Chapter 20
Twenty
Journal Entry
Twenty-two years old
I’m going to kill him.
“Pull over,” I tell Maxim.
It’s four in the morning, pitch black with only the stars to provide any light because it’s a new moon, and we’re half a mile from the Knight estate. Nothing but forests, a private back country road, and complete seclusion.
Not taking his eyes off the road, Maxim reduces his speed. “Where?”
“Along the shoulder.” The other van carrying Drako’s men behind us follows our lead as we bump along the uneven roadside. “I’ll take care of this. Go ahead and join the others. I’ll see you at the house later.”
Drako’s men have been briefed on their jobs. They’ll pose as part of the extra security Patrick has brought in for this weekend.
Maxim turns off the engine and hands me the keys.
Getting out, I storm past the second vehicle toward the approaching car that I spotted in my wing mirror a mile back.
With its headlights turned off, the black Porsche pulls off the road and brakes a foot in front of me.
The driver’s side door swings open, and the interior light comes on, illuminating the man sitting behind the wheel.
Aleksei unfolds his massive frame from the small bucket seat, and as soon as he gets out, I shout, “What the fuck?”
I’m so angry that I’m tempted to shoot out his damn tires and strand him here.
He slams the car door with enough force to rattle the windshield. “Your drivers are for shit because I’ve been tailing you for almost two hours.”
I glance down the road to make sure no other vehicle is approaching. “Go home.”
Even in the dark, I can see the obstinate set of his mouth as he squares off with me. “Fuck you. I’m not going anywhere. You said the thing was tomorrow. Why did you lie to me?”
My head drops back on my neck, and I beseech the heavens for help. “I don’t want you here, Aleksei. Go. Home.”
“Hell, no. Someone has to have your back,” he argues.
“I’ve got six men to do that.”
“But they’re not me.” He grabs the back of my neck and forces our foreheads together. “Aleks, what’s going on? Why are you shutting me out?”
Guilt rides me hard, and I sigh. “I’m not. I’m trying to protect you.”
He pulls away and gesticulates wildly, clearly annoyed.
“From what? It’s an easy job. Go in. Kill Patrick’s bitch.
Leave. Easy peasy. Why lie to me, then sneak out of the fucking bell tower?
And why the fuck do you need six men to take care of Eva?
You’re not telling me something, and if I have to beat it out of you, I will. ”
God, I want to lie to him so badly just to get him to leave. But if my brother is anything, it’s stubborn. “Because killing Eva isn’t the only thing I’ll be doing.”
My twin usually has no volume or impulse control, so I know when he goes completely quiet, he’s really, really pissed.
“What the fuck else would you be—”
“Francesco killed Aoife.”
Aleksei’s words cut off abruptly. “What?”
That familiar rage that I can’t escape from swiftly flies forward. “He ordered her death. Sent his men to do the job.”
He roughly scrubs a hand over his chin. “You sure?”
“It came directly from Drako.”
“Well, fuck. I’m sorry, A.”
“Francesco is going to be there today.”
Without me having to go into details, Aleksei knows exactly what I’m implying.
“Which is an even better reason why you need me with you.” He turns on his heel, gets back into his car, and stares at me through the window glass.
Obstinate ass. Aleksei isn’t perfect, far from it, but I love my brother more than I hate his faults.
Regardless of what I said, I’m glad he’s here.
With a groan of acceptance, I go to his driver’s side and tap on the glass for him to roll it down. “The other van is heading to the house. You follow me.”
He gives me a two-finger salute.
Aleksei stays close, and after two minutes, we turn onto an unmarked hidden road that is more a rutted earthen path than a thoroughfare.
We’re about a half mile from house. I did my homework.
Studied the satellite images and memorized the schematics that Patrick sent me.
I know the layout of the Knight estate, the property, and the location of every security camera.
Aleksei is already waiting for me and opens the back double doors when I join him. “I know you brought the good stuff.”
“That I did.” Pulling the large black case toward me, I flick the latches and open it to reveal a sniper rifle and several guns strapped to the underside of the lid.
Aleksei removes his Sig Sauer from his back holster and grabs an extra magazine. “What the hell,” he says and takes another gun, doing a quick check and prep of the chamber and safety before stuffing it into his back waistband. “What now?”
Assembling the rifle, I reply, “Now we get into position and wait…why are you smiling?”
“Just like old times.”
Many of our old times involve doing “jobs” for the bratva.
Torture. Death. Blood. We had to earn our way into the Petrov family, deserving of the mark we now have inked on our chests.
I don’t consider myself a murderer, but the lives I’ve taken over the years—the lives I’m about to take, even if they deserve everything that was coming to them—says otherwise.
“Ready?”
He nods.
I constantly scan our surroundings as we move swiftly through the trees, the thick carpet of pine needles littering the forest floor and helping to dampen the noise of our footfalls.
The air smells of rotting detritus and pine sap, not the most pleasant combination, but the overpowering musk will help hide our presence.
You’d be surprised by how far the fragrance of soap or cologne travels, which is why I use unscented everything, even laundry detergent, when I’m doing a job.
“I can’t see shit. How do you know where you’re going?” Aleksei whispers.
I check my wristwatch. Five-thirty. About an hour or so before sunrise. “I just do. No more talking. The guards just changed shift, giving us five minutes to haul ass to the house. There’s a blind spot near the back gardens. We’ll wait there.”
