30. Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty
Nikolai Volkov
“H ow’s packing going?”
I looked over my shoulder, seeing Illayana standing in my doorway, arms crossed over her chest. Considering she hadn’t said a word to me since I got home a few days ago, I was surprised she was here, talking to me.
Yesterday, I received the call we’d all been waiting for.
A woman named Andrea told me a position had just become available in the private security firm I’d applied for, if I was still interested in taking it.
She’d spoken in code, another precaution set forth by Talon, no doubt, in case anyone was monitoring their phone calls.
I had to pick my words carefully because, as someone on this waitlist, I should know what her words meant, even if they didn’t make sense to me.
Everything seemed to go okay, because she gave me the flight information that would send me on my journey. In two days, I would be off to that island and the mission would be underway.
A mixture of emotions warred within me. Excitement. Anticipation. Eagerness. Dread. Not for me, but for Tatiana.
I feared going away, becoming unavailable to her and anything she might need could set me back in the progress I’d made.
What if something happened while I was away?
What if she needed me? There was no coming back from where I was going.
Not unless we completed our mission and saved my father, something that was going to be extremely hard to achieve.
There were a lot of obstacles to overcome, a lot of things that could go wrong.
It made me hesitant to go, despite knowing what fate my father would most likely suffer if we didn’t rescue him.
“You’re talking to me now, are you?” I turned back around and continued the mundane task of packing my clothes into my suitcase.
Illayana huffed and stepped into the room. She sat at the edge of my bed, staring me down. “I don’t want you to go without settling things between us.”
“Didn’t we already do that? Yes, I distinctly remember. That bruise on your face, it’s from me kicking your ass in the ring.”
She picked up a pair of black pants and threw them at me. I caught them and put them in my suitcase. “If something happens, if you don’t come back, I don’t want our last words to be ones of anger. I want to resolve this.”
Very mature words from someone who had acted like a complete fucking child less than a week ago. But she was trying, so I wouldn’t say that.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Illayana. Or more, what you want to hear. I’m not going to apologise—”
“And I don’t want you too,” she cut in. “I just want to hear your side of what happened. I’ve heard Tatiana’s. Now I want to hear yours.”
Was that something I could give? The memory of that day was something I tried actively not to think about, not to relive. The past was the past. It couldn’t be changed. Reliving it only caused pain, so I’d promised myself I wouldn’t think about it if I could help it.
But as I looked at my baby sister and those big, pleading blue eyes, I knew I couldn’t say no.
Two years ago
“So, as you can see Mr Cliveson, I have more than enough inventory to meet your needs.”
It took a conscious amount of effort not to roll my eyes.
Sitting across from my father and I was Delano Campos, the fucker who had been selling guns in our territory.
We had suspected it was him, but he’d just confirmed it, and in doing so, signed his death warrant.
He didn’t realise he was sitting at a table with the Pahkan of the Bratva.
He thought we were just a couple of drug runners looking for weapons to protect ourselves and our product. Not his competition.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out and glanced at the screen, my jaw locking up tight.
Tatiana.
I ignored the call.
I wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. Not after everything.
I didn’t want to hear her tell me what an idiot I was being, how I was overreacting.
She just kept trying to invalidate my feelings.
I heard that fucker Kurt, with my own ears, explain in great detail about their ‘time’ together.
Heard him describe the tattoo on her ass that she had gotten with me .
The timeline matched. I didn’t need to know anything else.
The baby wasn’t mine, just like with Galina.
I wasn’t going to go and get my hopes up again just to have them and my heart crushed into oblivion. I wasn’t.
Still, there was this tiny voice in my head that kept saying, “What if?” What if she was telling the truth? What if it was all just a big misunderstanding and the baby was mine? What if she didn’t betray me? That voice was slowly getting louder and louder, more prominent. More demanding.
I wanted to believe it, to listen to it. What I felt for Tatiana was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. A blazing love as powerful as a supernova. All-consuming. She was everything to me. It was why the idea of her betrayal hurt so much.
My phone vibrated, Tatiana trying to call me again. I ignored it. Again.
