* * *
It happened in a heartbeat. One minute Jenna was there, walking next to him. The next she was ripped from his hands, pulled through one of the doorways that moments before had been locked.
He had a flash of the man’s face: clean shaven but gaunt and pale, his eyes like chips of green ice. Then the door was closing, and he was launching himself at the crack that remained.
He was a split second too late. The door slammed in his face with a crash, and a red wash of fury descended over his vision, his reliable rage rising like a hurricane in his blood as he pictured Jenna’s terrified face, her helplessness as the man had pulled her backward by the neck.
He stepped away from the door as instinct took over, his mind already running down the steps he would take to destroy the person who thought they could hurt her.
Again. The person who thought they could hurt her again.
He kicked at the door, wondering that no one came running, that no one could hear the smash of his boot against the metal. But the crowd was going crazy beyond the hallway, screaming and cheering and chanting at something that had happened on the field while Farrell fought to get to the woman he loved.
The door didn’t give. He stepped back and tried again, painfully aware of the ticking clock, the passing seconds.
* * *
She was on the floor of a room that looked like a janitorial closet. There was a man on top of her, his hands wrapped around her throat, but all she could see was the room around her. Her father had taken her to work at the Stafford Institute when she’d been a teenager, shown her a room like this one lined with cleaning supplies, mops and brooms, rags and paper towels. He’d been proud of the work he did.
An honest day’s work.
And she’d been proud of him. She wondered if he knew that. If he knew how proud she was now. He’d tried to stop it. Tried to stop this from happening, even when it had cost him his life.
The memory woke something inside of her. Something that was slowly dying of oxygen deprivation as the man she’d known as Alex Petrov strangled the life out of her while he looked at her with lifeless eyes.
“Couldn’t… leave… it… alone,” he said as he squeezed. “I gave you a pass. Let you go. But… you couldn’t… let it… be.”
She kicked, trying to knee him in the back, but he was too far up her torso, out of reach of her legs, and her feet slid on the concrete as they tried to gain purchase on the floor. She looked beyond his eyes as she clawed at his hands. If this was how she died, she didn’t want his face to be the last thing she saw. She thought of Farrell instead. Of the way he looked at her when she woke up in the morning. Of the beautiful daughter they had made.
There was a crash beyond her line of sight. A rhythmic pounding. She couldn’t get her head around what it was. And it didn’t matter anyway. Because it turned out death didn’t hurt at all. Her body was light, weightless, like she was floating. She couldn’t feel the hands around her throat anymore. Couldn’t feel anything at all except a shrugging off of something weighty and burdensome.
She closed her eyes and let herself drift.
* * *
Farrell backed up again. The door was close to giving. He felt it every time he launched himself at it. Felt it in the way it bounced in the frame, gradually widening the crack of light that appeared at its edges.
He ran at it, putting every ounce of force in his body behind the kick. The door flew open, and he threw himself through it, trying to get a read on the situation on his way in. It didn’t take long.
Jenna on the floor.
Levchenko on top of her, his hands around her throat.
A brightly lit room that looked like an oversized janitorial closet.
He crashed into Levchenko, throwing him off Jenna’s lifeless body. His gun went skidding across the floor, but it was an afterthought; Jenna was so pale, her lips blue, dark rings already forming around her slender neck. He wanted to go to her. To breathe life into her body until she woke up.
But he couldn’t do that until he got rid of Levchenko. He let the sight of her feed his rage instead, going at Levchenko with everything he had, momentarily forgetting about the virus. He didn’t care about that now.
There was only wrath.
He landed a ferocious hook to Levchenko’s face. It caught him off guard, and he went crashing back into the shelves against the wall. Bottles of bleach and window cleaner went flying, and Farrell went at him again.
This time Levchenko was ready for him, ducking under Farrell’s arm with a speed that took him by surprise. He spun, but not quite early enough, and Levchenko got in a punch to Farrell’s throat that almost took his breath away.
He danced around the other man like he’d done so many times before. In street fights. Bar fights. Any kind of fight he could find.
Stay on your feet. Keep moving if you need time to gather strength. To formulate strategy.
Jenna coughed, turned over, gagged over the concrete floor. His eyes skimmed to her, and he almost lost his concentration in his desperation to go to her. To get her to safety.
Bit there was no safety. Not really. Not unless they dealt with Levchenko once and for all.
He assessed his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses as they circled each other.
Strength: speed.
Weakness: size.
Strength: strategy.
Weakness: strength.
He stepped forward, this time watching for Levchenko to feign right or left, to move out of the way before Farrell could land a punch. In the background, over Levchenko’s shoulder, Jenna rose to her hands and knees, struggling to stand.
* * *
She was still seeing black spots, her throat raw and burning as she struggled to get air in and out of her lungs. Even in her weakened state, she could see Farrell was in trouble. Levchenko was smaller, but he moved fast, surprisingly fast, ducking under some of Farrell’s blows, moving out of the way, taking him by surprise with a few well placed blows. Farrell had the advantage in sheer size and strength, but Levchenko was putting up a fight.
