Chapter 19
19
TOMASZ
D ust and debris rain down around me. The old hidden palace in the hills is caving in with every detonation that continues to go off. Men are falling on every side as fires roar in nooks and crannies, waiting to consume the place.
“You’re mad!” Anton shouts over the thundering warfare. “We don’t know where she is or whether she’s still alive.”
Ignoring his remark, I scan the surroundings for any sign of the one man I know will have her. Sergi likes to play games, but he chose the wrong piece to fuck me with. I told Red I’d protect her, and there is nothing I won’t do. There’s no blood I won’t spill.
Taking the crumbling stairs down two to three at a time, I waft the dust in front of me as screams erupt from somewhere in the distance. I follow the sound as bullets hit my side, the vest taking the impact for me while Anton retaliates on my behalf.
“Find the girl and get the fuck out,” he barks my way while moving to cover my back.
The screams stop with a reverberating shot that pierces the air. I’m striding towards the sound, but it’s impossible to see anything further than a couple of feet ahead of me.
I take far too long to set my eyes on Sergi. Even with his back to me, I know it’s him. Eyeing the body on the ground, I know that it’s my girl he’s touching.
Fury rips through me as I take a shot at his shoulder so that he releases Lucy. Motionless, she collapses into a heap on the ground. A broken rag doll with twisted limbs.
Ignoring the need to go straight to her, I take another, closer shot at the back of his leg as he’s about to turn. When he falls on his knees, I take another shot at his other shoulder.
“I warned you not to fuck with me,” I spit at his face as he whines in pain like the little bitch he is.
Sergi tries to get at me as I pick up my girl. Her limp body weighs nothing in my hold, with her head lolling back and her arms swaying.
“You don’t get to fucking die on me now,” I growl into her knotted hair, standing to my full height as Anton finds us again.
He’s about to take care of Sergi when the cunt looks up at me with a grin. “You’ve just signed your death certificate.”
Maybe, but he’ll be meeting his maker before me. With a shunt of my heel to his nose, I silence him once and for all. As he convulses on the ground, his grin morphs to pained alarm as his brain scrambles to shit.
All I can do is walk away with Red in my arms, holding her tightly to my chest and hoping I’m not too late and that she’s strong enough to survive this.
* * *
The quiet haunts me. Thirty-two thousand feet in the air, the jet is bathed in muted light that makes it impossible for me to see anything clear with the residue of my fury still roiling inside me. I’m not a liar. I’ve never been a liar. What you see is what you get. My word is my bond. But as I stare down at the bed, my insides wring themselves with every promise I made her.
Pale and bruised. Battered. Red looks a shell of herself. I never wanted it to be this way. From the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew I could never let her go. However, looking at her now, maybe my father was right. I should have sent her to one of the clubs. Had I listened, the girl wouldn’t be close to falling apart, and for that…
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tugging the blanket higher.
The vision of the bruises on her neck makes me physically sick. It doesn’t matter that Sergi is dead because what I did to him was too easy compared to what he’s done to her. Slender legs are mottled purple and blue, and I keep asking myself why I sent for her.
Why?
“If I could bring him back—” Pausing, I sink back into my seat and drink down what’s left of my vodka. The burn growls at the back of my throat with the need to destroy. “You’re better than this,” I tell her, knowing that she’s not listening to a word I’m saying. “Stronger than you or I or anyone knows.”
Nothing but the hum of the engine murmurs back, taunting me with the fact she hasn’t moved a limb since I laid her down. Her heart is beating. Her lungs are working. Yet she refuses to wake.
With a low knock, Anton opens the bedroom door. His arm is in a sling after the doctor took care of his gunshot wounds back at the hotel.
“You should have let the doctor look at you,” he says with a fleeting glance to the bed.
“They’re only bruises.” And nothing compared to hers.
“It’s going to get messy now. You realise that, don’t you? You killed the Sarapov heir, and they will not stop until?—”
“If she doesn’t wake up soon, the Sarapov won’t need to worry about getting to me.”
Standing beside me, Anton nods with a narrowed stare at the girl. “When she wakes up, you’re going to have to decide what happens next. Dimitri is furious.”
