Chapter 31 Cressida
thirty-one
Cressida
The baby shop smells softer than I expected.
Powder and faint vanilla, a sweetness that seeps into the air like sunlight on clean cotton.
Even the rubber bite of dummies seems harmless tucked between blankets and lullabies.
It sneaks past my guard before I notice, the kind of scent that settles low in your chest, warm and uninvited.
I don’t say it out loud, but it smells like safety, like something I don’t trust myself to want.
Of course, Sunni says it’s comforting while Lucetta says it’s trying too hard.
I say it’s trying to seduce into spending way too much money on blankets that look like they belong in the royal nursery.
Still, I run my hands over the tiny onesies and my chest aches.
It’s the first time I’ve let myself truly enjoy it.
The kicking has started. It’s just flutters, really, but it’s so damn real. They’re real. It’s not just some words on a stick or some picture on a machine from the doctor Konstantin brought in.
“Konstantin’s going to lose his shit when he sees all this in the house,” Lucetta mutters, eyeing the trolley Sunniva’s filled with plush toys.
“He already did. Twice,” I say with a half-smile, thinking about all the stuff I’ve already had delivered. “He tried to veto me coming out today. Gave me a five-minute speech on how nothing is more important than my safety. I had to remind him that hiding in a fortress isn’t living.”
“How’d he take that?” Sunniva asks distractedly, tossing a cute little nappy bag into the trolley. “Do you have a pram yet? What about a cot?”
“Yes, and yes,” I answer her last two questions before moving to the first one. “He growled a lot. And then he kissed me like I was air and he was drowning. Then he left the room muttering something about making sure we had a convoy with us.”
Lucetta snorts. “That’s hot.”
It is.
I don’t tell them that I felt his fear, though.
That I felt the way it clawed up his spine and slithered into my bones.
I don’t tell them I almost stayed home because I knew if something happened—if I was hurt or worse—it would wreck him.
I don’t say that every night when he falls into the restless few hours of sleep, that he does it wrapped around me and that he whispers prayers in Russian that I don’t even think he knows he’s saying.
We load the last of our haul into the SUV. The four carloads of security detail fan out in front and behind us.
I should feel safe, but I don’t.
Something shifts in the air. It’s a subtle pressure, a crackle under my skin.
A wrongness that makes my breath catch. Lucetta’s posture goes stiff, her hand twitching near her thigh holster like she’s waiting for someone to lunge from the shadows.
Sunniva’s chattering beside me, flipping through something on her mobile and laughing at it.
I try to focus on her voice. On her sunshine, her unapologetic chaos, but I’m struggling.
Paranoid. I’m just paranoid.
Konstantin prowls on the other end of the bond and I’m half-tempted to close my eyes and let it lull me, but before I can, the world jerks sideways.
Tires squeal and metal screams, the impact slamming me into the door as glass shatters against my shoulder.
My head rings.
Sunniva shrieks from beside me, but it cuts off when her temple bounces off the door. The SUV spins, lurches, then slams to a stop and my breath tangles in my throat.
“Out! Out!” Lucetta’s voice cuts through the ringing. She’s already moving, dragging me across the seat while our guards tumble into chaos.
Another car rammed us broadside.
Their doors finally fling open and black-masked figures spill out, their weapons flashing.
“Ambush,” I rasp.
My chest buzzes with panic and rage that isn’t mine.
Konstantin’s flooding through the bond in a tidal wave. He knows. He feels me.
“Cress, move!” Lucetta yanks me out the damaged door and into the rain.
When did it start raining?
My boots skid on the wet pavement, and Sunniva staggers out behind us, blood streaking her temple even as she mouths curses while dazed.
Gunfire cracks around us as our guards try to hold them back, but her men aren’t falling.
Why aren’t they falling?
One of our guards go down with a wet choke and another fires wildly into the dark before a bat catches his skull and drops him like trash.
“Back!” Lucetta snarls, shoving Sunni and me toward the alley.
Her knife flashes, catching one of the attackers across the throat. He gurgles as blood sprays and he falls, but three more move in and take his place.
We don’t even make it ten steps before a van screeches into the mouth of the alley, blocking our escape. Its door slides open and more masked men pour out, armed and damn efficient at wiping out our security detail.
“Shit,” Sunni mutters, swaying. “This is bad.”
No bloody kidding.
Hands grab my arms, and I snarl, twisting away from them, but there are too many. They shove me hard against the van, their knee grinding into my spine. Another set grabs Sunniva. She fights like a fucking wildcat, nails raking, teeth snapping, but she’s woozy with blood dripping down her cheek.
“Let her go,” I scream.
“Stay down,” Lucetta roars at me, but she’s drowning in bodies.
Six men pile onto her, trying to pin her arms. She slashes and guts two of them before one clubs her across the head. She drops to her knees, shaking her head as blood slicks her hair.
Her eyes latch onto mine, fear unlike anything I’ve ever seen from her filling them. “Baby,” she mouths at me.
I go still as her word registers.
Oh, goddess.
The baby.
How the hell did I forget?
Terror tightens my windpipe until I can barely pull a breath in.
Panic tears through me and the bond shrieks as Konstantin’s fury hits so hard it steals my breath.
Lisichka.
His voice shoves into my head, broken and savage.
He’s coming and I know it.
I just don’t know if it’ll be fast enough.
They drag me and Sunniva into the van. Lucetta tries to lunge after us, but another blow drops her flat. Her body sprawls on the wet pavement, twitching, and then she stills.
My heart rips.
“No,” I scream, grief taking over my soul.
