23. Sonya
23
SONYA
S urprisingly, the SUV got us home. It wasn’t a smooth ride, and I was sure it would be taken to a junkyard after that collision. But it got us home. Oleg checked again that I was all right from that bump on my head.
“You’re the one who was just in the hospital,” I reminded him.
Ben turned and frowned at me. “So were you .”
“What?” Oleg didn’t rest easy until Ben and I explained how we’d come there to see him, then saved him from that Petrov soldier and that nurse.
I hoped that talking would help jar Irina out of the stupefied daze she seemed stuck in, but she remained quiet the entire ride back to the mansion I’d grown up in.
I’d dreamed of making this final return trip so many times. I’d tried to hire someone to drive me there since I escaped. And now that we were pulling into the long drive, the magic of the experience faded.
Too many other things were going on. Igor was killed. Irina had murdered her father. We’d been chased. Oleg was alive, not dead like I’d believed for so long. He survived more attempts on his life, too.
Danger was ever-present in this world, but I realized as the SUV stopped and the doors were opened that I’d been sheltered from it for years. After the Ilyins killed my mother, I’d been left alone, secluded and isolated, captive and guarded. Of course, I was in danger all that time, but not present danger.
Returning to it now felt… normal. Like what my life should be like.
Ben took my hand as we walked toward the mansion, but I kept our pace slow. No one rushed me, and I appreciated the chance to look at it all. The house was the same, yet not. Anything could look different after eleven years, but the second I walked up the steps, a deep sense of coming home hit me.
I was home.
I wasn’t stuck on that property.
I was in control of my life, returning where I belonged.
A wide smile lifted my lips, and I didn’t try to hide it.
“You’re okay?” Ben checked, squeezing my fingers.
“I’ve never been better.” I looked up at him, knowing this return was more complete with him at my side. I wasn’t just coming home. I was starting the first step toward my future with him here.
So far, no one seemed offended or confused that I was with him. Plenty of questions had to linger about how Ben and I knew each other and when and how we’d conceived a baby. Those answers would come, but until we could sit down and discuss it all, I had every bit of faith that he would be accepted as my partner. It helped that he was already working for them, or with them. I doubted he considered himself much of an independent contractor anymore, not since he was so helpful in my uncle’s room at that time of threats.
The moment we entered the house and I saw my sister, though, I cautioned myself from getting too far ahead with happiness.
Eva narrowed her eyes at me and crossed her arms. Surprise showed on her lovely face, and stubborn antagonism was evident in the line of her closed lips clamped together.
I drew in a deep breath, saddened that this was how our reunion would start.
“So, you live.”
“Eva,” Oleg scolded harshly at her greeting.
“Uncle?” She lost the scowl for me and looked at him with happy surprise. “You’re… you’re…”
“Alive as well,” he grumped. “Almost killed twice today, though. He saved me.” He pointed at Ben. “Then she saved me.” He pointed at me and smiled. “And then she saved me too.” He put his hand on Irina’s back. “Which is why I’m disappointed in your acting like Sonya’s return isn’t something to celebrate. Taking care of this family, of the Baranov legacy we share, is priority.”
He frowned but accepted Eva’s hug. She really was happy that he was well and home. “I agree. And I’m sorry.” She looked from him to me. “But I’ve spent the last eleven years hating that my mother ran away with her and didn’t want me.”
I cleared my throat. “The Ilyins took me and Mother. We were held captive. They killed her ten years ago, and I’ve plotted to escape and come home to our family every single day of those years.”
Eva left Oleg and approached me slowly. “You were taken?”
I nodded, trying my best not to cry at the sight of my baby sister all grown up. We’d lost so much time, and I hated that she’d assumed something so false. She’d let such anger and resentment fester all this time. “I would never leave our family. Mother wouldn’t have either.”
Eva let out a cry, sobbing as she ran to me. Wrapping her arms around me, she hugged me tight. But just as quickly as she embraced me, she released me. “Wait. You are pregnant.” She looked at Kelly and Irina. “It’s really you. And you’re… pregnant.”
I nodded, smiling again as we hugged once more. Words could wait. I had a decade of missing hugs from her.
“And I killed my father.”
That statement was Irina’s, dull and blunt. She still had a dazed, vacant expression regardless of Vik standing with her and keeping his arm around her.
“What?” Eva furrowed her brow again and looked at her friend. “What did you say?”
“A lot has happened today,” Lev summarized, almost flippantly. He kissed her and rejoined Oleg to assist him further into the house.
“Come along, Irina. Sit,” the Boss urged, beckoning Irina to enter his favorite lounge with him. We all followed in, and Eva didn’t leave my side.
“Am I dreaming? Is this really happening?” She frowned up at me.
I couldn’t take my eyes off our uncle guiding Irina into the room. He already saw her as one of his own, a former enemy and now ally. Oleg used to rule with such an iron fist, but I’d never doubted that he had a big heart. And he proved it again now.
A teenager came into the room, signing to Irina, and she responded with gestures as well.
