Chapter 1
ELENA
“You bitch, you fucking bitch,” Grace screams as she sees me step from the darkness after being reunited with my brother.
I understand why she hates me in this moment, but I had to save my brother.
And I’d do it again. Grace may never forgive me for the pain I put her through, making her believe Maxim was dead, but at least she now has a future with him, one that she thought was dead and gone when she buried him today.
“You made me believe he was dead,” she screams at me, and I watch the anguish on her face as tears slide down her cheeks. “You tore my fucking heart out. You’re a stone-cold bitch for what you did.” She sneers, pointing her finger at me.
I’ll be the bad guy in her story if she needs me to be. Whatever pain she wants to throw at me, I can handle it because they are both safe together and can now build that future they dreamed about. They deserve that after what Dimitri put them through.
“Grace,” Max says, stepping in front of her, turning her focus on him rather than me. He cups her chin as he tries to calm his distraught fiancée down. “It’s not her fault,” my brother explains.
You don’t have to defend me, Max, I’m a big girl.
I understand Grace’s anger, she buried the love of her life today, and now he’s returned from the dead because of me.
“Do you know the pain you put me through?” she says, pulling herself from Maxim’s grasp as she thumps her hand against her chest.
He’s my brother.
Of course, I understand her pain. I lost him all those years ago.
“It was the right thing to do, Grace.”
“Right thing to do?” she screeches at me.
“Wildcat, I would have died for real if she hadn’t taken me,” Max says softly, pulling Grace’s attention back to him again.
Tears slide down her face as she stares up at him, there’s nothing but love and awe as she looks at him. He uses his thumb to push away her tears that continue to tumble down.
“I had to bury you today, Max. I watched them put you in the ground,” she says, hiccupping on her tears.
“If there was any other way, I would have taken it in a heartbeat. I’ll do anything to keep you safe, Grace.”
My heart aches watching the two of them, and I hate that I’m responsible for the pain that is happening between them. In time, Grace will move on from the distress of today, and hopefully, one day will forgive me.
“You have no idea what it’s been like, Max.” Grace sniffles.
“I do, Wildcat. It felt like my heart was being ripped bit by bit as each day passed. I had to hold on to the hope that I would see you again,” he tells her.
“At least you had hope and knew I was still alive.”
“I will spend until the end of eternity making this up to you. Do you hear me?” Max says as he takes Grace's face in his hands and kisses her.
My stomach sinks as my mind wanders to the last time someone kissed me like that. And I hate the fact that, at this moment, I’m thinking of him. I hate that the asshole occupies a sliver of my blackened heart.
Who the hell falls for a monster?
And what kind of deranged person still misses him after he betrays and tries to kill you? That’s some messed up shit that no amount of therapy is going to be able to work out.
“Grace, who are you talking to? You’ve been gone for … what the fuck?” A blonde comes out looking for Grace.
Ah, Sophie.
She’s the journalist that broke the story about Nikolai and Dimitri that put them in the shit with the Bratva.
Pretty gutsy if I do say so. She put her life on the line and made a lot of enemies to save her sisters.
That’s the kind of badass woman I can support.
Then, right behind her is the large, hulking man known as Brooks, the guy who’s been given enough clearance to know what’s going on but not enough to know what’s going on, if you know what I mean.
He looks over at me and gives me a knowing yet discreet nod before feigning a shocked expression upon seeing us back from the dead.
While I’ve been away for the past couple of weeks, I’ve studied everyone who was going to be in Max’s life.
There probably isn’t anything I don’t know about the Clark sisters and the surrounding people.
What I do know is that they are good people.
There was no way in hell I was going to let Max come back and not be safe.
Not after everything we’ve been through.
“Oh my god, no it can’t be. No. He’s alive.” Zoe gasps and tears well in her sapphire eyes as she’s a couple of steps behind Sophie.
Moments later, her two shadows, Mateo and Tomas, are right behind her, assuming their protective positions on either side of their woman.
“Fuck me,” Mateo curses.
“Am I seeing things?” Tomas questions.
“I don’t understand. How the fuck are you two alive?” Sophie asks.
“They’re alive,” Zoe squeals before bursting into tears as her two men hug her protectively.
