by Jane Henry
Amaranov smirks and it sickens me. “Not so simple, Federov. Do you wish to spend life in prison? Pointing a gun at an official will have you serving life behind bars.”
Demyan doesn’t respond. He’s willing to do whatever it takes.
“Fuck prison,” he says. “I’ll lay in a grave before you touch her. So kill me. I’ll come back from the dead and haunt your every waking hour.” He stalks toward us, his gun so close to Amaranov, it nearly touches him. “You will see her sister is taken care of. You will pay your son for his work. Then you will go on with your job as if none of this ever happened. We will see to it that your funds are taken care of free of charge.” Demyan smiles mirthlessly and his voice drops to a lethal whisper. “And you will scour the memory of the Brague sisters from your mind.”
I love him. This fearless, possessive man, ferocious and loyal to the death.
Amaranov shakes his head. “Never,” he says. “You filthy criminal.”
Demyan cocks his gun, prepared to shoot.
“If you kill me, you’ll never see the light of day again,” Amaranov continues.
I can’t breathe, there’s so much pressure on my chest. Something is going to break, and I can’t let it be me.
Amaranov turns to me, reaches for my arm, when a shot rings out behind him. I scream when crimson stains Amaranov between his eyes, and his hulking body slumps to the floor with a crash that makes everything around us rattle. Was it Demyan? But no, Demyan is as surprised as I am.
I look at the room behind this office, shocked to see Amaranov’s wife walking in the room coolly, holding a pistol, her lips pressed in a thin line.
“It’s a shame the pressure of the jobs caused my husband to kill himself,” she says as she crouches beside him and arranges his fingers around the pistol. “Such a shame he left me a goodbye note.” Her voice hardens. “Such a shame he’ll never take another innocent girl as his mistress.”
She stands and walks to Glen. “So sad his son had to witness his last moments, when he came to make peace?”
She kicks the lifeless body.
“It’s an end to an era.”
Demyan and I go to Calina. He gets to her first, kneels in front of her, and lifts her wrist.
“Her pulse is weak,” he says. “We will get her to a doctor immediately.”
He instructs Maksym to do the rounds outside, then makes a few calls to his brothers, and when he stands I kneel by her side. I hold her hand. I plead to the universe not to take her, not to let this all have been in vain.
The Bratva swarms Amaranov’s place, so quickly, so efficiently, moments after they leave it looks as if nothing ever happened but Amaranov’s suicide. When our ride arrives, Demyan picks Calina up and carries her himself to the car that awaits outside. Something in me aches to see him holding my sister like she’s a child, close to his chest, his steps firm but gentle, as if he doesn’t want to hurt her. We leave.
We don’t speak on the ride. Filip drives the car and Demyan sit in the passenger seat. I’m not sure what I want to say to Demyan, or how to even begin to talk to him. Everything that led us to this moment no longer matters. Instead, I turn to Calina. She hasn’t opened her eyes since I arrived. I hold her hand as we drive to the compound, and weirdly, hope surges in my chest at the sight of the familiar place.
Demyan has Calina brought to a guest room, where several doctors and paramedics already wait. They swarm around Calina, taking her vitals, and moments after investigating her wound, pronounce it superficial. The Bratva doctor turns to me. “She’ll need a blood transfusion, medication, and rest,” he says. “But she will be fine.”
I hold myself steady with considerable effort.
“Thank you,” I whisper, reaching to gently touch Calina’s shoulder.
The sun sets low in the sky when Calina finally rests, under the doctor’s watchful eye, and Demyan beckons a finger to me.
“Come with me, Ca—” he stops himself before he calls me Calina. He swallows hard and amends his words. “Come with me.”
“I don’t want to leave her,” I tell him. “If she wakes and doesn’t know where she is—”
“She won’t wake for a long time yet,” the doctor assures me.
I worry my lip, looking at her.
