Chapter 31
Thirty-One
“See you back at the house,” Dierdre says, hugging Tristan, then me, before getting into her rental car.
“She needs something to drive when she’s here that’s not a POS mid-size.”
Once the baby comes, she’ll be staying at the house for a while to help Syn. Wasted money to pay for a rental for that amount of time.
Tristan opens the driver’s side door of the Range Rover, his gaze following Dierdre’s taillights as they disappear around the bend. “We’ve offered to let her drive one of ours, but she always declines.”
“Talk to Cillian. She won’t say no to him.”
He grimaces. “Still can’t believe that they’re together. She’s…” He waves a hand around. “And he’s…” More hand gestures. “They’re complete opposites.”
“Who like to have sex together,” I say just to wind him up.
If glares could melt steel, I’d be a puddle on the asphalt. “Didn’t need that image seared into my brain, asshole. Honestly, I don’t get it, but if it makes her happy.” He slides into the driver’s seat and shuts the door.
Setting the sunflowers I picked for Syn in the back, I get in on my side and buckle up. The engine roars quietly to life, a purr of sound that vibrates under my feet. Tristan checks his mirrors before pulling onto the road.
“Thanks for letting me come out.”
I turn my gaze from the scenery blurring past my window. “He wasn’t a bad person.”
Aleksei did some stupid stuff, but he was a good brother.
“He did hold a gun to my head,” Tristan quips.
And would’ve killed Constantine and Syn that morning at the Knight estate, but he leaves that unsaid.
“Hendrix threw the first punch. He also had a knife,” I remind him.
“And you despise Hen. Seems like the same situation to me.”
Okay. True. But I argue my point anyway because I want Tristan to see the Aleksei I knew. “It was three against one. He was protecting me. And Hendrix has always been a huge jackass.”
He tries to hold in his chuckle. “It’s going to take time, Aleksander.”
I know it is, and I appreciate that he was the one to first offer the metaphorical olive branch. So, I reciprocate.
“Aleks. My friends call me Aleks.”
He fucking smiles at me. “Friends, huh?”
“Don’t make me take it back.”
“You can’t. You said it. You can’t unsay—”
Window glass peppers my face in a sudden explosion.
The seat belt painfully cuts into my chest when I violently fly forward just as the airbags deploy.
The SUV suddenly swerves into the guardrail, and I reflexively reach up to brace the overhead, my left arm automatically extending across Tristan’s chest to hold him in place when we flip and roll end-over-end down a short embankment.
For the longest five seconds of my life, the world spins out of control before coming to a jarring stop.
Hanging upside down, I struggle against the suffocating grip of the seat belt as I try to process what just happened. Did something hit us? A deer?
My mind rapidly clicks through images like a child playing with a viewfinder. The driver’s side window exploded inward before we crashed. No other cars were on the road with us.
“Tristan…you okay?” All the blood rushes to my head, and I can actually feel my heartbeat throb inside my skull. “Tristan.”
When he doesn’t respond, I look over. He limply dangles from the seat’s restraints, blood dripping down like falling rain from a large gash on his forehead.
“Tristan,” I say louder.
He doesn’t move, his body frighteningly still, and fear wraps its icy tendrils around my heart, squeezing until I can barely breathe.
I can’t lose anyone else.
And then I smell it. Acrid smoke and the overpowering fumes of gasoline.
“Tristan, man. Wake up. We’ve got to move.” With fumbling fingers that refuse to cooperate, I frantically work the seat belt release, needing to get to him. Save him. “Tristan! Fucking wake up!”
The interior of the car begins to flood with smoke, but it’s the heat I feel coming through the vents that kicks my ass into gear.
ShitShitShit.
I savagely tear at the belt release.
Click.
Gravity suddenly pulls me down as soon as I’m free, and I fall head-first into the hard ceiling, my knees smashing into my face and making me see stars.