She was looking for something she could use to help, some kind of weapon or tool, when she saw Farrell’s gun. It was halfway under one of the metal shelves, to the right of where Farrell and Levchenko were fighting. Then she spotted something else.
A small, white bottle on the floor next to Levchenko’s feet.
It was only six inches long, the top fitted with the same kind of nozzle she’d seen on cans of bug spray, but she knew immediately that the virus was inside of it.
She couldn’t get both. It was either the virus or the gun. She thought of Lily in Tuscany. Of all the children who had come to the stadium with their parents and all the children outside of it who might be infected by the contents of the bottle. She and Farrell were only two people.
The virus could kill millions.
She scooted along the floor, trying to find an angle that would allow her to reach it. But it was too close to the men circling in the confined space, their feet barely missing it as they traded punches and kicks, spinning and ducking to minimize the damage done to them by their opponent.
Finally, in a last ditch effort, she covered her head with one hand and stretched toward it, preparing to be stepped on. Instead she was met with a savage kick to her stomach that sent her skidding across the floor. She lay there, staring up at the ceiling as unconsciousness threatened to claim her.
* * *
A guttural roar escaped Farrell’s mouth as Levchenko’s foot met Jenna’s body. He poured on the other man, bringing the full weight of his body to bear on him. They went down, and a sharp pain jolted through Farrell’s body as his shoulder hit the concrete floor.
But now he saw why Jenna had been groping on the floor. Not for the gun.
For the aerosol can that held the virus.
The floor gave him an advantage though. Here Levchenko couldn’t duck his blows, couldn’t bounce away when Farrell swung. He was a captive audience unde
r Farrell’s body, and he used it to his full advantage by landing blow after blow to the man’s face, letting loose his bitterness at the pain Levchenko had inflicted on Jenna in a rampage of hooks and jabs that left the man’s face bloodied and swollen, his nose slightly askew.
Levchenko went limp, and Farrell crawled off his body, lunging for the can containing the virus. He was making his way to Jenna, moaning in the fetal position four feet away, when a bolt of lightening ripped through his chest. He registered the sound of the gun, the burning sensation spreading through his lungs as his body hit the floor.
* * *
Jenna was still trying to get to her hands and knees — it was too much to hope for to get to her feet — when an explosion of noise bounced off the concrete walls of the room. She turned her head toward it, ears ringing, and saw blood spreading outward from Farrell’s chest, a look of surprise on his face as he fell facedown on the floor.
Petrov stood three feet away, still pointing the gun at Farrell. But he wasn’t done yet, and Jenna stifled a moan as he closed the distance between them. Then he was standing over Farrell, his foot on Farrell’s back as he held the gun at his side.
Panic welled up inside her. She wanted to hide. To cover her eyes. To pretend this monster wasn’t going to shoot Farrell — beautiful, wild, savage Farrell — like a dog.
She pushed herself forward, her eyes on the glinting metal of Farrell’s gun, still under one of the metal shelves. Levchenko was saying something, his voice low and vicious, in a language she didn’t understand. She willed herself to move faster, trying to be quiet in her wounded state, grateful that at least she was behind him.
He cocked the gun, and the sound was like a knife in her heart, fear spreading outward like blood from a wound.
“До побачення.”
It was a murmur, said just as Jenna reached the gun. She spun in one motion, heart pounding, and fired.
Then he was crumpling in front of her, his body falling to the side of Farrell’s as she crawled to him, pulling his head into her lap. He opened his eyes, tried to smile as blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. He tried to lift a hand to her face, but she captured it with her own.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “So beautiful.”
His eyes closed, and then she was sobbing and screaming as Kane burst into the room, a legion of armed men at his heels.
Thirty-Two
Jenna looked out the window as they entered the city, the sepia toned fields falling away in favor of houses and office buildings and museums.
“How much longer, Mummy?”
She looked down at Lily and smiled. “Why don’t you just enjoy the ride?”
“My school is very far away,” she said, pouting.
Jenna stroked her hair. “For now.”
She’d only been going to the International School in Florence for the past two months, and she was still getting used to the drive from the property in Tuscany to the private school that looked more like an old Italian estate than a school.
“Ten minutes, Signora.”
Jenna smoothed the wrinkles from her black Gucci shift dress. “Thank you, Max.”
She’d hand-picked him as a bodyguard and driver for Lily, both for his paramilitary training and for the gentleness he displayed toward her daughter. He drove Lily to and from school every day, most of the time with Jenna as a companion to Lily in the back seat. Lily had him wrapped around her finger, something Jenna chided him for but couldn’t bring herself to do anything about.
She was still getting used to life on the estate in Tuscany. Still getting used to the money and luxury that belonged to Farrell. Kate had stayed for awhile, but she’d missed life in London and had returned to her job as a bartender, her revolving door of men. She visited from time to time, although Jenna made it clear the guards were still off limits.