“Get some rest,” the doctor suggests, but his gaze is on Demyan. He knows as well as I do that he doesn’t take no for an answer.
“Come with me.” The tiniest bud of hope blossoms in my chest when he reaches for my hand.
I want to climb on his lap and lay my head on his chest. I want to cry for the pain we’ve gone through, the lies I’ve told, his insistence on taking care of my sister. He isn’t the monster I thought he was. He isn’t the monster he thought he was.
Wordlessly, we walk together. We finally reach his suite. As if on auto-pilot, he lets us in, wearily gestures for me to go in ahead of him, then closes the door behind him. Turning to me, he draws me to him. I tremble, my hands coming to rest on his shoulders.
“My kisa,” he begins, the familiar name for me making tears spring to my eyes. “Will you sit with me and tell me everything?”
“Happily, sir,” I say, surprising myself that even now, I call him sir. But that’s who he is. I may not be his captive any longer, but I am his girl and he the master of my heart. He sits wearily on the overstuffed chair by the window, takes me by the hand, and draws me onto his lap. I don’t talk at first. When I lay my head against his shoulder, the tears I’ve held all day begin to fall.
“I thought you didn’t want me anymore,” I cry, like a little girl whose puppy just died.
“Sweet girl,” he says in a pained voice, drawing me so fiercely to him I can’t breathe. “I have no claim on you. There’s nothing, no one I want more in the world than you. I just can’t keep you.”
“But what if I want to be kept?”
“Christ,” he growls, kissing my forehead, my temples, my tear-stained cheeks. “I would give anything to have you stay, but now it’s of your own free will.”
“I meant those vows,” I sob. “I don’t care what anyone else says. I know you aren’t the monster you say you are. I know you’ll do anything to protect me.” My voice cracks. “And I love you, Demyan. I love you.”
“My brave, strong, fearless girl,” he says in a vehement whisper. “There is nothing I want more than to devote the rest of my life to do just that. Keep you as my own.” He rocks me against his chest. “I could hurt you,” he warns. “I’m not a safe man.”
“I don’t want safe,” I promise.
“I will always be tied here. I can’t leave, moya lyubov.”
My love.
“I know,” I tell him. “And neither can I. I need to see my sister is well cared for.”
My heart squeezes. He continues. “But before we make plans, I need to know the full story. Tell me everything. It is no longer time for half-truths.”
“I’ll start at the very beginning.”
I tell him of my father, how he was killed, how Calina was hospitalized and I thought dead. How I thought at the time it best I remain off the grid, that on record I did not exist. How I visited her and kept tabs on her, and how I found out she’d been stealing from them. He listens, quietly running his fingers through my tangle of hair. I tell him how I took her place and sent her to live with Glen, and how I had no idea at all that he had any affiliation with Amaranov.
“My only clue was that the man who came here and killed Anatoly, he looked familiar. I couldn’t understand why, as I mostly don’t venture out to see people. But Glen had a picture, and I remembered afterward.”
He nods, and listens, encouraging me to continue and not stopping me at all. When I get to the part about him taking me, he shakes his head.
“I didn’t understand why you were supposedly mentally unwell, when you seemed so lucid to me.” I remember those early hours with him when he tried to ascertain my mental state. “I thought you’d fooled them.” He smiles sadly. “But it was I you foo
led.”
I rest my hand on his shoulder, gently tracing the soft cotton collar of his shirt. “And now what?” I whisper. “Where does this leave us?”
I don’t want to leave him. I look up at his eyes. He’s looking at my sorrowfully, shaking his head.
“I can’t hold you here when you are an innocent woman.” Taking my hand in his, he lifts my fingers and kisses them, one at a time. “I meant what I said. I will see to it that you and your sister are well-provided for. She isn’t culpable for what she did, and I consider your debt paid.”
But no. I’m not going down without a fight.
