Chapter Thirteen
Sometimes They Fall Down
Rafe
I know the moment we cross over into Russian airspace. It’s the moment Dom’s arm flexes across the back of Thalia’s seat where he hovers over her like a watchful hawk, protective and brooding and all the things I wish I could be for my wife but can’t.
And so I watch the man who is all the things I’m not in this moment and pray my wife isn’t a static body when I find her.
That phone call—it ruined something inside me.
Something about the entire scenario seems too simple, too easy. I know she’s hurting. That much was evident in her voice, the way she kept the conversation light and flowing, right up until she said Thalia’s name.
My attention drifts back to my healer, and my friend beyond. Not so many months ago we promised to head our own families, take on a separate path. Yet here we are again, forging forward in the same direction, for the same reason, again, as though the fates aren’t yet finished with us.
Thalia, alone, seems to be unaffected by the location. I know she’s never been to Russia before, but both Dom and I have a history here. Lost in her head, she stares at the empty pale leather seat opposite her where Regina or Willow would have sat otherwise.
Today, she is the sole female passenger on a plane full of men equipped with enough hardware to take down a small nation.
Or a Bratva.
I know what we are walking into, and what we might not walk out of. Dom, too, will have prepared Thalia, given her the chance to back out of the deal but her presence on my plane says everything.
And, as always, we are entering the country through a network of various unofficial channels that will get us to all the places we need and back out again—God willing—while it seems as though we never left the U.S. in the first place.
The plane dips in the air and Dom’s hand flexes again as our descent takes us closer to Willow. I lean forward, peering through the clouds, but the barren ground beneath gives me no more clues than the waiting bulletproofed car with its heavily tinted windows minutes later.
Thalia sits between us, my men scattered throughout the convoy with Willow’s captor’s team driving. It reduces the amount of his teams in the car, but it also heightens the likelihood of a kamikaze run for the drivers.
Take out a few of his own to rid the world of one more Familia .
It’s not as though I have a lot of friends in this nation.
“She’ll be fine. They wouldn’t put us through all this if she wasn’t,” Dom lies through his teeth to my face over Thalia’s head.
I smile through tight lips and meet his eyes, letting him see the desolation there. If this goes wrong, it won’t just be the driver’s potential suicide run he’ll have to worry about. “Just get her home safe. That’s all you need to do,” I say softly, glancing down at Thalia.
Dom doesn’t pause to clarify which her I mean.
Smart man.
He nods curtly, mirroring my grimace as the cars pull up in front of an ornate palatial building topped with colorful domes that remind me of a Fabergé egg my mother had in her bedroom at one point before it was destroyed in a random shoot out by one of my father’s many collected enemies.
Armand gave it to her for an anniversary and she was so incensed to lose that piece she hunted the shooter down and attacked him with a pair of sewing scissors that she had on her person until he was unidentifiable.
My smile loosens as I wonder if I should try to purchase one of the decorative eggs for Willow.
Knowing my wife, she’d probably throw the million-dollar piece at my head.
“My friend.” A blond man with a severe face and scar reaching from the outer corner of one eye to the curve of his lip greets us as we tramp up the steps to the grand house. His hands rest in his pockets, and he gives no outward signs at all of holding my wife hostage.
I manage not to glare at him and keep my gaze assessing. “Are we friends?” I ask idly, stifling a yawn behind my hand. “Apologies. My man snored for the majority of the flight. I believe I have someone to introduce to you.”
The blond man’s eyes light up. “Ah. You must be—”
I hold up a hand. “If you are the person who holds my wife from me.”
His facade drops, along with his genial nature. Something much harder emerges, like watching a predator drop the mask before its prey. “Of course, Gallo. I am Bogdan Inavoff.”
“I’d say it’s a pleasure but it’s business, so of course, it’s not.” I don’t smile or react. Just wait.
Something of my father is in that gesture, or lack thereof, and I give him a mental salute.
Inavoff surveys me with cold features that are as barren as the wasteland he lives in, pretty glass pieces he has constructed around him aside. “Your wife is this way. Please, bring your party.” He turns on his heel without gesturing for me to follow, and walks away with a slow, steady gait.
I study his back as I let him lead us deeper into the house noting the lack of visible security and men.
Mine outnumber his twenty to one at best right now, and that lack of display annoys me.
I keep my emotions in check, but note the pristine walls, the impeccable art that must be worth millions, so casually displayed.
Perhaps Inavoff’s security looks different to mine. Providing I walk away with my people alive and unharmed, I really don’t care about this man in the least. He can continue to live his fucked up existence so we can all get back to ours.
I round a corner and something red and black flashes in my peripheral. At my other side, Dom draws, and my hand raises half a second too late to stop him before the shot goes wide, shattering something no doubt priceless over my shoulder as Willow crashes into me at full tilt.
I rock back on my heels, absorbing her momentum, wrapping her in my arms. She makes a muffled sound, wriggling a little, but I don’t care, crushing her to my body tightly.
It’s only when I realize her cries are of pain that I release her and step back but she clings to me, tears pouring unchecked down her face.
Willow is many things—all passion and love and fire and vengeance. In front of an enemy, however, she is never, not once, anything but what she wants to be.
But I am coming to realize that the man standing behind her may not be my enemy, or hers.
