Chapter 13
DROGO
I was packing a bag when the car arrived.
One suitcase. Black. Nothing flashy. Jeans, shirts, boots. No suits this time. No point pretending I was going for work.
I stood in my bedroom, staring at the half-zipped bag on the bed. The same bed where she'd slept on me two nights ago. Where I'd held her. Where I'd held her after her nightmare, giving her promises I didn't know if I could keep.
My phone was on the nightstand. Screen dark. One unsent message to her.
I love you. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Stay safe.
I didn't send it.
And there was another draft message I would never send.
Keep her safe.
That one to Marcus but damn me if I let another man protect my woman. I was going to NYC to keep her safe—me. No one else. This was my mess. So the text to her, even though I wanted to, it was never sent.
Couldn't risk it. Couldn't give my father more ammunition.
The intercom buzzed—short, sharp, once. Building security.
"Mr. Solberg? Car for you downstairs. Driver says you're expecting him."
I didn't answer. Just grabbed the bag, walked out of the apartment and locked the door behind me.
Elevator down to the private garage. Doors opened to concrete and low light.
Black Mercedes. No markings. Tinted so dark it looked like a void. Pulled up silent in my reserved spot.
The driver didn't get out. Just sat there, engine idling.
I opened the back door myself, slid in.
Leather seats. New car smell mixed with something colder—old money, old blood. No partition. Driver didn't speak. Didn't look in the mirror. Just pulled out smooth, up the ramp, into the empty streets.
Luxury prison.
The car ate up the dark road in silence.
No radio. No small talk. The driver didn't acknowledge me beyond the single nod when he'd taken my suitcase at my building. I sat in the back, window cracked just enough for cold air to slap my face, trying to keep the panic from rising in my chest.
My phone was in my hand, thumb hovering over Alena's name.
I typed again: I love you. I'm sorry. Forgive me please stay safe.
Stared at it.
Deleted it.
Typed again: I'm coming back. Wait for me.
Deleted it.
Typed: If something happens—
Deleted it.
I couldn't send anything. Wouldn't dare. Klaus was watching. He'd see it. Use it. Turn my love into a weapon against her.
And I couldn't risk Alena panicking, trying to figure out why she should stay safe. I would keep her safe. No matter what.
The car turned onto a private road, gates swinging open without a word from the driver. A small airstrip appeared, lit by harsh floodlights that turned the night into artificial day. The private jet was waiting—a Gulfstream, sleek and white, stairs down like an invitation to hell.
The driver handed me my bag and pointed toward the plane. Still no words. Maybe he didn't speak English. Maybe he'd been told not to engage. Maybe this was how the Bratva worked—silence and obedience, no questions, no connection.
I walked up the stairs alone, my footsteps echoing on the metal.
Inside was exactly what I expected. Cream leather seats. Polished wood paneling. Champagne chilling in a bucket I wouldn't touch. A flight attendant appeared—young, blonde, professionally blank—and offered me a drink.
"Welcome, Mr. Solberg." She leaned in closer than necessary, her hand brushing my shoulder as she set the glass down. Her shirt had one too many buttons undone, revealing smooth skin. The touch lingered.
I pulled back sharply. "Don't."
Her eyes widened slightly—surprise, maybe offense—but she recovered fast. Professional mask back in place.
"Of course. My apologies." She stepped back.
All I could see was Alena. Her smile from last night. The way she'd looked at me like I was the only man in the world. The way she'd whispered my name.
I was a taken man. Completely. Irrevocably.
And I'd break anyone who tried to make me forget it.
She vanished toward the front cabin.
I threw my bag at an empty spot and caught the eyes of a man sitting across the aisle—judging my choice to reject her. Smirking slightly.
I took a step closer, staring him down. "Something funny?"
He raised his eyebrows, smirk fading. Looked away.
Smart.
I took a seat by the window. Alena's face crossed my mind again. Christ. I raised my hand. "Scotch."
The glass was in front of me before I could breathe.
The plane taxied smoothly, lifted off smoother still. London fell away below us—the lights of the city shrinking to pinpricks, then nothing. Just darkness and distance and the hum of engines carrying me toward a man I'd spent my entire life trying to forget.
And then the memories came.
Unstoppable. Unwanted. The kind that lived in the back of my skull like shrapnel I could never quite dig out.
The leather seat smelled like her flat. My mother's flat. Old and worn and full of ghosts.