“That’s Maxim,” Eva explained. “He’s—oh. You’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
I nodded then tipped my chin at Irina. “But given how shaken up she seems, I think we need to start with what happened today and work backward.”
Eva smiled, a real one, and hugged me close before I sat with Ben. “I am so glad you are home.”
I arched a brow. “And that I hadn’t run away?”
A shameful frown covered her face, but I wasn’t going to allow that. I hadn’t come home to hold a grudge. “Eva, relax. My disappearance couldn’t have been a simple thing to explain or understand. We’ll talk.”
With one more nod, she moved over toward Lev as the family gathered for a meeting.
“Igor Petrov had a soldier attempt to smother me at the hospital,” my uncle began. “And the Ilyins paid off a nurse to kill me as well. On the way home, Igor joined his men in an attempt to run us off the road and opened gunfire.” He patted Irina’s knee, as she sat next to him, Vik at her other side. “Irina approached in kind and killed him.” Lifting his chin, he almost smiled. “The Petrov family will disintegrate and will no longer be a threat to the Baranovs.”
We all sat in silence, deferring to him.
Then, loudly and awkwardly, someone reacted in a shout. “Oh, thank fuck.”
We all turned toward Maxim, who was deaf. It was a blunt reply that none of us would judge him for. It sounded like Igor had abused and neglected the boy, and he likely had every right to be glad the man was dead.
I smiled, looking forward to meeting and getting to know him more. Countless surprises might be waiting for me as I reacclimate to being home, but acquainting myself with a new half-brother would be a joy.
“Now the Ilyins need to be dealt with,” Ben said.
Oleg raised his brows. “And since when have you become a member of this family, Mr. Warner? Before the wedding, I was under the impression that you were nothing but an independent hitman we wanted to hire for a hit on O’Malley.”
“I was,” Ben replied.
“But he’s now the father of my child.” I didn’t stutter, proud to claim this connection. “And he will be in this family.”
Lev huffed a single laugh, amused. It looked like he’d need to get over whatever initial hangups he’d had about Ben. With how sneaky Ben could be, I bet there were a few instances where Lev struggled to let him close to the family.
Not anymore. Ben was my family. I couldn’t state anything about our marrying, but he didn’t seem to want to leave my side ever again. Nor did I want to leave his. We were in this together.
“The Ilyins took her and her mother,” Ben added. “And I will seek revenge on the men who dared to hurt the mother of my child.”
“And what happened to…” Oleg lowered his face, seeming to lose his courage to continue.
“They killed her,” I stated, trying my best to keep the heavy emotions out of my tone. “They attempted to rape me, and when she fought them, they raped her and killed her instead.”
No one spoke, and as I watched the fury on my uncle’s face, I regretted being so direct like that. He shouldn’t be exposed to stress. He had to take it easy. He’d had a heart attack, and here I was giving him hard, gruesome news that would invoke rage.
“Those motherfuckers,” he growled. He ranted on, cursing more in Russian, and we all jumped into action, telling him to calm down.
“The Petrovs and Ilyins,” he growled once he sat again and seemed slightly calmer. “Both of them had always been trying to knock our family down. Back then and now.”
“And now they’re making it easier,” Ben said, speaking up. “The Ilyins schemed to take Sonya so she would grow up and marry Eric Benson.”
Oleg pounded his fist on the armrest of his chair. “I knew that fucking Benson had something to do with it. I searched for clues for years. Back then, he’d been obsessed over reducing my power, about culling the might of the Baranov name.”
Ben nodded, getting up to pace. “Geoff Ilyin admitted that they’d taken Sonya so they could arrange a marriage between a Baranov and a Benson. That way, when Eric was in office and had political power, he’d be able to use his leverage as having Sonya as his wife.”
“Of course. He’d rule against us,” Oleg guessed. “And he would be ‘family’.”
“Geoff intended to court his favor,” Ben added.
“And Igor must have realized they’d be squeezed out as a power,” Vik said. “Hence his desperation to kill Oleg.”
Lev crossed his arms, looking like a warrior. “Then all that remains is taking out the Ilyins.”
“You up for it?” Ben taunted.
Lev scowled at him.
“The Petrovs will fall apart,” Irina stated, seeming calmer the more we all talked.
“And once we go after the Ilyins,” Lev said, “no threats will remain.”
“The Baranovs will rule in peace,” Rurik said from the side where he stood with Kelly.
“No. Not in peace,” Kelly said. “ I will never be at peace until O’Malley is killed.”
The men all looked at Ben.
He sighed. “I’m on it. I was a little sidetracked when I crossed paths with Sonya…”
“And Benson,” I added. “I won’t relax until I know my so-called intended is dead.”
“Benson and O’Malley,” Oleg said, pointing at Lev and Ben. “You two handle them.” Then addressing Vik and Rurik, he said, “And you two gather the men to annihilate the Ilyins once and for all.”
Looking at me, then Irina, and lastly, Kelly, Oleg smiled calmly. “It is already time to prepare for the next generation of Baranovs to come. And I want them to have the security and safety they deserve.”