Chapter 31 Savannah
SAVANNAH
Mason won’t stop talking.
“Please, don’t leave yet. Please,” he begs.
“What more do you have to say? We can’t be together. I’m married and I have a baby on the way!” My voice rises, and I catch the people nearby glancing at us.
He slides his phone across the table to me. “But I need you to understand what these past few months have been like for me.”
I look down at the screen. It’s a photo of me, standing outside the penthouse building. The date stamp says two weeks ago.
My blood runs cold. “What is this?”
“Keep scrolling.”
I do, even though every instinct tells me not to, and there are more photos of me from days before Mason first confronted us.
“You’ve been following me.”
“I needed to see you.” His voice is calm, too calm. “Needed to know you were okay. That you were really happy with him and not just running away from what we had.”
“This is stalking, Mason. This is—” I push the phone back across the table like it’s contaminated. “This is insane.”
“I was careful. Never got too close. Just close enough to see your face.” He picks up the phone, scrolls to another photo. This one is of me and Ledger outside a restaurant. I’m laughing at something he said, my hand on my stomach. “You look happy here. Happier than you ever looked with me.”
“I am happy.”
“Because of his money. His power. Everything I couldn’t give you.”
“No. Because he sees me as a person, not a convenience.”
“I saw you as a person.”
“You saw me as a caretaker. Someone to cook your meals and clean your apartment and listen to your problems without having any of my own.” I lean forward.
“That’s why you cheat, because I stopped being useful when my mother died.
Because taking care of me was harder than letting Lizzy take care of you. ”
His face reddens. “That’s not—”
“It is. And you know it.” I grab my purse and start to stand. “I’m done here. Don’t contact me again. Don’t follow me. Don’t—”
“Sit down.”
Something in his voice makes me pause. It’s not the desperate tone from before. It’s harder. Colder.
“We’re not done yet,” he says.
“Yes, we are.”
“No.” He leans back in the booth, and for the first time since I sat down, I notice how strange his expression is.
He pulls out his phone again, but this time he doesn’t show me photos. He just holds it. “I got a call about a month ago. Someone who knew about us. About what happened between us.”
My stomach drops. “Who?”
“They said they could help me. Give me enough money to get back on my feet. All I had to do was get you to meet me. In a public place. Somewhere busy.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Somewhere like this.”
“Mason, what did you do?”
“What I had to do to survive.” He glances over my shoulder, and I see something flicker across his face. Fear. “They promised me twenty thousand dollars. Said they just wanted to talk to you. To scare your husband a little.”
I turn to follow his gaze.
Three men in dark suits are moving through the restaurant toward us. They’re not hurrying, not drawing attention. Just walking with purpose, their eyes locked on our table.
On me.
“Mason.” My voice comes out strangled. “What did you do?”
“I’m sorry.” He’s backing out of the booth now, scrambling to his feet. “I’m so sorry, Savannah. I didn’t know they’d—I thought they just wanted to talk to you.”
“You sold me out.”
The first man reaches our table before Mason can finish. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, with a face that looks like it’s been carved from stone. His eyes are cold and empty.
“Mrs. Volkov,” he says, and his accent is thick, Russian. “Please come with us.”
“No.” I’m reaching into my purse, fingers fumbling for my phone. For the panic button Ledger installed.
“This doesn’t have to be difficult.”
“I said no.”
The second man moves to block the exit. The third positions himself between me and the other diners, creating a wall.
“Your husband killed Viktor Kozlov,” the first man continues, his voice conversational, like we’re discussing the weather. “Burned his body to ash so our family had nothing to bury. Nobody to say goodbye to. Just ash and memories.”
My fingers find the panic button. I press it hard, holding it down.
“She’s signaling someone,” the second man says sharply.
The first man reaches for my arm. I jerk backward, knocking into the chair behind me. It tips, clatters to the floor.
“Help!” My voice comes out louder than I expected, cutting through the restaurant chatter. “Someone help me!”
The restaurant erupts. People turn, stand, and start to move. The man who was eating at the table next to us—older, heavyset, wearing a business suit—lunges forward without hesitation. “Leave her alone!”
One of the Kozlov men shoves him back hard. He crashes into his own table, sending dishes and glasses flying. His wife screams.
Other people are shouting now. Someone yells about calling the police. A waiter drops his tray.
Mason is frozen near the booth, his face white, eyes wide. “This wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“You idiot.” I’m backing away from the table, from the Kozlov men, but there’s nowhere to go. “You brought me here to die.”
“No. They said they just wanted to scare you. They said—”
The first man grabs my wrist. His grip is iron, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. He starts dragging me toward the kitchen, toward the back exit.
“Let go of her!” Mason suddenly moves, grabbing the man’s arm.
