Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
FIONA
“Wh-what are you doing here?” The words leave me in a broken whisper as the figure before me slowly steps into the light.
Her smile is slow and cruel, the kind that makes my insides shrink with a quiet, dawning terror. My brain scrambles to catch up, to rationalize what I’m seeing, but there’s no explanation that makes sense.
“Oh, sweetie,” Marlene croons. “Elio and I go way back. Where he’s the muscle...” She glides a finger along the steel beam beside her. “I’m the brains. Who do you think thought of those notes you kept getting?”
Holy shit.
I stagger back, my heart thundering in my chest. “Why? What do you have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
Her expression hardens into something icier than I’ve ever seen. Like a layer has peeled back and I’m finally seeing what’s always been underneath. She moves toward me until I’m cornered.
“I can’t let you leave, Fiona,” she coos. “If anything, you can blame your mother. Elio and I are only doing what is right for our families.”
My lungs seize. “Your family? What the hell are you talking about?”
She tilts her head like I’ve asked a ridiculous question. “I’m a Volkov, darling.”
I take another step back, my stomach dropping. How can this be?
Her smile widens, as if my confusion is the best entertainment she’s had all day. “You must marry my brother. There is no other choice.”
“I’m sorry, what?” A disbelieving laugh slips out before I can stop it.
She shrugs. “Yes. He’s old. Probably has ten, maybe twenty years left, if we’re lucky. You can deal with that. Consider it an investment in survival.”
“Fuck off.” My teeth grit, and she sighs, like I’m a child throwing a tantrum.
“The wedding will be tomorrow.”
“I’d rather die.” My nostrils flare, anger dragging through me.
Marlene’s smile widens. “Suit yourself. But here’s the thing, sweetheart. You don’t have a choice. The Marinovs…we have plans for them. Big ones. So if you think they will save you, think again.”
“I’m Aleksei’s wife. He won’t rest until all of you are dead.”
Her eyes gleam. “Not for long, you’re not.”
“I swear to God…” I grit out. “When he finds me, when he—”
Her laugh ricochets through me. “Malinkaya durachka. When will you understand he’s not coming for you?
That precious little GPS chip? We planted it in the building next door.
That’s where he is now. If he’s still alive, of course.
But considering how many men are waiting for him…
” She lets out a dramatic sigh. “The chances of your handsome man walking away from that are slim.”
No way in hell. The Marinovs are smarter than that.
But the doubt crawls in anyway.
What if she’s right? What if they got to him? What if he’s gone?
I refuse to fall apart now. Aleksei would want me fighting. He’d want me doing everything I can to survive. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“If you think I’m going to walk out of here and play bride to some half-dead mobster, you really don’t know me.”
“Oh, I know you.” Marlene steps toward me, too close, until I can smell her floral perfume, like she bathed in it to hide the stench of her rot. “But you’ll come around.”
I lift my chin. “Then I guess you’ve never seen what a woman does when she has nothing left to lose.”
Marlene’s hand twitches at her hip, and I don’t think. I launch.
My body crashes into hers, tackling her mid-reach as her fingers brush the holster under her jacket. We slam into the floor, a tangled mess of limbs, and her gun skitters across the concrete, spinning once before clattering out of reach.
But there’s no time to go after it. She’s faster than I thought. Stronger too. Her age doesn’t match the grip she has on me—fingers like claws, nails digging into my shoulder as she rolls me onto my stomach and pins me beneath her.
My breath punches out of my lungs as her knee slams into my back hard enough to make me see stars.
“I really hoped you’d be smarter than this.” Her breath is hot against my ear. “I was going to make it easier for you.”
I twist beneath her, elbow jabbing back blindly, but she grabs a fistful of my hair, forcing my head down again. Pain blooms across my cheekbone.
Clawing the ground, I search for anything I can use, and that’s when I see it: a brick, mottled and chipped, half buried in leaves, just inches from my fingertips.
Come on.
She’s dragging me, trying to flip me onto my back, but I stretch, nails scraping until I catch the edge.
“Stop fighting,” she bites out.
My fingers lock around rough stone, and I swing with every ounce of panic and fury in my body. The brick cracks against her temple with a sickening thud. She lets out a grunt, body swaying sideways, and I roll out, chest heaving, the brick still in my hand.
She’s stunned, blood trailing from her scalp, eyes wide with disbelief as she topples to the ground.
“I told you,” I rasp, shaking with rage. “You don’t know me.”