I fight the dizziness and use every bit of my strength to kick the passenger door open.
It creaks and groans when it finally cracks wide enough for me to squeeze out.
Stumbling upright, I see the first licks of flames shoot up through the front of the undercarriage.
Get to Tristan. Get to Tristan. Those three words are my mantra that runs on repeat as I race around to the driver’s side. I pull on the handle, but the car door resists, the metal too deformed where it’s wedged in the ditch we landed in.
Fuck!
Dropping to the ground, blunt pieces of tempered glass cut into my chest and hands.
“Hold on. I’ve got you,” I promise him, rolling over onto my back, so I can fit through the opening where the window used to be. With effort, I’m able to get his belt unlatched and quickly catch him when he drops. “I’ve got you,” I say again, praying that he hears me. That he believes me.
Running on adrenaline, my muscles strain as I pull Tristan’s heavy, unconscious body from the wreckage, not stopping until I’m sure we’re far enough away from the flames.
Cradling his head, I gently lower him into the grass and put my ear to his mouth.
Please be breathing. Please.
One second passes by like an agonizing lifetime, but in that second, I offer my life to whatever higher power exists to save him. That if the Reaper needs a soul today, to take mine.
“Don’t you fucking dare give up. You hear me?” I shout, starting chest compressions. “Syn loves you. You’re about to be a dad.”
My arm muscles burn with exertion as I pump his chest. We haven’t gotten a chance to be brothers yet. I want that chance.
“Aleksei, don’t let them take him,” I beg, knowing he will fight heaven and hell, angels and demons, to save our brother from joining the afterlife.
One…two…three…twelve…twenty-nine…
A jagged gasp of life erupts out of Tristan, and the profound elation I experience is overwhelming. Tears I can’t stop from forming fill my eyes.
Tristan dazedly blinks up at me through coughs. “What?”
Holding him down when he tries to move, I check his pulse with two fingers on the side of his neck. It’s fast but steady. “I need you to lie still and not move.”
Of course, he doesn’t listen. The stupid ass attempts to sit up.
Trying to be gentle, I restrain him. “I will knock you unconscious if I have to. You’ve got a nasty gash on your forehead.” Understatement of the year. His entire face is painted crimson with blood.
Ripping off my shirt, I press it against the ugly wound to slow the bleeding.
Phone. I need my phone.
Keeping the pressure on with one hand, I reach into my back pocket and bring the phone up to my face. It unlocks, and I hit the Emergency Call button at the bottom of the screen.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a female dispatcher asks.
“My brother is hurt. We need paramedics. Please hurry.”
“Can you tell me your location?”
“Brambury Road, about five miles outside of Darlington. Just tell them to look for the car on fire.”
“Your car is on fire?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Sir, are you hurt?”
I don’t know.
“My brother is hurt.”
“Is he breath—”
“How long?” I interrupt her.
“Paramedics are in route.”
“How long?” I ask again, getting irritated.
“They should be arriving in ten minutes. Someone from the sheriff’s—”
I hang up on her and pull up my contacts.
“Why the fuck are you calling my number?” Hendrix barks after the third ring.
“Sending you a pin. Get here as fast as you can.” I disconnect, send it, then call Pyotr.
“Hey—”
“Meet me at Darlington Medical.”
“What’s going on?” Pyotr says, his tone clipped.
The distant wail of sirens gets louder. “They’re coming,” I tell Tristan, my gaze fixed on the shallow rise and swell of his chest.
“Who’s coming?” Pyotr shouts.
“Just get to DM.” I hang up on him, too. I can’t deal with everyone’s questions right now.
Tristan’s hand covers mine holding the shirt to his head. “Aleks…what…happened?”
I replay the seconds right before we hit the guardrail.
It wasn’t a deer. Someone shot at us.
It’s too similar to what happened on Christmas Eve. Payback, maybe? But we took out Michael and everyone who supported him or had a hand in Katalina’s death. So who?