The Kozlov man doesn’t even hesitate. His free hand comes up fast, backhanding Mason across the face. The sound is sickening, a wet crack that echoes through the chaos.
Mason goes down hard. Blood pours from his nose, maybe from his mouth. I can’t tell.
I’m fighting now. Kicking, twisting, trying to break free. But the man is too strong, and I’m pregnant, off-balance, my center of gravity all wrong.
“Please.” My voice breaks. “Please don’t do this.”
“Your husband should have thought about that before he killed Viktor.”
He’s pulling me toward the kitchen door. I grab onto a table edge, try to anchor myself, but he just yanks harder, and I lose my grip.
And then I hear it.
Gunfire.
Not inside the restaurant. Outside. In the parking lot.
The Kozlov men freeze. All three of them turn toward the sound.
More shots. Closer now. People are screaming, diving under tables, running for the exits.
“Volkov’s men,” one of them hisses in Russian. “We need to move. Now.”
They try to drag me faster toward the kitchen exit, but I’m dead weight now, dropping to the floor, making myself as heavy as possible. One of them grabs my other arm, and together they haul me up.
The front windows explode inward. Glass rains down, glittering in the afternoon light. People are shrieking, crawling, trying to get away from the chaos. And through the shattered window, I see him.
Ledger.
Gun drawn, face like death itself, moving through the restaurant like he was born for this. Silas is behind him, and at least three other men I recognize from the penthouse security.
Our eyes meet across the chaos. For a second, everything else falls away. The screaming, the gunfire, the hands still gripping my arms. It’s just him and me and the promise in his eyes.
I’m getting you out.
The Kozlov man holding my right arm pulls out a gun and points it directly at my head.
“One more step, Volkov,” he shouts over the noise, “and she dies right here.”
Ledger stops. Goes completely still. But his gun remains pointed at the man’s head.
“Let her go,” Ledger says. His voice is quiet, but it cuts through everything else like a blade. “Let her go, and I’ll let you walk out of here.”
“You’ll let us walk out?” The Kozlov man laughs. “You’re in no position to make deals.”
“I have six men in this restaurant and another four outside. You have two.” Ledger’s eyes flick to the other Kozlov men. “Those aren’t good odds.”
“But I have your wife. And your child.” The gun presses harder against my temple. The metal is cold, unyielding. “That changes the odds significantly.”
Everything is moving too fast and too slow at the same time. I can see Silas positioning himself to the left. Ledger’s men are circling around toward the kitchen. Diners are cowering under tables, servers pressed against walls.
Mason is on the floor, blood on his face, staring at the scene he created.
“Last chance,” Ledger says to the Kozlov man. “Let her go. I’ll shoot you in the head. Center mass. You’ll be dead before you can pull the trigger.”
“You’re not that fast.”
“Try me.”
The man’s finger tightens on the trigger. I see it happen in slow motion. See the micro-movement, the shift in pressure.
And then Mason moves. He’s still on the floor, bleeding, looking half-dead. But he launches himself at the Kozlov man’s legs, wrapping his arms around his knees.
“Run!” Mason screams at me.
The gun shifts away from my head. The man tries to aim at Mason instead.
And Ledger fires.
The shot catches the Kozlov man in the shoulder. He spins, loses his grip on me. I stumble backward, falling into a table.
Then everything explodes into chaos. Gunfire erupts from all directions. The other Kozlov men return fire. Tables splinter. Dishes shatter. The air fills with smoke and the sharp tang of gunpowder.
I’m on the ground, hands over my stomach, trying to make myself small. Trying to protect the baby.
Through the chaos, I see Mason still on the floor. Still wrapped around the Kozlov man’s legs. Still trying to hold him down. And then I see the second Kozlov man turn his gun toward Mason’s back.
“No!” I scream, but it’s lost in the noise.
The shot is deafening. Mason’s body jerks. Blood blooms across his back, spreading fast. He makes this soft, surprised sound like he can’t believe this is happening.
Then Ledger is there, pulling me up. “Come on. Now.”
I look back one last time. Mason is on the floor, blood pooling beneath him. His eyes find mine. He mouths something—I’m sorry—and then his eyes close.
“Keep moving!” Ledger shouts.
We burst through the exit into blinding sunlight. There are more of Ledger’s men outside, guns drawn, forming a perimeter. Marcus has the car running, doors open.
Ledger pushes me into the back seat and climbs in after me. “Go! Now!”
Marcus guns the engine. We peel out of the parking lot as sirens wail in the distance, getting closer.
My body won’t stop shaking. Ledger pulls me against his chest, his arms wrapping around me tightly. “You’re safe,” he says into my hair. “You’re safe now.”
But I don’t feel safe. I feel like my entire world just shattered into pieces.