We quietly weave through the darkness, avoiding camera angles and landscape lighting. It only takes three minutes until I have eyes on the Knight mansion. No noises other than the crickets and croaks of frogs. No exterior movement. A few lights are on inside the house. The calm before the storm.
In a few short hours, Eva will be dead, and my revenge will begin.
“Aoife.”
Her name is a scorched stone embedded in my heart, and I hate Tristan for saying it. For finding my one weakness.
“T, shut the fuck up!” Hendrix bellows.
“What did you just say?”
“Syn…is Aoife. Aleksander! Do something!” Tristan shouts just as the echo of a gun discharging has my blood flash-freezing in my veins.
I strike his face, again and again, not wanting to believe him. Aoife is dead. She’s dead. Her body was burned to ash in the fire, along with her parents.
Fire.
Syn’s arm.
The fucking burns.
How is it possible?
“You’re fucking lying! I would have known!”
I turn my head just as the whizzing noise of a bullet flies past my ears.
As if watching in slow motion, Maxim flies sideways as if tethered to the bullet on a string.
Pop. Pop. Pop. In a fraction of a second, the other three men topple in perfect unison, their bodies collapsing like dominoes as blood seeps out of the perfect circles in their foreheads.
“Oh, god, firefly,” Hendrix rasps.
Like a macabre nightmare, Syn materializes from the gardens, painted red with blood from her face to her bare toes. She advances forward with measured steps, her arm outstretched, her finger pressing the trigger, even though nothing happens. The magazine is empty. No more bullets.
The pale blue of her eyes shines behind her waterfall of scarlet hair. Cornflower blue. Her goddamn eyes.
I was drawn to Syn from the start, like a familiar dream. I became obsessed with her because she reminded me so much of Aoife.
But Syn is Aoife.
How could I not know? How was I so blind not to see what was right in front of me this entire time?
My sweet angel survived. She survived and came back like a beautiful death.
“Aoife?” I say in disbelief.
In the next blink and with no warning at all, the ground beneath us trembles violently. A deafening boom shakes the earth, followed by a concussive shockwave that slams into us like a giant invisible fist when the back of the Knight mansion explodes.
I suddenly come to, the phantom boom of the explosion jolting me awake.
Aoife. Get up. Move. Save Aoife.
But my body refuses, my muscles sluggish and heavy like lead.
Get up! Save Aoife!
“Fuck, Aleks, stop! It’s me,” Pyotr yells over the high-pitched ringing in my ears that’s loud as fuck.
What is he doing here? The last thing I remember is—
The world comes back in jagged fragments.
I try to sit up but can’t. Grit crusts my eyes, making it difficult to see when I open them, and I regret it when bright light accosts my vision and temporarily blinds me.
“Aoife. Aleksei—” My lungs seize, not able to pull in air, and I choke on racking coughs that won’t stop.
Pytor’s hard slaps to my back double me over, but they help jumpstart my breathing. “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
“I…need to…save her.”
A bottle of water gets forced to my lips, the cool liquid burning my throat like acid as I guzzle it down.
“What you need to do is lie still and let Boris check you out.”
Screw that.
With every bit of strength I can muster, I push to my feet, and immediately timber sideways and slam into the wall like a felled tree. Aw, fuck.
Pyotr grabs me and forces me to sit on the bed. “Will you please lie the fuck down before you pass out?”
The profound worry in his voice penetrates through the haze of desperation, and I’m finally able to see my surroundings. I’m in a room. A bedroom. A beam of sunlight shines a spotlight across the floor to the wall. The bright light. How did I get here?
“Where are we?”
Pyotr leans into view, crouching down to meet my gaze. The crescent moons under his eyes are tinged purple with fatigue.
“One of our safe houses,” he replies, his hand hovering near my shoulder, like he’s not quite sure if he should touch me. “You’ve been unconscious for two days.”
Two days? Two whole fucking days?
“Aoife.”
Pyotr none-too-gently pushes me back down onto the bed when I try to get up. “I will knock you unconscious, you stupid ass, if you try to get up again.”
He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know.
“Aoife is alive.”
His face screws up like I’ve gone daft. “What are you talking about?”
I grasp his arm in a vise. “She’s Syn. Aoife is Syn.”
He pulls back, opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it. “You’re not making sense. Boris said you have a concussion.”
I know I do, but that’s not the point, and he’s not listening to me.
The bedroom door swings wide, the quiet creak making elephants tap dance inside my head.
Palming my temple, I try to block out the migraine that is jackhammering behind my eyes, the throbbing pain ripping through my skull and splitting it open.
When I glance over, Drako is standing there, his face a mask of desolation. It’s the same look he had that day when—
My heart begins to thunder against my ribs, the familiar panic coming back like an unwanted memory. No. Please, God, no.
“Where’s…Aleksei?”
Pyotr visibly pales, and the charged silence stretches between the three of us like razor wire.
“Where’s Aleksei?” I shout.
“With Nina,” Drako quietly replies.
Pyotr kneels beside the bed at my feet. “Aleks, I swear I tried—”
My hands spasm on the goose-down comforter, clenching and unclenching, my breaths coming in short gasps as I try to process everything. It’s too much. Too much. I can’t.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A sob shatters through me when stark reality comes crashing in like the unforgiving force of a tsunami built of grief and heartache.
Everyone I have ever loved has been taken from me.
I am truly alone.