Jenna’s mum had come twice as well. It had been awkward at first, the old tension still hanging between them like a veil. But they’d been talking more — about the bad times and the good. Jenna was working on forgiving her, reminding herself that everyone did the best they could. That no one could be any more or less than themselves.
Farrell had taught her that.
“Qui siamo, piccolo,” Max said from the front.
“Finalmente!” Lily said.
“I understood that!” Jenna exclaimed. “You said ‘finally!’”
Lily sighed. “That’s only one word, Mummy.”
Jenna laughed, bending to kiss Lily’s head, breathing in the sweet scent of her skin mixed with the rosemary shampoo Jenna massaged into her head at night in the bath. “Vero, ma sto imparando.”
“Mummy!” Lily exclaimed. “You’re doing it. You’re speaking Italian!”
“Well, that might be an exaggeration,” Jenna said. “But I’m getting better.”
They pulled up the long drive of the International School, coming to a stop outside the large, two-story structure that was the main building.
“Ready, my love?” Jenna asked.
“Ready.” Lily slid out of the car, then ducked her head back in to speak to Max. “Ci vediamo dopo la scuola, Max!”
Max waved. “Arrivederci, piccolo!”
Jenna pulled the wide brimmed hat from the car and set it on her head, then took Lily’s hand. They made their way up the steps of the school, the heels of Jenna’s Louboutin’s clicking on the stone steps as they joined the small group of parents and children heading into the building.
“You don’t have to come in with me every day, Mummy,” Lily said when they reached the doors.
Jenna smiled, fighting against a pang of sadness. Time passed too quickly. Already Lily was moving away from her, having experiences and making memories that Jenna wouldn’t share. But it was the way of life. She was grateful to be present to see her daughter grow. After everything that had happened, it was all too easy to imagine a scenario where that might not have been the case.
“I know. You’re such a big girl,” she said.
Lily nodded sagely, then looked up at her. “I wish Daddy was here.”
Jenna smoothed her hair. “I wish he was here, too.”
A small girl with dark braids bounded up the steps to Lily. “We have to hurry or we won’t get to feed Charlie!”
Charlie was the class turtle, and there were few things Lily enjoyed more than being chosen to feed Charlie in the mornings, a privilege only earned if you weren’t late.
“I have to go, Mummy,” Lily said, already moving into the shadows of the building.
“Arrivederci, love!”
Lily beamed, then turned and ran down the hall toward her classroom. Jenna watched her go, then headed back to the car. Max pulled down the long drive, then headed back out of the city. He didn’t try to make conversation, one of the things she like most about him. Sometimes she felt like talking on their long drives in and out of Florence, but more often than not the time was meditative, and she used it to think about London and everything that happened there
Everything that had happened since.
The virus inside the aerosol can at Wembley had been confirmed as a new strain of Marburg, one that would have sickened and killed millions of people once it spread through the air. Jenna had been in shock immediately after Farrell had been shot, after she’d killed Denys Levchenko, but the terror of seeing people in biohazard suits handle the canister had infiltrated even her overwhelming numbness.
Kane had visited once with an update, but he’d kept quiet about the details of the people involved in the conspiracy to develop the virus. David Hewitt had quietly resigned, citing a wish to “spend more time with his family”. Jenna had a feeling there was a lot more to it, especially after ballistics matched the bullets that killed Mrs. Hodges to a gun owned by Borys Levchenko. Jenna and Farrell had been cleared of any involvement in her death, and Erik Karlsen’s as well.
All of which meant she was free. In a manner of speaking.
She didn’t know if they
would stay in Tuscany forever, but Lily loved it here. They were surrounded by peace and beauty, and the International School was one of the best in Europe. Lily could do worse, although even if they moved back to London she would have to attend a private school there as well. Her connection to Farrell — and now to Jenna — would make her a target all her life. Luckily for them, money would never be an issue. Thanks to Farrell, Lily would always be well protected and provided for.
Ethan was still provided for at Huntington Hills. Jenna had gone to see him once, had sat in the music room while his fingers moved lightly over the keys of the piano. He hadn’t acknowledged her, but she wanted to do something to help, and she’d been slowly dipping her toes into the water of volunteering with a well known advocacy group for Autism.
She took a deep breath as they turned onto the private road leading to the estate. It was easier to breathe in the wide open spaces, easier to feel safe, and coming home to Tuscany was like shrugging off a heavy coat. She felt relieved almost immediately.
They were almost to the driveway when another black SUV pulled onto the road in front of them. It stopped a few feet away, and Max put the car in Park and let the engine idle as a massive statue of a man stepped out of the car and started walking toward them.
Jenna opened the door and stepped onto the gravel. She was running toward him a second later.
A grin spread across Farrell’s face as he swept her into his arms, spinning her around. She buried her face in his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of him, letting it wash over her like a salve. Two months earlier, she’d been sitting in the hospital, wondering if he’d make it out of surgery alive.
But he had. He’d come back to her. And nothing would ever keep them apart again.
“You’re back early,” she finally said.
Eternal (London Mob Book 3) Page 17