“So those vows you said were a lie?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I say, pushing off his lap so I can stand in front of him. Above him, even, with him below me as I anchor my hands on my hips. “You said you have no claim on me and that I’m not yours to keep, and yet you said vows to me. I heard those vows,” I say, my voice shaking now. “I felt those vows.” I don’t bother to stop the tears that blur my vision. “And I meant them, too.”
He watches me rant quietly, his lips pressed together. Then he pats his lap and orders, in a low voice I’m trained to obey, “Come here.”
Swallowing hard, I do. On trembling legs, I go to him, and gently fold myself onto his lap.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” he finally says, one finger under my chin to hold my gaze.
I swallow. “Yes?”
“Tell me your name.”
Chapter 21
“Larissa,” she says, holding my gaze.
“Larissa,” I repeat. “This is fitting. A new life together with a new name.”
Her eyes widen with hope as she looks at me. “A new life together?” she whispers. “Do you mean it?”
I expected her to run when she was free, but she didn’t. She didn’t seek her freedom and a new life.
She sought her life right here, with me.
“We can’t raise a family while I run the Bratva,” I tell her. “Others have tried and failed. My family are my brothers here. Do you understand that, Larissa?”
“I do, Demyan,” she whispers. “My only family are you and Calina.” She places a hand atop mine. “And that’s all I need. I’m not suitable for motherhood, anyway.” Frowning, she looks about the suite. “And I’m not sure where a crib would go in here, anyway.”
That makes me laugh. God, it feels good to laugh again. To touch her. To have her by my side, no longer obligated to me but here of her own free will.
I need to tell my brothers that things are going to change, that she will stay here as my wife. I pick up my phone just as it rings.
“Demyan.” It’s Filip.
“Yes?”
“Maksym’s been taken.”
Larissa holds my hand, tightening her grip when she feels my body go taut.
“Taken by whom?”
“Looks like the Thieves,” Filip says. “But we will find him.”
I hang up the phone and hold my wife’s hand before I tell her what happened. Our rivals… somehow connected to Amaranov still.
We need to find Maksym.
“I don’t know what happened,” Larissa says. “But whatever it is, you can handle this. And I’ll be by your side as you do.” She takes in a deep breath. “Let me help.”
I hold her to my chest, letting her strength fuel mine. Breathing her soft, sweet scent.
Inhaling her purity.
“Stay with me.”
She clasps her hand in mine.
“Always.”
Chapter 22
It’s one full week since Maksym’s been taken. Calina is recovering well, in a room by the library on the first floor of the compound. She doesn’t remember a thing about Amaranov or her brief captivity, and seems to think her room is a sort of upgrade from her hospital stay. But Larissa is with her now. It warms my heart to see the two of them walking the grounds, hand in hand, sunshine beaming down on them like a benediction from above.
“Will you please let me,” she begs.
“You aren’t helping,” I tell her. “If I have to lock you up to keep you away from all of this, I will.” Though I warn her, she doesn’t heed me, pacing up and down in the dining room while she rants at me and my brothers.
“I’m better at this than any of you,” she says without a hint of humility, because she’s right. In the past few days while they held Maksym, she’s shown she knows her way around a computer better than any of us.
“I belong here,” she says. “You know it and I do, too.” The other men raise their eyes to me, likely surprised I’m allowing her to talk to me this way, but after what she’s gone through, I need to let her speak her mind. I will not silence her again.
“And anyway,” she says with a note of triumph in her voice. “I’ve already tracked the call.”
I look quickly at Filip, who looks back at me and nod. “She’s right,” he admits. “She’s better than I am. We need to listen to her.”
“Let me at a computer,” she says. “I’ll find him.”
And she does. She fucking does. Her fingers stroke the keys with expert precision, her bottom lip drawn between her teeth while she focuses. Within minutes, she’s on her feet, my men already loading their weapons, ready for a take down.