My hand quivers around the bloody brick, chest still heaving, but she doesn’t move. She lies sprawled on the concrete, head turned at a grotesque angle, blood pooling slowly beneath her.
I stare, waiting for a twitch. A breath. Anything. But there’s nothing.
I did that. I killed her. I killed someone else.
My pulse jolts with the realization, and I drop the brick, the sound of it hitting the floor drowned out by the sudden echo of footsteps pounding the hallway.
Shit.
Fingers closing around her gun, my body moves on instinct, sprinting for the nearest cover. I dive behind a half-collapsed brick wall, heart pounding in my throat, hands scraped and shaking as I press myself flat to the rough stone.
Whoever it is, I can’t let them see me. They need to think I escaped.
Boots thud closer, someone muttering in Russian.
Please, Aleksei. Please be alive. Please hurry.
I squeeze my eyes shut, tears burning hot behind them.
“Fiona!” Aleksei’s voice cuts in. “Fiona, come on. Where are you?”
The sound slams into me, a rush of shock and desperate relief that lights up every nerve in my body all at once.
I push away from the wall, chest shattering open with a sob. “Aleksei!”
He turns, gun already half lowered, and the second his eyes land on me, everything stops. His whole body freezes, like his brain can’t catch up to the sight of me standing there.
The gun instantly slips from his hand and clatters to the floor. “Fiona…”
I run, ignoring everyone else around us and throwing myself into his arms. He catches me in an instant, holding me with that unyielding strength.
“I was so afraid,” he whispers.
“Me too.”
My legs wrap around his waist, arms around his shoulders, sobs wracking my body as I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in. There’s blood all over him, but I know it isn’t his.
“I’ve got you.” Every syllable splits him open as he grips me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. “I’ve got you, moya ptichka. You’re safe now. You’re safe. I will never let you go again.”
I pull back just enough to see him as I cradle his face in my palms. His eyes are glassy, a muscle in his chin twitching, but his mouth softens as he leans in and kisses me slow and deep, like he’s trying to make up for every second we lost.
When we break apart, I press my forehead to his.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry I left.”
His thumb brushes over the bruise blooming on my jaw, his other hand cupping the back of my head like he can’t bear to let go. “You have nothing to apologize for. Not a goddamn thing. I should never have let you out of my sight.”
Footsteps echo behind us, and Konstantin steps into the room, clearing his throat.
“Shto?” Aleksei doesn’t look away from me.
“Elio got away.”
“We’ll find him.” Tension cuts sharp across his features.
Konstantin leaves us, and I shake my head, tears spilling before I can stop them, everything I feel for Aleksei crashing through me.
“She said you could be dead.”
He gathers me closer, words rough against my ear. “She lied.”
I swallow past the knot in my throat, and that’s when I notice the blood seeping through the cotton wrapped around his left arm.
“Oh my God. Aleksei, you’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.” He tightens his hold on me. “Just a graze.”
But it isn’t nothing. He bled for me. Fought for me. Came for me.
And in this moment, nothing else matters. He’s here. I’m alive. Those assholes couldn’t do what they planned.
My fingers bury in his hair, fisting tight, because I can’t breathe without him. His mouth crushes to mine, brutal and desperate this time, stealing whatever air I had left as heat explodes in my chest.
There’s nothing gentle about this. It’s claiming. It’s punishment. It’s him telling me without words that losing me nearly killed him.
His tongue devours mine like he’s trying to take back every second we were apart, and I give it all right back, kissing him with every frantic beat of my heart, every fear that gutted me, every piece of love I never stopped feeling.
My legs tighten around his waist as he presses me back against the nearest wall, his hand cradling the back of my skull so I don’t hit it.
He groans low in his throat when I bite his bottom lip, his grip tightening like he can’t get close enough. I can feel him shaking, barely holding it together, rage and relief bleeding through his touch.
When we finally pull apart, our breaths are tangled and shallow, lips swollen, foreheads pressed together.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he says, thumb brushing a tear from my cheek. “If you were gone, I would’ve taken the world apart just to make them feel the hurt that I would’ve felt.”
A sharp ache rises in my throat, splintering through me.
“You found me,” I whisper. “I’m right here, baby.”
My fingers trace the line of his jaw, brushing over the rough scrape of his stubble, and his eyes fall shut as he leans into the touch like he’s been starved for it. Starved for me.
He kisses me again, gentler now, but no less consuming. There’s something different in it, though. A promise. A vow. A new beginning forged out of everything we survived.
And in this kiss, the truth roots itself deep in my bones.
I’m his. I always have been.
And I always will be.