Chapter Nineteen
Lila
I wouldn’t live my life as Alexi’s pawn anymore, and I knew that with every cell in my body.
For the first time in months, I was awake, I was alive, and I was in control of my destiny, not at the mercy of my father’s bad debts or Alexi’s poisonous web.
I was Lila Montague, and I wouldn’t back down from anything.
I also held a revolver in my hands, and had it pointed at Alexi’s head.
After I woke up in Adam’s bed alone, I threw on a terrycloth bathrobe I found in the master bathroom and wandered through the second floor of the house.
When I didn’t locate him, I figured I’d find him downstairs in the kitchen or on the back patio, overlooking the morning view.
I arrived in the front hallway in time to hear the confrontation between Adam and Alexi.
“She’s provided a fair amount of—let’s call it leverage—for my company,” Alexi told Adam.
“Men fall all over themselves to be with her, because she’s like a rare pastry, a piece of cake they cannot resist. They’re shocked someone of her caliber would give them a second glance. And it’s hard for them to say no.”
That was all I’d needed to hear. This wasn’t going to happen to me again. No matter what, I wouldn’t go back to that life, wouldn’t go back to the misery that accompanied it. No way.
I moved against the wall and took a few deep breaths, wondering what to do next. I didn’t exactly know what was going on in the kitchen, but I didn’t care, either. I shut my eyes and strained to hear the rest of their conversation.
“She’s not for sale,” Adam said.
My eyes flew open and I pushed off the wall.
This whole awful charade had to end. Now.
I crossed the hallway to the front closet.
Adam had told me security was important to him, and he had guns all over the house in case of an emergency.
Perhaps he has a stash somewhere in here.
It made sense, given the proximity of the closet to the front door and the rest of the downstairs rooms. As the argument escalated in the kitchen, I slid open the door, careful to make as little noise as possible.
I moved an array of jackets out of the way and scanned the back of the space.
And I was right. In the center of the back wall hung a small gun safe, one I found already unlocked and stocked with three different guns.
Thank God.
I grabbed the first thing I saw, a revolver.
I stepped out the closet, relieved that someone had loaded it.
I had no idea how to use it, but I didn’t care.
I’d be damned if I let Alexi win this battle—or if I let Adam fight it alone.
This was about my destiny, not just his.
Our destiny. The previous night changed everything between us forever. I’d be damned if I gave that up.
“He’s right,” I said in my clearest, strongest voice when I arrived at the kitchen threshold. I held my arms straight, my elbows locked, and I pointed the barrel of the revolver at Alexi. “I’m not for fucking sale anymore.”
“Ah, I see, she speaks,” Alexi replied, a slight smirk on his face. “How nice of you to join us, Lila.”
“My pleasure,” I replied through gritted teeth as I gave the kitchen a quick scan.
A woman I guessed to be one of Adam’s staff sat trembling at the table, her eyes wide, streaks of sweat falling into the deep crevices of her face.
Two men hovered above her; men who could have been twins of the men I saw at the party on the night I reunited with Adam.
And Adam sat next to the woman, his face pale, but his expression fierce.
I swallowed my fear. “Let them go,” I told Alexi. “Now.”
His attention stayed fixed on me, his gaze roaming my body as a shiver raced up my spine. “Interesting. You little bitch.”
“Don’t speak to her that way, you motherfucker,” Adam interjected, his words almost a shout.
Alexi didn’t acknowledge him. “I should have guessed.” He narrowed his eyes. “You lost it to him last night, didn’t you? You gave it up to this asshole.”
“What the—”
“Let me handle it, Adam,” I ordered. “I’ve got this.
” I took a deep, calming breath. “That’s none of your business.
” I tightened my grip on the gun, reminding myself I had the barrel trained on him, and that gave me the upper hand.
“Besides, last night you wanted to sell me to him. So why the fuck do you care?”
“Because, little princess, you shouldn’t have given it away for free. Didn’t you learn anything from our time together? Everything and everyone has a price.”
