46. Elena
46
ELENA
T here’s one guard waiting by the door, but from the brief video, there didn’t look to be anyone inside. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen before I left and slowly stalk the long way around the garage until I’m right behind. Then I strike, grabbing him, slitting his throat. I drag his twitching body and dump him in the garden. I suck in a deep breath and calm my body, I don’t know who or what is behind it, the monster in me has now taken over and I am working on instinct. Slowly, I push open the door, and with my gun raised, I walk in and access the room. It doesn’t look like anyone else is in the room besides Grace and Sophie, who are strung up like ragdolls. Grace has tape over her mouth while Sophie has a black eye. When they see me walking in relief floods their faces.
“No one is in here,” Sophie tells me, and I relax as I rush over to where they are hanging. Pulling out my bloodied knife, I cut them both free.
“You’re safe,” I tell Grace who looks to be on the brink of a PTSD attack. She hugs me tightly and whispers her thanks to me.
“He didn’t touch you, did he?” I ask to be sure. I know the asshole is dead, but I would shoot him again if he touched Grace. She shakes her head.
“No, he didn’t touch her, other than taunt her. He gave me a black eye, didn’t like women who fought back,” Sophie says.
“She kneed him in the balls when he suggested he fuck her because he’s had nearly every other Clark sister,” Grace mumbles.
“I shot him in the balls, then shot him in the head. He’s dead,” I explain to them.
Grace stares at me for a moment in sheer disbelief. “He’s dead.”
“He’s fucking dead. In the living room if you need to check.”
Grace shakes her head. “I believe you.”
Sophie, you need to take Grace to the safe room, they haven’t been able to penetrate that room.
“No!” Grace screams. “We have to find Max, I can’t lose him.”
“Grace, he’s fine, he’s alive. He does have a broken leg but he’s alive,” I tell her.
“Oh, thank God.” She weeps.
“Max told me to keep you safe and that is what I’m going to do. You trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she says through her tears.
“And I’ve brought him home before, alive. But I can only do that if I know you are safe. Please, Grace, go be safe and I will bring Max to you. I promise,” I reassure her.
“I’ve got you,” Sophie says, wrapping her arm around Grace’s shoulder.
“Bring him back to me,” Grace tells me.
“I will,” I reassure her.
“Stay safe,” Sophie adds.
“Always do. Now go, quickly, I don’t know how many there are out there.” As we move out of the garage, I go first, check the perimeter, see it’s clear, and tell the girls to run and don’t stop.
I head toward the pool house, stopping and see how many guards there are, looks to be two. I’m surprised that Dmitri didn’t come with more firepower. It’s probably because he knew he didn’t need it as we would be caught off-guard.
Laying low, I observe the men, standard issue Bratva wannabe gangster’s outfit in black camo, with balaclavas and a Kalashnikov. They stand on either side of the pool house door chatting away as if they don’t have a care in the world.
“I need a piss,” one of the men says in Russian.
“Do it in the bush,” the other one says.
“There’s a toilet inside.” The guy moans.
“Boss said we couldn’t go inside,” the other man says.
“Not even for a piss?”
“You could have pissed by now if you stopped arguing,” the other guard tells him angrily. The guard flips him off and trudges toward the gardens, that’s when I strike with a knife through the jugular and a hand over his mouth to cover his scream, then I throw his body into the bushes. When I walk around the corner, I run straight into the other guard. What the hell is he doing here? He’s supposed to stay at his station.
“What the fuck,” he curses in Russian, and before he has a chance to reach for his gun, I’ve put a bullet between his eyes.
Shit.
The gunshot echoes around the estate. Any other guards are going to converge on the pool house to check it out. I rush into the pool house, and I see Max has passed out from the pain of his broken leg and Sergei is hanging on.
“You’re alive. I heard a gunshot.” He perks up.
“Yeah, that was me. I took out the two guards, and one surprised me.” I take my knife out and cut him free from his ropes. “Grace is safe, she should be in the safe room with her family,” I tell him. Relief washes over Sergei’s face.
“And Anna?”
Shit.
How the hell am I supposed to tell him that his daughter is one of the people who orchestrated this? He’s only just got her back.
“What’s happened to Anna?” he pushes, seeing me unable to answer him.
“She …” I stumble over my words.
“What she’s trying to say, dear old dad, is I organized this.”
“What! No, my Anna would never,” he exclaims.
“I’m not your Anna,” she sneers and shoots Sergei.
“No,” I scream as Sergei slumps over and doesn’t move. “No,” I cry again, looking at his lifeless body. “Why? Why did you have to shoot him?” I scream at her before reaching for my gun and aiming it at her.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Damon says, walking in behind her. I turn and aim my gun at him.
“If you shoot him, I shoot you. Then I’ll torture your boyfriend to death after I fuck him.” Anna sneers at me.
I refuse to put the gun down. “You don’t think I can shoot you both before you shoot me?”