I’m on my feet, pacing in the second room beside mine that is now an office. My men have been trying to track down Maksym, but we’ve come to a roadblock every time. Every night, though Larissa is with me, I toss and turn, knowing my brother is out there. Likely being tortured, trying to find out the secrets he’ll take with him to the death.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“In a compound in the city,” she says. “Take me. I’ll help you break in.”
I scowl at her. I don’t want her anywhere near where someone can hurt her. But at the same time, I despise the thought of her being taken.
“I can handle myself,” she says, noting my hesitation. I narrow my eyes on her, but I can’t help but admire her gall.
“I’m sure you can,” I tell her, pausing for a second to run my hand through her hair. “But I want you safe.”
“If you want me safe, then protect me,” she says. “I’ll let you if you give me a fucking gun.”
I love her. Christ, I love this fierce, brilliant, headstrong woman.
She’ll let me protect her.
“Fine,” I tell her. “You come with me but Calina stays here, and I swear to God if you don’t do what I say you’ll regret it.” I give her what I hope is a forbidding look, but she only shakes me off. “You come with me, but you follow commands like anyone else in the brotherhood. Understood?”
She nods eagerly and squeezes my hand. “Let’s go get him,” she says in a heated whisper.
It takes thirty minutes for us to get to him. We go over how we’ll rescue him with my men, and when we arrive, it looks like they never expected us at all. There’s one sleepy guard by the door, and none on the perimeter. They thought they were in the clear, but none anticipated Larissa’s ability to discover them.
I whisper commands to the men and Larissa. She’s to stay put, the rest will ambush the one man, except one who will remain as scout.
“On three,” I say, holding up my fingers.
One.
Two.
Three.
We move like lethal assassins, swiftly and silently. Larissa stays behind, shooting me a scowl because she wants in on the action. I’ve been teaching her how to shoot and she fancies herself quite the shot, but she’s got a ways to go yet. We reach the door, and the man quickly opens his eyes and grabs at his gun, but it’s too late. He’s on the ground, immobilized, while Filip focuses on the lock.
“They’re coming!” I hear Larissa hissing behind me. “Skip the fucking lock. Knock out the window!” But it won’t work. Maksym’s way too large to fit through that window. I shake my head, push Filip out of the way, and do my best to undo the lock, but it’s encrypted and bey
ond my skills. We hear shouts in the distance, and I curse, my fingers fumbling.
“Let me!” Larissa is beside me, shoving me out of the way.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter. I don’t want her on the fucking field like this, but I do need her now.
“You need me and you know it,” she mutters, her little tongue sticking out adorably while she picks the lock.
I do.
Goddamn it, I do.
They’re coming closer. Tree limbs snap and gunshots ring, just as the lock falls open and she shoves the door open with glee. We run inside, shutting the door to give us another moment to rescue Maksym while our cover holds them off.
Oh, God. Bile rises in my throat at the sight of the man I call brother, naked and abused, lying on the floor of this cell. His eyes are swollen shut, his lip bloodied and distended, his powerful body a series of lacerations and bruises. Larissa cries openly beside me, swiping at her eyes angrily as her little fingers maneuver the cuffs that bind him. She knows what she’s doing and she’s brought tools with her, and soon, the cuffs fall to the floor. I heave Maksym to my shoulder with considerable effort when I hear our truck crash to a stop right outside the door.
“Go!” I tell her. “And for God’s sake, be careful!”
Our men have held them back, though. Amidst gun shots that grow closer by the second, I toss Maksym in the back seat. They’re here. They’ve got us surrounded. One grabs Larissa by the hair, and with a feral snarl, I pull the trigger inches from his head. She shrieks when his blood spatters her clothing and face, but I continue shooting, his body writhing and twitching under the onslaught of bullets. With one quick tug, I grab her arm and haul her into the truck.
“Go!” I tell the driver. The rest of my men will hold off our enemies. Maksym and Larissa are my job now.
We get back to our compound late at night. Maksym is disoriented and broken.
I will kill them. I will kill every last motherfucking one of them.