I kick, claw, and fight the men around me. My boot catches one man’s jaw with a crack, but another slams me down on the metal floor and pins my arms behind my back before yanking a hood over my head.
Sunniva lets out a muffled curse from beside me but cuts off with a grunt as they strike her again.
The doors slam shut, and the van lurches forward.
Fight like hell to keep them from getting you to another location.
My brother’s words come back to me, and I thrash as muffled screams burn my throat, but it doesn’t matter. There’s too many of them with strength that’s too unnatural for me to battle.
I’m alive.
I push it to Konstantin, not sure how far this new power of ours will reach.
Why the hell didn’t we work on strengthening it? Why?
Hold on, Kisa. I’m coming. I’m coming now.
The ride is endless.
My body aches with every bump and the hood stinks of mildew and smoke, causing my stomach to roil.
Sunniva groans from beside me, still alive and still fighting even half-conscious.
I whisper her name, and she groans again.
“Ten outta ten, do not recommend that rollercoaster.”
“I give it a negative two,” I reply weakly, tears tightening my throat.
The van finally screeches to a halt, and we’re dragged out. Rain cuts through the thin fabric over my head before it’s yanked away and the world tilts.
We’re in another warehouse, this one reeking of damp concrete and bone-deep rot.
Then we hear the heels.
Click.
Click.
Click.
“Oh, fuck me sideways,” Sunniva mutters. “The twisted bitch is here.”
And then there she is.
Giselda.
Looking exactly like the monster under your bed decided to wear designer clothes and ruin your life with a smile.
She’s no longer the girl I once knew. Not even close. Her hair is black now and chopped unevenly and her eyes are wild and shining with something unholy. Her mouth stretches into a grin that’s just . . . wrong. All wrong.
“Well, well, well,” she purrs, her head tilting like a twisted Barbie. “My girls. Finally, we’re all together again.”
“You’re not our anything,” I growl, pushing myself upright despite the screaming pain in my shoulder.
“Oh, but I am, Cressida. I made you,” she says, her eyes wild with delusion. “I gave you everything. Friendship. Love. Protection. I gave up everything for you.”
“You faked your own death and stayed dead for seven years, Giselda,” Sunniva spits. “That’s not protection. That’s psychosis with extra steps.”
“Makoa was going to kill me. I had no choice.”
“There were plenty of choices,” I snap. “You just didn’t want any that didn’t end with you playing queen on a bloody throne.”
She laughs and it’s the most monstrous sound I’ve ever heard.
“You’re so small-minded, Cressida. You think the world is black and white—good friends, bad enemies. But I was building something better. An empire. One ruled by women, not by the boys’ club of killers and monsters you married into.”
“You’re the monster, Giselda.”
Her smile falters.
I should stop, I know I should, but all my grief, my pain, my fucking rage pours out of me before I can stop it.
“You stalked us. You sent threats. You kidnapped us. You’re not building an empire. You’re setting fire to everything you ever claimed to love.”
“I own you,” she screams, suddenly unhinged. “You and Sunniva were mine. My sisters. My legacy. And then you went and chose Lucetta,” she spits her name like a curse, “over me. You replaced me.”
“We didn’t replace you until you threatened us, you batty bitch,” Sunniva snaps. “That tends to sour a friendship.”
“And you’re pregnant,” Giselda sneers, stepping closer, her eyes darting to my stomach. “With his child. His blood. You were supposed to be my family.”
“You’re sick, Giselda. And the worst part? You think it’s love. You think you’re the hero in this story.”
The bond sears my chest so painfully that I gasp. Konstantin is coming, his rage sharpening into something cold. I feel it, thick and heavy, the Bogeyman waking fully.
Giselda notices something going on, and then I feel her, trying to dig her claws into my head again.
I grit my teeth and shove her out so forcefully that something inside her shatters. But then she grins maniacally. “Oh, he feels me, doesn’t he? He’s terrified. Good. Let him run.”
Sunniva’s laugh is raspy and full of pain. “You’re fucked, you dumb cunt. You just don’t know it yet.”
Giselda’s head snaps toward Sunni. “You always were the loud one. The distraction. Maybe I’ll cut out your tongue first just to make it quieter.”
“Try it,” Sunniva spits. “You want crazy? Bitch, I will out crazy you.”
I know what she’s doing. She’s keeping her focus off me and the baby. And goddess above, I love her for it, but she really needs to shut the hell up before I end up losing her.
“Enough.” My voice rips out. “You don’t own us, Giselda. You never did.”
She blinks, startled at the venom in my voice. For a second, I see the girl I once loved like a sister. Then she’s gone again and replaced with this twisted thing in front of me.
“You’ll understand,” she whispers. “You’ll see. When you kneel beside me in the ruins with the Bogeyman’s blood staining your boots. Then you’ll see.”
Konstantin’s cold fury settles the way it does right before he kills. I know this feeling. I know what it means.
I drag air into my lungs and smile at her. “He’s coming for me, Giselda. My monster man. And when he gets here, you’ll see exactly what you unleashed.”
For just a second, her smile falters. Then she laughs, high and broken, and the sound is worse than the silence.
Once she leaves us with guards who look too jacked up, I close my eyes.
I don’t pray.
I call to him.
My Bogeyman.
Come find me, baby.
And I send him as much information as I can through this new link.
Be there soon, Lisichka, he returns.
“He’s coming,” I whisper to Sunniva.
“Good. Do you think he’ll bring his hot friend so I can do one of those dramatic faints we see in movies to make him fall in love with me?”
I laugh softly, leaning my head back against the wall and closing my eyes, taking comfort in the knowledge that he’ll be here.
And this time, my monster man won’t leave a soul standing.