lowering the gun, I handed him back the wallet. “I’m—”
“I know who you are. I…Vanya’s my cousin and…” He winced. “Shouldn’t have said that…”
“I’m not here to kill just anyone,” I said hotly. “You fire at me, and I’ll fire back. You haven’t, but if you want to live, I suggest you start talking. Where is the bastard?”
“My cousin? Last I heard, he went out to buy more bullets, but he should’ve been back by now.”
“Where is he?” I growled, jabbing him with the nozzle of my gun.
The guy winced. “Probably upstairs. Look, I know I’m a coward. I shouldn’t have dashed in here, but…when push comes to shove, I pick my family over my cousin. Maybe that’s not right, but…yeah, it’s not right. I take his money. I do what he asks of me. I’ve done things…”
“We’ve all done things. Upstairs where? His bedroom? East, west?”
“Last door on the left. But he might be holed up in the basement. That’s where he keeps his armory. You really don’t want to go down there.”
“His wife and kids?”
“Aren’t here. Haven’t been since…” The guy glanced away.
“Since he realized one of my guys was involved with one of his daughters.”
The guy nodded.
“Is she…”
“Sent to live out of the country was what I heard. He won’t hurt one of his own. I don’t think. His vendetta against—”
The door opened. One of Golovkin’s men stood in the doorway. He raised his gun.
I grabbed Golovkin’s cousin and shoved him down as I ducked and fired. My second shot got the guy in the temple.
I turned to the cousin. “Get the hell out of here,” I barked. “Too many loose bullets, and you have a family to get back to.”
He nodded, pulled out a gun from his boot, and handed it to me. “You didn’t deserve all of this.”
Maybe, maybe not. I definitely played the game, and now a ton of men were caught up in the crosshairs, dying for a pointless war. Golovkin deserved to die for what he had done years ago and for what he had done now, but the others…who could say if they should be killed, too?
I left the bathroom and fired shots to cover my ass as I made my way toward the stai
rs. It might be smart to sabotage the armory, but I had come here first to save Lily, not for revenge. She was what mattered most.
A few of my men followed me upstairs, and I did whisper to Nicolai about the armory so he could look into it if he found the opportunity to. There were even more men upstairs, which made me believe either Lily was up here or maybe his cousin had been right, and Golovkin was, or maybe they both were.
Lily. I’m coming for you. I’ll save you. If it’s the last thing I do.
Chapter 33
Lily
It sounded like a world war was going on outside of these four walls, my prison. I was terrified, afraid to move, afraid to leave, afraid to stay. My stomach was cramping again, and I felt lightheaded, woozy. I had to brace a hand against the wall to keep from falling over. Should I try to make a break for it? Try to find one of Anton’s men, to find Anton himself? It might be better to stay put. All those guns going off, all of those bullets…the last thing I wanted was to be caught in the crossfire.