I told myself I was ignoring her calls because I was dealing with Bratva business, but deep down, I knew the real reason.
It was because I just didn’t want to deal with any of it right now.
I needed more time. Needed to figure out exactly what I was going to do about our situation.
Whether to believe her and run back to her, or let her go.
After the third call, I switched my phone off and focused back on the meeting.
Delano was running his mouth, trying to make himself seem all Alpha dog, like he was the big man and we were nothing.
It was getting harder and harder to sit at this table with him and not put a bullet in his brain.
But, Father wanted to wait. We had confirmation it was him selling guns in our territory, but Father wanted to know where he was getting them from.
You had to take out the supplier, as well as the seller to truly stop it. Otherwise, another person could easily replace Delano and we’d be right back where we started.
After what felt like hours, we were finally done, and said our goodbyes with arrangements to meet in a few days, us with the cash and him with the inventory. That was where we’d attack.
Father and I exchanged a few words before he got in his car and left. I climbed into the driver's seat of my own vehicle and took a deep breath, my hands curling around the steering wheel.
I feared what I would find when I turned my phone back on. Most likely Tatiana, cursing me out for ignoring her. Something I probably deserved. I’d been ignoring her attempts to talk for months now.
I don’t know how long I sat there, my car running idly as I worked up the courage to deal with my problems. I couldn’t ignore them any more. Ignore her. We needed to talk and resolve things, no matter how much I dreaded the conversation.
I turned my phone back on. An influx of text messages overtook my device, as well as several voicemails.
Panic set in when I read them. Oh, dear God. What was going on? I opened up one of the voicemails and placed the phone to my ear.
At first, I couldn’t hear much. I thought perhaps it was a pocket dial, but then I heard it. Heard Tatiana, crying, sobbing, calling out for me. Begging for me. My heart literally broke, pain burning my insides.
I’d never heard her like that before. Never heard her voice filled with so much pain. So much desperation. So much agony. Something must be wrong. Something must have gone horribly, horribly wrong. Tatiana was the strongest woman I’d ever known. For her to beg for me…
There were other voices. A man telling her to push. A woman asked if there was someone else she could call for her. All while in the background Tatiana cried…for me. She said my name over and over again, each time like a knife through the heart.
She was in labour? Fuck. She was in labour, and she called me and…I ignored it. What had I done?
I started the car and sped down the road, my tires screeching. One of the text messages said she was at Saint Royal Hospital. It was only a few hours away.
As I drove, I tried calling back. Relief filled me when she answered.
“Tatiana? Tatiana, are you there? I’m on my way. I’m coming.”
“H-hello. This is Maureen.”
I swerved erratically through traffic, trying as hard as I could to get there fast without killing myself. “Where is Tatiana?”
“She’s…here.” When she said nothing else, I exploded.
“Put her on the phone!”
The woman yelped in surprise at my outburst but I didn’t care. “Darling, here. He answered. He’s on the phone.” Was she talking to Tatiana? Why wasn’t she responding?
I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to soften my voice. “Tati?”
Still nothing.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. “Why isn’t she talking?”
“I-I’m incredibly sorry, sir—”
“Sorry? Sorry for what? She’s okay, isn’t she?” Please, God, tell me she’s okay. If she wasn’t…if something happened to her…if she died…
I shook my head. If she died, I’d follow her.
“Tatiana is okay,” Maureen said, and I released a huge sigh of relief.
“And the baby?” When there was no answer, I asked again, more firmly. “And. The. Baby?”
“You should get here as quickly as you can.” Then she hung up.
No. No, no, no. I threw the phone and punched the steering wheel, slamming my foot down on the accelerator.
My mind was going crazy, coming up with different scenarios, each one worse than the one before it. She was only eight months pregnant. It was too early for her to be in labour.
Guilt overwhelmed me. Why? Why did I ignore her calls? Why did I turn off my phone?
When I got to the hospital, I drove right up to the front doors and jumped out of the car, leaving the driver's side door wide open and the engine still running. I bolted inside, looking around frantically for some sort of nurses station or reception desk.
A woman standing in front of a set of double doors saw me and her eyes widened. “Are you Nikolai?”