Chapter 29
Chloe
“…and the police have been by asking about you. I didn’t know what to tell them. Are you really okay?” Bree is nearly crying from all the anxiety.
I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “I promise I’m fine. There’s just…a lot happening right now. I’m sorry to worry you.”
Keys jangle through the phone line as she climbs out of her car. “I’m just glad to hear from you. I’ve got to get inside and clock in, but promise me you’ll call later.”
“I promise. Thanks, Bree.”
I hang up and quietly set Kolya’s burner phone on the kitchen counter.
My brain, spinning with everything Kolya and I shared, won’t quiet.
His confession about being Roman’s enforcer. My memories of the island. Where the heck are the diamonds, and how did I somehow get roped into this? Targeted by the Russian mafia before I even met Kolya. Falcone doesn’t sound Russian, though. Maybe they’re the regular mafia?
Is there a “regular” mafia?
I rub my temples and groan while pieces that don’t quite fit together yet nag at the back of my mind. I’ve never been good at thinking while stationery. Itchy brains require movement…like cleaning up the mess I created with my temper tantrum.
I wince. I still can’t believe I completely lost it like that or that Kolya let me.
Despite my borrowed sweatpants and the shirt I found in a dresser drawer, the cool air raises goosebumps on my skin. I wrap my arms around myself as I glide silently through the living room.
Kolya said a guy named MJ found out about the diamonds several months ago. Then, somehow, my name came up after he died.
But why? What happened several months ago?
Strewn across the floor, I find a scattering of broken pottery. I’ll have to locate another container before putting the faux succulent back on the shelf.
My steps falter as I stare at the ceramic shards.
Broken.
My mind whirls until an image of another damaged item appears.
Broken, like the latch on the globe.
I never did manage to open the thing.
With an almost audible click, the pieces snap together.
The rubber succulent slips from my fingers.
The diamonds aren’t in my classroom…but they used to be. Right up until I unknowingly moved them due to a change in school policy.
The globe bar.
Ticking like a time bomb.
My breath catches in my throat.
I was so touched by that gift.
So naive.
Darn it all to heck!
I should’ve known better. Who anonymously leaves a kindergarten teacher an expensive vintage globe bar? My own parents barely remember to send me Christmas cards.
Even when I received the present, I brushed aside my concerns that the gift seemed extravagant, telling myself I deserved nice things now and then.
What an idiot.
I was always the bait. Someone left me the globe and then told that MJ guy.
With twenty million dollars at stake, I’m lucky Kolya didn’t just shoot me in the head so he could ransack my house. That’s what the other guys tried to do.
Kolya may be a monster, but at least he doesn’t want me dead.
Unless he’s still playing me.
Chills scamper across my body, prickling my skin. Desperate for activity, I hurry from the kitchen and start picking up the books and pillows on the floor.
No one forced Kolya to confess or tell me his life story. No one made him save me from those pickpockets at the farmers market either. He did that just to protect me.
Back to the original problem.
Why pick me? Why now, after fifteen years?
Someone has a very sick sense of humor.
The same someone who put the pieces in motion on the island? Who destroyed my family and my childhood in one terrible night of bloody chaos?
So now what? Do I tell Kolya? Give him his mission objective? Or keep my mouth shut?
Kolya, the enforcer. The killer. The man who drugged me and planned to use me.
The same man who’s currently risking everything for me.
I picture my life before I met him. The bright, sparkly surface, the determined blinders I stubbornly wore to keep the monsters at bay.
Then I picture my life after I met him. The sniper at my house. The threats. The sound of shattering glass.
The way Kolya saved me.
He risked everything for me.
Twenty million dollars of diamonds wait in my home. And I’m the only one who knows.
I could go back, grab them, and disappear. All I’d have to do is figure out the code to leave the safe house. Maybe escape through a window.
My heart pounds at the thought.
Running means a lifetime of glancing over my shoulder.
Running means leaving Kolya. Running means becoming someone else entirely.
Someone who isn’t Miss Chloe. I’d have to stop working and live in the shadows.
Give up all the happiness and cheer I built over the last fifteen years.
Abandon my kids and the possibility of future students behind.
But staying means handing over twenty million in diamonds to a man who’s loyal to a crime boss and kills people for a living.
A man who’s protected me at every step, even while putting himself in danger to do so. Who used his connections with that crime boss to ensure my safety.
I trust him with my body, with my darkest memories and deepest desires.
Do I trust him with the rest of me too?
Putting the books back on the shelf, I creep to the bedroom doorway to peer at the enforcer in question. In sleep, the hard lines of his face relax, giving him a younger, almost innocent appearance. Though I know better than anyone how false that impression is.