“Like I said, I’m not for sale. Our arrangement is over.
” I felt the tension rise in the room as Alexi and I remained locked in our stalemate.
“I’m an excellent shot,” I threatened, not caring that I exaggerated my skills.
“I won several awards at summer camp as a kid. I don’t miss.
” A fresh, hot flush of adrenaline and fear pushed through me, but I moved it aside. “Let them go.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Alexi replied.
“Lila, it’s okay,” Adam said. “You don’t have to do this. I can—”
“No, Adam. This isn’t just about you.” I kept the gun trained on my target, and only allowed myself the briefest glimpse at the man I cared so much about, the person I wanted to be part of my future, and not just my past. “This is really between Alexi and me.” I glared at the man who thought he owned me.
“You have five seconds to release them, or—”
“Or you’ll do what?”
“Do you really want to find out?” I tightened my grip on the gun. “Four seconds.”
Alexi laughed. “So confident, aren’t you?”
“Are you?”
“I’m always confident, mon cherie.”
“Figured that. Three.” This was a gamble, a high-stakes moment, but one in which I had never felt so sure. How long had I been a victim? How long had I allowed others to make my decisions for me, without taking agency for my own life? Too long. “Trust me you don’t want to see what happens next.”
Alexi laughed again. “Here you are, all ready to take control of the situation—or so you think.” He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you realize if you try to take me out, my men will do the same to you?”
“I’m willing to find out,” I replied, past the point of caring too much about this moment. I’d lost so much anyway, and we were all teetering on the edge of the unknown. We might as well find out what happened next. “Two.”
“Boss,” one of the men said. “Should I—?”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish the sentence. Instead, I narrowed my eyes, focused on the threat, and fired.
The next fifteen seconds passed in a haze of gunfire, screams, and the chilling rat-a-tat-tat of bullets whizzing through the kitchen.
I fired again. And again. And again. And by the third shot, two more guns entered the battle.
I couldn’t tell who hit what or who was armed. It was all a haze of madness.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, the gunfire stopped.
“Oh my God,” Adam’s longtime staffer screamed. “Mr. Greene—”
“It’s okay, Magda.” Adam threw down his own gun before he clutched his left arm, and I noticed for the first time that he’d also taken part in the gun battle. “I think it just grazed me.” He lifted his hand, revealing a blood-soaked T-shirt sleeve. “Yeah, it did.”
“Adam,” I yelled as I rushed over to him, stepping over one of Alexi’s henchmen.
That man had been hit in the crossfire too, and now lay in a pool of blood on the floor, most of it sprouting from his neck.
I didn’t know if he was dead yet, but it didn’t appear he had much longer to live. “Oh my God, oh shit!”
“How did you not get hurt?” Adam asked through a grimace. “How did you know how to use that revolver?”
“I didn’t.”
I ripped off the robe sash to use it as a tourniquet around Adam’s arm. The flap fell open revealing my bralette and underwear, but I didn’t care. I tied the fabric around his upper bicep and surveyed the rest of the room. Both of Alexi’s henchmen were probably dead.
Alexi was dead too, slumped onto the kitchen table, his head bleeding, pieces of tissue and blood spattered onto the wall behind him. For a moment, I didn’t know how to process what had happened. What I had done. But then it hit me like an avalanche.
“Holy shit,” I cried, my voice shattering into a thousand pieces, right along with my emotions. “I did that, didn’t I? I killed Alexi Chekov.”
“You did,” Adam replied, his voice strained but calm. “Magda, call the police. We need them here. Now.”
Lila
It was self-defense. No question. Alexi and his men broke into Adam’s house, took his employee hostage, and threatened the lives of all of us. We had a right to stand our ground, and we did.
But to my surprise, the police also didn’t ask too many questions, almost as if they were relieved Alexi Chekov was gone, and that the mastermind of mayhem and misery all around South Florida no longer held court as their problem.