“Is my father ever anything other than angry?” The hoarse scoff rumbles to a chuckle that sounds nothing like me.
“Not even your mother will save you grief this time.”
“Have you ever known anyone to withstand so much?” Pouring myself another drink, I hand him the bottle so that he can do the same.
“I’ve never known you to risk so much for anyone.” He blows out a breath, pouring himself half a finger and gulping it. “Is she worth it? To you?”
“I hate her.”
Anton laughs, making me look up at him. “She hates you too.”
“She constantly makes me want to punish her. I don’t know whether I want to kill her or…”
“Because you care.”
“Who the fuck do you work for?”
Pouring me another drink, he shakes his head at me. “I’m not in the business of lying, and neither are you. The girl is a weakness we need to address. You either claim her and make her one of you so that everyone knows who she belongs to, or you kill her. Those are your only options now.”
“I kill her, or we kill each other.” I don’t see us ending in any other way.
We are volatile. The push and pull between us weaves between lust and hate. It’s vicious and unrelenting, beautiful in all its toxic glory. But it will always end in destruction because love, in its purest form, is devastation.
“Good luck figuring that out,” Anton chuckles as he puts the bottle down and heads back out of the bedroom, looking back at the bed. “If you die happy…maybe it’s not a bad thing.”
The door clicks closed, and I check how much longer we have left of the almost eight-hour flight to our compound in the Russian mountains. It feels like we’ve been in the air for longer than two hours, and as I settle back into my seat, I pull out my phone to call Mom.
It barely rings once before I end the call with the girl’s soft, pained groan. I watch to see if she goes back to sleep, but her eyes blink open, squinting in the dim light as though it’s too much for her. Without a second of thought, I stand and reach over to the bedside table to turn the light off.
“Tomasz,” she croaks when I sit on the edge of the bed.
Even dry and rough, her voice makes my pulse race. “Red.”
A long sigh of relief pushes from her, and while I’m still staring in awe that she is awake, a tear rolls down her temple, followed by the tell-tale quiver of her grazed chin that warns me of her breakdown. Tears upon tears sluice down her temples, drenching her hair as sobs rip from deep inside her.
Before I can stop myself, I lie beside her on the bed and tuck her into me. I know her body is sore and that I should probably leave her be, but I can’t help myself. The need to hold her consumes me as I wrap my arm around her and allow her tears to soak into my shirt.
“You found me,” she finally hiccups.
“Always, baby,” I whisper into her hair while my thumb strokes up and down her bicep.
“I thought I was going to die.”
As did I. Enough to pray, or at least consider praying. But I won’t tell her that. Right now, the only thing that matters is for her to relax and be glad that she’s alive. So instead, I tell her, “Not on my watch.”
“Why?”
The words swell in my throat, making it almost impossible to breathe through them. Nobody has ever made me feel this way. So out of control and so dependent on their existence. This girl is the only thing that has given me reason to stop. She makes me reckless and stupid because, for the first time, I feel like I want to let go of myself. Red makes me feel things that make me think outside of the here and now and the violence.
“You keep bringing me back to you,” she states gruffly. “Why? Why can’t you just let me go? Let me die?”
“Because I need you.” My snapped remark registers a little too late. “I need the abandon you bring me and…”
“And?”
“You’re mine. Nobody gets to touch, let alone hurt, what’s mine. Not even you.”
A short, gasped breath wracks her body. “You kept your word and came for me…”
“I started a fucking war because of you…because Sergi Sarapov hurt you, and I couldn’t let him live.” Flipping on top of her, I brace myself above her body. Like this, she feels smaller and so much more fragile. “I told you I would protect you, and you made it impossible for me to keep my fucking word. You made me a fucking liar, and I am so fucking mad. I want to protect you, and I want to hurt you. To punish you for running away from me…”
With her wet stare on mine, Lucy whispers, “Can’t you just hold me?”
“If that’s what you want,” I murmur back before she nods slowly.
“It’s what I need.”
It’s what we both need, and it’s what I do while she rests, and I breathe in her every exhale until I pass out beside her, never letting go.