There’s nothing innocent about Nikolai Ilyin.
But there is honesty.
No more lies between us, he said. And I agreed.
Someone violated my world. Set us both up and decided to systematically dismantle my life.
Sharp fury spears my chest. An emotion I’ve ignored, pushed down, and never allowed myself to succumb to…until yesterday’s meltdown.
No more. I’m done pretending. Done hiding. Done being used.
I walk to the bed, ready to wake him and share my revelation about the globe bar. My fingers hover just above his shoulder.
Once I tell him, I can’t go back. This fragile bond we’ve built will be tested.
He might choose the diamonds and his loyalty to Roman over me. Might choose his current life over a new, uncertain path with a woman he just met.
But I need to believe in someone, and despite everything—or maybe because of everything—I opt to believe in him.
I click on the bedside lamp. “Kolya, wake up. I know where the diamonds are.”
The last word is still on my lips when the world explodes.
The front door splinters inward, blasted off its hinges by an unseen force.
Wood and metal fly. Torrents of choking smoke seep into the bedroom.
Kolya launches out of bed, combat-ready in a heartbeat.
As dark figures burst into the room, my scream freezes in my throat.
“Down!” After shoving me behind him, Kolya punches the first attacker’s face.
I stumble away from the sickening crack of bone, but my hip catches the edge of the nightstand, causing the lamp to crash to the floor and plunge the space into deeper shadow.
A single remaining lamp illuminates the doorway.
Ear-ringing panic pierces through my initial shock. With a swimming head, I spin to face the open door as more bodies swarm the front room.
At least four men. Black clothes. Masks.
My knees wobble as fear finally rears its ugly head, mixing with my shock.
Kolya doesn’t yell again. Doesn’t waste energy on words. He is pure, distilled violence. A creature of instinct and deadly efficiency.
His fist connects with a throat.
A knee shatters.
His elbow drives into a solar plexus. A grunt immediately follows, chased by the sharp impact of his fists as they splinter more bones.
I scramble farther back, my spine hitting the wall. Terror freezes my muscles.
My lungs burn, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I force myself to exhale and inhale in an effort to kick-start my brain into functioning through the fear.
Need to run. Hide.
No.
I need to not stand here like a rabbit in headlights.
One of the attackers falls, clutching his throat, emitting a high-pitched whistling that cuts through the havoc. Another crashes into the dresser, blood streaming from his nose, his eyes unfocused.
A scream rips from my throat, and I scramble backward, but there’s no place to go.
Kolya creates a barrier between me and them while dodging and attacking, but there are too many.
These aren’t random thugs. They move with the same lethal grace as Kolya, though none match his skill.
Two of them change tactics, diving at Kolya’s legs instead of engaging with his fists. They tackle him, not to kill but to pin him down. To subdue the monster.
He trips and falls, taking both men with him, still fighting with terrifying silence.
I gasp as one intruder savagely kicks him. Motion outside the door catches my eye, prompting me to frantically search the room for a weapon.
Battling on the floor, Kolya misses the second wave of black-clad men.
My heart plummets. The first attackers were a diversion.
I spot the fallen lamp and snatch the base, raising it overhead. “Hey, butthead!”
That’s the first insult that springs to mind as I try to distract the bad guys.
I lunge forward, gearing up to bash some skulls, when a hand clamps over my mouth from behind. An arm like a steel vise locks around my chest, hauling me off my feet.
The lamp slips from my fingers with a clatter barely audible over the chaos as I’m dragged toward the splintered doorway.
No!
My heart stops, stomach lurching with dread. I kick, thrashing wildly. My bare heels connect with shins as I also try to bite the gloved hand on my mouth.
It’s like fighting a brick wall.
My nails claw at the arm around my chest, catching on fabric rather than skin.
Across the room, through the tangle of bodies, Kolya’s eyes lock on mine.
He registers the hand over my mouth and my feet kicking helplessly in the air.
For one frightening moment, that professional mask of his cracks, revealing the unchained monster beneath.
The one he hides behind dark smiles and filthy promises.
The fierce glimmer in his eyes isn’t fear or defeat.
It’s an unspoken promise of annihilation.
I shiver as my captor drags me through the doorway. Another man appears, carrying a hood. The rough material descends over my head, plunging me into suffocating darkness.
An icy chill washes over me, but one certainty prevents me from losing my mind.
Kolya will save me. He’ll hunt us down.
And when he finds me, these men will learn the hard way to never steal what belongs to a monster.