Chapter 22 – Anya
Rain whipped through the broken, stained-glass windows as our SUV pulled up to what looked like the remains of something holy turned profane.
The ruins of the old church stood like a corpse on sacred ground, its steeple half-collapsed and reaching toward heaven with broken fingers.
Gothic arches framed empty spaces where windows once filtered colored light into the sanctuary, now letting in nothing but darkness and the smell of decay.
The sight made something cold settle in my stomach. This wasn’t just abandoned—it had been deliberately desecrated, turned into something that mocked what it used to represent.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Lev said for the third time since we’d left the city, his voice tight with the kind of control that meant he was barely holding back from physically restraining me.
I turned to face him in the backseat, rain streaking down the bulletproof glass behind his head like tears the sky refused to stop crying. “I’m not going anywhere until I see Sasha.”
His jaw worked, muscles jumping under skin that was still pale from his recent hospital stay. “Anya, if something goes wrong—”
“Then I want to be here to help fix it.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “She’s my assistant, my responsibility. She got taken because of me.”
“She got taken because Mila Kozak is a psychopath,” Drew interjected from the front seat, not looking up from the tablet where he was coordinating with backup teams positioned around the perimeter. “Don’t make this about guilt when it’s about survival.”
But it was about guilt, at least partially. Sasha trusted me to keep her safe, and I failed her. I brought a viper into our home and fed it information about our schedules, our routines, our vulnerabilities.
The SUV stopped, and Trev emerged from the lead vehicle with the fluid grace of someone who had done this too many times to count. His face was set in lines that made him look older than his thirty-seven years, harder than the brother who’d been joking about trackers just days ago.
We followed him toward the church’s main entrance, boots crunching on gravel mixed with broken glass.
The air smelled of damp stone, rusted chains, and mildew—the scent of things left to rot in places where light rarely reached.
The silence was unsettling, broken only by the steady drum of rain against stone and the distant sound of wind moving through empty spaces.
“This place feels wrong,” Trev exhaled, his breath visible in the cold air.
He was right. There was something about the atmosphere here that raised every primitive warning system in my brain.
It wasn’t just the obvious danger or the knowledge that armed killers might be waiting inside.
It was something deeper, older—like the very stones remembered violence and whispered it back to anyone who got close enough to listen.
We moved through the sanctuary, past rows of broken pews and an altar that had been stripped of anything valuable or sacred.
Religious imagery had been defaced, symbols of peace twisted into something uglier.
This wasn’t just abandonment—it was deliberate corruption, turning a place of worship into a temple of something darker.
Then Trev held up his hand, head cocked like he was listening for something the rest of us couldn’t hear.
A faint sound drifted up from somewhere below us. A cough, weak and human. A whimper that made my heart clench with recognition and hope.
“Downstairs,” Trev said, his voice barely above a whisper.
We found the entrance to what must have been a basement or storage area, stone steps descending into darkness that seemed to swallow our flashlight beams. The smell got worse as we went down—human waste, fear, blood, and something medicinal that made my stomach turn.
Then I saw her.
Sasha slumped against the far wall, wrists shackled to rusted pipes that wept condensation like tears.
Her skin was pale as paper, her lips cracked and bleeding, blood smeared across her temple in a pattern that suggested she’d been hit hard enough to leave lasting damage.
But she was breathing, and when our lights found her face, her eyes fluttered open.
“Sasha.” My voice broke on her name, and I was moving before anyone could stop me.
Trev reached her first, his hands gentle as he checked her pulse and examined her injuries. “Water,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Get her water. Now.”
I knelt beside them, my hands hovering uselessly as Trev worked to free her from the shackles. She was so thin, so fragile-looking. How long had she been down here? How long had she been living on whatever scraps Petro’s people bothered to give her?
“Sasha,” Trev said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “Look at me. You’re safe now.”
Her eyes found his face and held, some of the terror fading as recognition kicked in. “Trev?” Her voice was barely a whisper, throat raw from dehydration or screaming or both.
“I’m here.” He lifted her carefully, supporting her weight as circulation returned to her arms. “Mila was never after you specifically. She used you as a pawn, kept you alive as leverage. She wanted the bloodline gone—all the Antonovs.”
The words hit me like physical blows. Sasha suffered for weeks, not because of anything she’d done, but because of who I’d chosen to love. Because my last name made her a target in someone else’s war.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, touching her hand. “Sasha, I’m so sorry.”
She turned her head toward me, managing what might be the ghost of a smile. “Not your fault,” she croaked. “Crazy girl kept talking about angels and demons. About purifying bloodlines. She’s completely insane.”
Mila’s religious fanaticism, inherited from her father like a genetic defect. The idea that murder becomes holy when you dress it up in the right prayers, that genocide is justified if you claim divine mandate.