Despite the disabling of the main part of Adam’s security system, the closed-captioned cameras all around his home remained intact, capturing it all, showing how Alexi and his men forced their way inside the home, dragged Magda to the kitchen, and created what would only be described as a tense power struggle inside a house that didn’t belong to them.
“We’ll have to complete an official investigation,” the Palm Beach Police Department detective told me after a second interview.
It was the afternoon, and officers had been trolling the property for hours, picking up clues and gathering evidence.
“But this was a home invasion. No question about that, and when you say you feared for your life, I can easily see why.”
“Thank you.” My voice shook and the remains of adrenaline still pushed through my body, giving me energy to get through this stress. I still wore the bathrobe, and I sat on the steps of the wide staircase linking the first floor of Adam’s house with the second. “I’m just…I’m in shock.”
“That’s not a surprise,” the man said. He handed me a white business card. “We will need to talk with you again tomorrow, and we might have further questions. For now, though, get some rest.”
I took the card, scrubbed my face with my free hand, and mumbled another thank you. For a while, I stayed in place on the steps, bracing myself against the wall as I watched police wrap up their work. And then, just as I almost fell asleep, Adam joined me on the staircase.
“Hey there,” he said, his arm wrapped in a thick white bandage, a small grin across his face. He’d been right, the wound wasn’t much more than a graze, and paramedics had treated him on the back porch instead of taking him to the hospital. “Doing okay?”
“About as well as to be expected.”
I heard the weariness in my voice. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d stay awake, to say nothing of how I’d be able to process what had happened. I might not be charged with murder, but I had still killed people, and that was something I would have to figure out how to live with.
“They won’t be here much longer.” Adam sat next to me on the stairs. “As soon as they’re done, I’m going to have Magda call in a clean-up team.” He took my hand. “Thanks to that gun battle, the kitchen is going to need an overhaul.”
“That’s probably the understatement of the year.” I pointed at the large picture window near the front door of his house. “Did the media leave?”
Shortly after the police arrived, all the television stations in West Palm Beach, The Palm Beach Post, and a few online outlets camped out on the street, straining to get any video or information they could about what had happened.
Adam’s personal attorney, as well as the South Florida counsel for InstaPost had issued a statement around noon, but that hadn’t stopped the coverage.
“They’re still out there,” Adam replied. “But they’ll lose interest soon enough. And you didn’t do anything wrong, Lila. You defended yourself. And me. And Magda.”
“With help from you,” I whispered.
“Well, sure, but you did most of the work, sweetheart.” He gave me a small smile, as if he hoped to break the remaining tension. “You’re a pretty good shot, did you know that?”
“I guess so,” I replied. He hooked his arm around my shoulders, and I slumped against him, the weight of all that had happened finally overtaking me.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I cried into his good arm.
“This is all my fault. If you hadn’t gotten mixed up with me, you wouldn’t have had to deal with this mess. You would be…you’d be free.”
“Shh,” he said, and lifted my chin. Our eyes met, and his expression softened further.
“If I hadn’t gotten mixed up with you, who knows how boring my life would be?
I certainly wouldn’t have done all I have.
I wouldn’t have been so motivated. And understand, Lila, being with you is the entire point. ”
I smiled for the first time in hours and wiped my face. “It probably helps I saved your life too.”
“It does.” He placed his forehead against mine. “And now that I have you, now that we’ve saved each other, I’m never letting you go. Ever.” He pushed some of my hair away from my eyes. “I love you, Lila. I always have.”
I stared deeper into his eyes. “I know you do. And I love you too. I meant what I said last night with my whole heart.”
“Really?” A small frown crossed his face, and I wondered for a moment if he didn’t believe me. “Are you—”
“I’m one hundred percent sure,” I insisted. Now that I had him in my life, now that we’d gone through what we had, I wanted to hang on to him, to keep him as close to me as possible. “You’re stuck with me, Adam. Forever.”
He grinned. “Somehow, in all this madness, I got what I wanted.” Then he moved a strand of hair away from my face, and his lips found mine again.