I cup her cheek, grazing my lips across the corner of her mouth and send a silent prayer heavenward in pure gratitude of her continued existence.
She shudders, clinging to me as sobs wrack her too-thin frame.
Swearing between clenched teeth, I cradle her to my body and give Ivanoff a nod over her head.
He watches me, the corner of his scarred face twisted in his version of a strained smile.
This rescue will cost me, and I’m not entirely sure I can afford his fee. The thought settles low in my gut, but for now I push it aside and concentrate on Willow.
“Talk to me,” I murmur into her hair, striving to maintain my calm when all I want to do is strip us both naked and press our bodies skin to skin in the most intimate way possible.
“Gods, wife. I’ve been without you for too long.
Do you know how many men I killed in the pursuit of wrapping my fists in your hair and kissing you stupid?
” I stroke her nape gently, my touch at odds with my words.
She shivers again, wincing and twisting. “Rafe, I can’t—”
I swallow hard, knowing I’ll have to take it easy with her until she’s healed. Until I can scalp the cunt who hurt her fucking again . “I love you,” I whisper.
Her broken smile lights my fucked up world and it’s worth every one of Dom’s loud as shit snores to find her again. “You brought Thalia?”
I nod, dropping a shoulder as I tuck her into my side with zero intention of letting her go, now or ever again. “She’s here.”
“Good.” Willow sucks in a breath. “Then there is someone she needs to meet.” She smiles at the healer who studies her with her usual calm, and steps forward. “Bogdan Inavoff knows someone you might have known, once. One of the girls,” she starts.
Thalia blinks. “From Sing—” her voice cracks and dies.
Willow nods encouragingly. “Yes. She’s—not here. But she was his niece. It’s one of the girls Dom and Rafe brought back once. A long time ago.”
I frown at her, then at Inavoff. “I don’t remember delivering a girl to Russia.”
Our host shakes his head. “You wouldn’t.
It was on American soil. My sister’s daughter.
She ... was never again right.” He steps forward until he’s within arm’s reach of Thalia.
“She isn’t with us anymore.” Sorrow crosses his features, fleeting, but it’s there, or was, and we all witness its passing.
Thalia blinks. “I’m sorry,” she whispers in her cracked voice, a remnant of the horrors Kirrill Singleton inflicted on her, too. “I wish I could have done—”
“You did all you could. All of you,” Inavoff nods in my direction as Dom shifts at Thalia’s back. “Willow’s return—as safe as I could make her after I found her—is my way of repaying that favor for my Ania.”
“Thank you.” I hold out my hand.
Inavoff smiles faintly, his face twisting up on one side. “I appreciate the westerner in you, Gallo, but that’s not how we do things in Rossiya.”
“That’s sweet, but I’m not here for a party.” I tug Willow toward the door.
She looks up at me and frowns. “Rafe,” she says, a hint of reproach in her voice.
I sigh. “It’s been a long week, little wife,” I murmured. “Is it not enough I want to take you back to the plane and check every inch of you is as you should be?”
Her face pales, then stiffens. I frown and glance at Thalia.
“Willow?” Her thin voice hits below whispery status as she lays her hand on my wife’s arm.
I disengage long enough to let Willow draw breath. She glances over her shoulder at Inavoff, a gesture I hate on so many grounds in that moment, like a sucker punch in the gut and turns away from us both, unclasping one side of her black sheath dress.
The back falls away to expose a swath of bandages.
It doesn’t seem to matter that her captor/buyer/host has millions at his command. The asshole can’t afford a decent doctor.
“Fucking asshole.” Both Thalia and I swear at the same time. I glance at my healer askance, shocked to hear her swear for the first time ever.
Dom doesn’t so much as flinch.
Apparently, it’s not the first time he’s heard her use foul language. Mind, now is the time for it. The bandages crisscross Willow’s back in a messy pattern, the skin beneath her original scars stretched tight with fresh wounds that look as though they might have festered at some point.
I curse again, hovering my hands above her skin. She doesn’t so much as flinch when I accidentally touch her, though my blood boils.
“Give me a name, little raven,” I croon, sweeping her hair over her shoulder while Thalia continues her study, swearing softly to herself in a language I don’t speak. But her vehemence is evident in her passion.
“I’ll step in on this one, Willow. You’ve taken a whipping fucking again.” Dom’s livid as he rests a hand on Thalia’s back, though his eyes remain narrow and pinpointed.
Willow sighs. “You boys can go on a vengeance train later. Besides, don’t I get a chance to go on this little murder spree too?” she asks, a little too brightly for my liking.
I glare at her. “Wife...”
She shakes her head and her waist length black hair covers her bandages while she fixes her dress. “Bogdon has something for Thalia. I think you need to hear this.”
I catch her chin, and her lips part in an immediate reaction to our proximity.
“Give me a damn fine reason I shouldn’t take you back to the jet right now and show you exactly how fucking terrified I’ve been of losing you, Willow,” I mutter, a breath from kissing her as brutally as I promised moments before.
Fuck it. I’m a Don, not a goddamn saint.
Her breath brushes my lips, sweet as temptation, dark as sin.
Until her words reach my ears, and the world stalls.
“Because he knows about Thalia’s baby.”