Trev lifted Sasha in his arms, carrying her toward the stairs with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the violence I knew he was capable of. “We need to get her to the underground medical facility. She needs fluids, antibiotics, probably surgery to check for internal damage.”
As we emerged from that basement hell, I caught sight of Lev’s face in the dim light filtering through broken windows. His expression was carved from stone, all sharp angles and deadly promise. This wasn’t just about rescue anymore—it was about retribution.
The ride back to the city passed in a blur of medical checks and whispered conversations.
Sasha drifted in and out of consciousness, her hand gripping Trev’s with surprising strength whenever she surfaced.
He refused to leave her side, even when Drew suggested he might be more useful coordinating the manhunt for Petro.
“I’m not leaving her again,” was all he said, and something in his tone killed any further argument.
***
Back at our penthouse, the familiar surroundings felt surreal after the horror of that church. Lev moved through our home like he was cataloging everything, memorizing details in case this was the last time he saw them.
“Petro isn’t going to stop,” he said without preamble, settling heavily into the chair across from our couch. “Not until one of us is dead. I need to work without distraction, without worrying about your safety every second.”
The words landed exactly where he intended them to—right in the center of my chest, sharp and final.
“Are you sending me away?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“I’m sending you with Eleanor to a safe house.” His voice was steady, professional, like he was discussing business logistics instead of tearing our life apart. “You’ll stay there until I burn every trace of Petro Kozak out of this city.”
The rational part of my brain knew he was right.
I was pregnant, relatively untrained in combat, and my presence would divide his attention when he needed to focus entirely on survival.
But the part of me that had been shaped by months in his world, that had learned to see violence as sometimes necessary and protection as an act of love, rebelled against the idea of hiding while he faced this alone.
“I’ll cancel the fashion show,” I said, because some sacrifices were easier to voice than others. “The spring line can wait. But Lev, you have to promise me something.”
His gray eyes found mine, waiting.
“You have to come back to me. To us.” My hand moved instinctively to my stomach, to the life growing there that he had never seen on a sonogram, never felt kick, never had the chance to love properly.
The hardness in his face cracked just slightly, letting through a glimpse of the man who held me in the dark and whispered promises neither of us believed but both of us needed.
“You’re my reason now,” he said, leaning forward to frame my face with hands that had killed but touched me like I was made of glass. “I’ll survive hell for you, for our child. But I need you out of the fire while I do it.”
He kissed me then, and it tasted like goodbye. Desperate and thorough and full of all the words we didn’t have time to say. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine, and for just a moment, we existed in a bubble where the outside world couldn’t reach us.
“How long?” I whispered.
“As long as it takes.”
“And if something happens to you?”
His thumb traced along my cheekbone, wiping away tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “Then Maxim will make sure you and the baby are safe. That’s what family does.”
Family. The word encompassed so much more than blood now—chosen bonds forged in violence and tested in fire. People who’d die for each other without question, who’d kill for each other without hesitation.
“I love you,” I said, needing him to hear it one more time before the world tried to take him away from me.
“I love you too.” His voice broke slightly on the words. “Both of you.”
We spent the rest of the evening planning my disappearance. Eleanor would pick me up tomorrow morning, early enough to avoid most traffic, late enough that it looked routine. I’d pack light, take only essentials, leave behind anything that might suggest I wasn’t coming back.
The fashion show would be postponed indefinitely due to a “family emergency.” My assistant—my real assistant—was recovering from her ordeal and wouldn’t be available for scheduling. Everything that defined my normal life would go on hold while my husband waged war in the shadows.
As I packed a small bag with clothes that could accommodate a growing belly, I thought about the child who would either grow up with stories about their father’s courage or grow up without him entirely.
The baby who had been shaped by stress hormones and fear, who was learning about the world through their mother’s elevated heart rate and sleepless nights.
What kind of mother brought a child into this? What kind of woman fell in love with a man whose enemies saw pregnancy as just another weapon to use against him?
But then I remembered Lev’s hands on my face, the wonder in his voice when he talked about our future, the way he looked at me like I was the answer to prayers he never thought to voice.
Maybe love wasn’t supposed to be safe. Maybe the best things in life came wrapped in danger, requiring courage to claim and strength to keep.
Maybe our child would inherit more than just the Antonov name and the violence that came with it. Maybe they’d inherit the kind of love that survived wars and the kind of family that rebuilt itself from ashes, stronger every time.
As I closed the suitcase and prepared for what might be weeks or months away from home, I made myself a promise. This baby would know their father. Would grow up hearing stories about the man who burned down half of Chicago to keep them safe.
Even if I had to drag Lev Antonov back from hell myself to make that happen.