The hum of the engines sounded like the machines that kept me alive when I was born.
The darkness outside the window looked like the void I'd been cut from.
I was never told the full story until I was older.
I had to piece it together from orphanage files I wasn't supposed to see, whispered conversations between social workers who thought I wasn't listening, the cold facts typed out in a coroner's report I stole when I was sixteen and desperate to understand why I was the way I was.
My mother took the pills when she was eight months pregnant with me.
Not to kill herself alone.
To kill us both.
She'd found out who my father was—some rising Bratva enforcer with connections and blood on his hands, a man who'd used her and vanished the moment she told him she was carrying his child.
He laughed, apparently. Told her a bastard would only complicate things.
Threatened her if she kept it. Said he'd make her disappear if she ever came looking for money or support or anything resembling responsibility.
So, she chose death.
For both of us.
She swallowed enough pills to stop a heart twice her size, lay down on her bed in that small London flat, and waited for it to be over—waiting for the end she thought would spare me from his poison.
She didn't want me born into his world. Didn't want me raised by monsters.
Didn't want me to carry his blood, his legacy, his curse.
Was this the mother's love I heard so much about? Did she try to protect me? Maybe.
But I lived.
They cut me out after she was already gone. Heart stopped, body cold, skin turning gray. I came into the world covered in her blood, breathing only because machines forced air into my underdeveloped lungs. Born from a corpse. Born from a woman who chose death over letting me exist.
The note they found in her hand—folded tight, ink smudged from her fingers, the words burned into me like a brand—said it clearly enough for the adults to understand even if they tried to hide it from me:
You killed me by existing in my womb. You did this.
She never meant for me to read it even though it was clear—painfully so—she meant me.
It was probably meant for him. For Klaus.
For the man who'd destroyed her life and then laughed about it.
But someone—some well-meaning social worker or careless administrator—left it in my file.
Someone thought I should know the truth.
So I grew up believing it.
Believing I was the reason she was dead.
Believing I carried death inside me from the very start, that my first act in this world was murder, that everything I touched would eventually turn to ash because that's what I was made of. Because it was true. I killed her. I drew my first blood before I was even born.
It's funny. I always wondered why I am so drawn to violence.
The plane leveled out. The seatbelt sign blinked off. Silence except for the steady drone of engines carrying me across an ocean toward the man who made my mother choose death over bringing me into his world.
I leaned my head back against the leather seat, closed my eyes.
My fingers brushed the tattoo of her name on my chest, still warm from where she'd rested her hand last night.
"I'll come back to you," I whispered low, so only she could hear. A promise. A vow. A prayer.
Alena's face flashed behind my eyelids—her lying in my arms last night, brown eyes soft and trusting, asking if we'd last. The way she'd smiled against my chest when I said yes.
The way she'd whispered "okay" like that single word was a promise.
The way I'd kissed her forehead and left her sleeping, coffee machine set, sandwich made, note on the counter.
Wait for me please.
I wasn't okay.
I was flying straight into the arms of the man who'd made my mother swallow pills and write a suicide note blaming me for existing. The man who had Bratva connections that stretched across continents. The man who was dying but still had enough power to threaten everyone I loved.
And I didn't know if I'd come out alive.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
If I didn't come back, Alena would be safe. Marcus and Lucy would be safe. Everyone I cared about would be out of his reach because I'd given him what he wanted—me, alone, compliant, walking into his trap without resistance.
That had to be enough.
For now.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out.
Unknown number.
A photo.
Alena.
At Lucy's house.
Laughing. Wine glass in hand. Completely unaware.
Timestamped: Today. 11:47 a.m.
Right now.
While I was thirty thousand feet in the air, flying away from her, Klaus had someone watching her. Photographing her. Following her.
The image burned into my retinas—her laugh frozen, wine glass raised, completely unaware that death was watching.
A text appeared below the photo:
"She looks happy. Let's keep her that way. See you soon, son."
I stared at the screen, blood pounding in my ears.
The Scotch glass shattered in my hand.
Amber liquid and blood dripped onto the white leather seat. I didn't feel the cut. Didn't care.
I couldn't turn back. The plane was already halfway across the Atlantic. Even if I wanted to, there was no stopping this now.
I'd walked right into his trap.
And he had her in his sights.
One thing rolled in my mind. I owed that bastard a punch. For her. No one threatens what's mine.