“Perhaps, or maybe you’re underestimating me. I did just shoot Sergei.” Anna smirks. “You know he wasn’t my father.”
“Yes, he was.”
Anna shakes her head. “It came up on my medical for the agency.”
Sergei isn’t her father. No that can’t be right. “He loved you.”
“He killed my biological parents.” She glares at me.
I shake my head. “No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did,” she spits at me, her hand shaking with anger.
I have no idea what she is talking about. Who the hell are her supposed biological parents? I don’t understand. “Did you do all this out of some kind of revenge?” I ask her.
“Please, how pathetic do you think I am? That I would do all this because my mommy and daddy are dead. Seriously, Elena, I thought you were supposed to be some kind of super spy. Your reputation certainly doesn’t proceed you.” Fucking bitch. “No, I did all of this for power.” Power? She sold us out for that. What power? Whose power? “And everything was going great until you came in and destroyed my jewels.”
I still. “Your jewels?”
“It was Anna’s brilliant plan,” Damon adds proudly.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Damon takes a step toward me. “Someone more important than you bitch,” he seethes.
Anna puts her arm out in front of him, halting his steps. “Don’t, she’s baiting you, babe.”
Babe?
“You’re right, I’m sorry, she just riled me up,” Damon says, continuing to point his gun at me.
“I know, babe,” Anna says, trying to soothe Damon’s anger. “Damon is the son and heir of the head of the Bratva. I met him in New York at a college party. He was already working for the agency tasked with keeping an eye on us until the agency was ready for us.” The agency? How did I not know any of this? “He told his family about us, that the agency wanted to recruit us, and his job was to recruit us first.” I’ve never seen this man before in my life. “He saw me first, and that was it,” Anna gushes.
“I fell in love with her right away,” Damon adds, gazing at her adoringly.
“He chose me, not you, me, to be his bride.” Anna sneers at me.
Bride? “You’re marrying him?”
“Yes. I needed to prove to his family that I would make the perfect Bratva Queen beside her King,” Anna explains.
“That’s when she thought up the jewels,” Damon adds proudly.
Anna created the jewels. It was her monstrous idea. I stare at my oldest friend. Did I ever really know her? “How could you do that to those women? How could you do that to any woman?”
Anna rolls her eyes at me. “Please, you seemed only too happy to spread your legs for every man in college, I thought this was right up your alley.” Anna shrugs.
Her words are like a sucker punch to my gut. “You made me a jewel?”
Damon chuckles, loving seeing the anguish on my face. “She suggested you’d make the perfect honey trap for the agency and the Bratva, and she was right.” My best friend set me up. She sent me to hell to play with the devil. “Is she going to cry?” Damon laughs.
“I think so.” Anna chuckles.
I push my emotions down. “Why did you choose Anna over me?” I ask Damon, my question catching him off-guard.
“Oh … um …” He stumbles over his words.
“Don’t you speak to him. He would never have fallen for you because you’re a whore.” Anna sneers at me. “He wanted someone pure. And he got that with me.”
“He’s who you lost your virginity to?” I ask her.
“Of course.” She huffs.
“And he was fine sharing you with all those men in Mexico?” I question her.
Damon stiffens. Anna’s eyes narrow on me. “Pedro was her husband, I understood she had to do what she had to do,” Damon answers.
“I’m guessing she forgot to tell you about sleeping with her husband’s son and right-hand man, didn’t she?” I question him.
“Fucking lying whore,” Anna hisses at me. “Ignore her, baby, she is trying to get under your skin. Those men forced themselves on me, that’s why I killed them. Fucking monsters,” Anna explains to Damon who believes her.
“And did Damon tell you about him sleeping with Mackenzie?”
“What! You slept with her?” she screeches at him.
“Baby, what no,” he stammers. “I only kissed her.”
“That’s not what Mackenzie told me,” I add.
“She’s fucking lying, baby, I didn’t.”
“You promised me,” Anna says as tears stream down her cheeks.
“You don’t get to be upset with me. You were fucking your pig of a husband.”
“I know, baby, but that was my job. She wasn’t your job.”
“What was I supposed to do? I was sick of jerking off. You had one more year on this mission,” he reminds her.
“You fucked her because you were sick of jerking off?” Anna screams at him as tears fall down her cheeks.
“I didn’t fuck her, baby …” Damon screams, taking his eyes off me to defend himself against Anna. That is my moment, picking up the gun, I shoot. He is dead before he even has a moment to take a breath.
“No,” Anna screams, tears running down her cheeks, but because she is so distraught and in shock, she tries to shoot me but gets me in the shoulder, sending me backward. My return shot misses her, and I fall on my back, fuck. “You fucking bitch, you killed my man,” Anna screams as she runs toward me with her gun raised.
This is it.
I’m dead.
I didn’t think this was how I was going to die. There have been many times when I thought this is it, but this time, I truly believe this is it.
Bang.
Anna falls to the floor.
What just happened?
“I couldn’t let her kill you,” Sergei says before he collapses.