“What’s all the commotion? You’re going to wake Mum and Dad.” Mackenzie, the last of the Clark sisters, arrives. Her mouth falls open as she stares between Max and me. “What the hell happened to your hair?” she asks, looking between us.
Before I know it, I burst out laughing because of all the things anyone could have said that was not at all what I thought someone would mention.
Our naturally dark hair has been turned platinum blonde.
It took ages to strip the black from my hair.
They then gave me extensions and turned me into Malibu Barbie.
Sophie and Grace glare at me as I try to control my laughter.
“You’re not zombies, are you?” Mackenzie asks.
This has me cracking up even more. I think I’m in love with Mackenzie Clark; she has changed the mood entirely. Well for me, anyway. No one else seems to feel that way as they all glare at me.
“Be fucking serious, Kenzie,” Sophie snips at her sister.
“You’re supposed to be dead.” Sergei gasps. He’s the next to step into the melee, and the old man’s face is pale as if he’s seen two ghosts standing before him.
“I’m alive, old man,” Maxim states as he lets go of Grace and rushes over to pull him into a tight hug.
Sergei’s the closest thing Max has had to a father.
Ours tried, but he was in too deep with the Bratva to give a shit about his family.
I get it. I understand his logic because caring meant we were a liability.
Still would have been nice to have been normal for a portion of my childhood.
Not that what Sergei did for a living was normal, but he was there for his daughter Anna a hell of a lot more than our own father was for us.
“I can’t believe it, boy. This is real. You are both truly alive?” Sergei asks as tears well in his eyes.
“We’re both alive, old man,” I answer, giving him a warm smile.
Sergei looks up and spots me standing in the distance, and his eyes widen in surprise, as it’s the second time I’ve risen from the dead for him.
I’m like a cat with nine lives but it looks like I’ve already lost two of them.
He then walks over and pulls me tight into his arms. “Good to see you,” he says.
I hug him tightly, soaking in the feeling of safety the old man gives me.
Even if it’s for a fleeting moment, I want to be able to absorb that feeling for as long as I can.
Next, Grace’s parents arrive and that’s when the entire night falls into chaos.
Tears, screaming, gasping, hugging, kissing, and questions flowed from everyone in the family.
They pull Grace into concerned hugs, then shower Maxim with kisses before it’s my turn to be given the same treatment from a family that doesn’t know me other than I’m their daughter’s dead fiancé’s dead sister.
It's complicated.
But they are good people.
Without fuss, I move away from everyone to give them their moments together. I’m not used to all these people, not good ones anyway.
“Nice to see you’re alive, I guess,” Sophie says, walking over to where I’m standing in the shadows.
“Nice to be alive, I guess,” I bite back.
Those green eyes glare at me. “Where the fuck have you been?” she questions me.
I raise a brow at her, I thought she was supposed to be the journalist. “You’re smart enough to know I can’t answer that.”
Sophie rolls her eyes at me. “Do you have any idea the hell you have put my sister through these past couple of weeks? She thought she had lost Max.”
My heart may be black, but it’s not dead.
“I know.”
Sophie looks me up and down before answering angrily, “That’s all you have to say?”
“Not much else I can say.”
Sophie throws her hands up in the air. “You’re a selfish bitch.”
“You know nothing about me,” I bite back, she doesn’t want to push me.
“What I know is that you were too busy sleeping with the enemy. An enemy that did unthinkable things to my sisters and to those girls when you could have been stopping them.” She hisses.
Her words are like a dagger to my heart.
She’s right. I did nothing. You didn’t know.
They were hidden from you. How could you have known?
Dimitri explained the jewels were killers like me, but I couldn’t interact with them for fear our enemies would know what they were.
I thought they could defend themselves from these monsters like I could.
They were supposed to be trained. I didn’t realize they were lambs to the slaughter.
It kills me knowing what I know now. I consider myself a smart woman, but stupidly I never questioned Dimitri.
Guessing he showed me what I wanted to see to ease any questions I might have had.
He distracted me with sex I realize now.
We spent a lot of time together, and I guess I let what we were doing together physically cloud my judgment.
He also always dangled the Anna carrot in front of me, offering to help me find her, telling me he pulled a favor and gave me a tidbit that she was here or there, but nothing ever concrete over the years.
And like a fool, I fell for it.