TWENTY-SIX Jhene #2
Deciding whether there’s any possible move they can make to defy Fedorov and save me.
“This is the last fucking time I’ll repeat myself,” Killian growls slowly. “Let Jhene go. Now. It’s over.”
“It is over when I say it is over,” Fedorov hisses, pressing the gun harder against my temple. “And I say the girl comes with me.”
Killian starts toward us again as if to make good on his warning. He won’t be repeating himself again.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll go with him. Just… let him take me, okay?”
“Jhene—”
“Don’t fight him on it. Please.”
Fedorov flashes a cruel smile, then motions to the icy blond. We back toward the entrance and make it out into the hall.
As soon as we’re out of the chamber, the sounds of fighting erupt again. Killian and the others are back to battling the guards, likely to overtake them and come after us.
They’re not the only ones fighting—as we start down the hall and the loud alarm wails, I can pick up on other jarring sounds.
Guards sprint in the same direction as the house. They’re rushing off to deal with something… or someone. Could it be the Callahan clan that’s turned up?
The icy blond stays one stride ahead of us as we make it deeper down the hall.
Fedorov crushes my arm in his grip and barks at him in Russian. He’s sending him off with the other guards to deal with whatever chaos has been unleashed on the estate.
A second later, we pass an open walkway to our left that reveals why.
There’s a man fighting his way through a cluster of Fedorov’s guards in the same atrium where Killian and the others had gotten caught.
He’s tall and lean, with long dark hair and dozens of tattoos. It takes me another half second to realize he’s no Callahan—he’s Asian, and he’s handling the guards as if it’s light work.
He’s shot several of them and flexibly dodged and outmaneuvered others that try to get close. As we pass by, he’s currently leaping off one of the many pillars and delivering a sharp kick to a soldier’s chest, gun in hand as he shoots another.
The blond runs toward him to take him on next.
Fedorov wrenches me away before we can see more of the confrontation.
“Fools,” Fedorov spits. “All of you—disobey the Bratva and suffer for it. Koschei may not be here, and neither is my son, but do you think you can outmatch the rest of my men? They are more than equipped to handle you pests.”
I pull and tug at his hold. “Or maybe you’ve bitten off more than you can chew! You can’t beat all of us.”
He grunts in disagreement. “You are delusional, Myshka. You think you will ever be free? I am the reason you breathe. I can be the reason you no longer do so.”
“You made a deal and now you’re backing out of it! Killian beat your champion. You can’t stand to lose, can you?”
“I have lost nothing. There was never a scenario in which I would let you go, Myshka. You should know that by now.”
“Then why?” I demand. “Why all of this? The games, the fighting, all the effort you went through to turn me into a spy. If you were never going to let me go, why bother with any of it?”
He half drags me down more of the hall despite how I twist and turn in his hold.
“You were my spy for more reasons than you conceive, Myshka. You are already mine—you were never to be free. But I was letting you believe so. It was a means to an end.”
“Which is?” I grit out. My temper grows the farther he drags me and tighter his grip becomes.
“You were useful. A tool to gather information on the Callahans and their allies. But not for the reason you think. You were needed because you were to lead me to who I really wanted.”
“Will you stop being so cryptic?!” I scream, then stamp down on his foot. I’m finally able to break free of his hold, staggering back.
Fedorov immediately retaliates by using his cane. He clubs me over the head with it and sends me tumbling to the ground.
Bright spots appear before my eyes, the glasses on my face flying out of reach.
“You stupid fucking girl,” he rumbles in his thick Russian accent. “It was your sister I am after! Your sister who I have been searching for!”
The dizzying pain fades for the shock that comes at his revelation.
I squint up at him and mutter, “Eva? You’ve been looking for her? But that means—”
“Yes, that is right!” he yells over me. “Your clever little sister escaped from my custody months ago. She took something very valuable with her when she left.”
“Wait, so she’s been free this whole—”
“I had reason to believe the Callahans were harboring her,” he interrupts, standing over me.
“That perhaps Lochlan or the fucking traitor whose eye I took had taken her in. You were supposed to find out for me. Confirm whether they had her hidden away somewhere. But you failed, didn’t you?
You got too attached to your Irish brute and collected no useful info. ”
I’m not even listening anymore.
One phrase and one phrase alone is echoing inside my head.
Eva is free.
This whole time I’ve been desperately searching for her, and she’s been free all along.
Now I just have to find her.
Hope rises anew inside me, making me draw several other conclusions at once.
…like how Fedorov can no longer dangle her in front of me. He can no longer use her against me.
…which means I’m done being his puppet.
My gaze lowers to the gun in Fedorov’s hand and the cane in the other.
I make a snap decision and go for it. I lunge forward and wrench his cane out from under him. His legs give out due to the surprise of it, how swiftly I’ve snatched the cane away and left him unsupported.
He crashes to the ground beside me, and I’m on him in the next second, doing my best to wrangle the gun away from him.
Fedorov snarls in instant rage. “You stupid fucking girl!”
His palm connects with my cheek, and we roll over this way and that as we battle it out.
He’s much older but also a lot bigger than I am.
I refuse to give up. Even half blind with my left cheek throbbing, I give it everything I have. My fingers wrap around the handle of his pistol, and I desperately try to pry it from his grasp.
We turn over again. Fedorov winds up on top of me. Panic starts to set in, a flood of bad memories coming back to me.
Past moments where this was my world; I was nothing more than a pet made to lie still and take whatever he gave me.
For a paralyzing second, I almost become that girl again. I’m close to locking up and giving in. Letting Fedorov take over.
…letting him win and have his way.
But I push through the haze of memories with a scream. I shove back at him as we turn over yet again. The gun’s caught between us, both of our grips locked onto it.
The bang is deafening. So loud it seemingly drowns out all the other chaotic sounds throughout the estate.
My eyes go wide as my body goes still.
The warm slick substance is instant. I feel it on me, spreading fast.
Blood.
I’ve been shot. I’ve been—
I glance down between us and the realization hits me in a disorienting wave.
The blood I’m feeling isn’t my own. It belongs to Fedorov, from where he’s been shot in the gut. The gun’s slipped out of both of our grasps, onto the floor between us.
I gasp and scramble up to my feet, kicking it away.
Fedorov rolls onto his back. He’s struggling to breathe, eyes on the ceiling and mouth agape.
“Myshka,” he wheezes. “You… you must… help me.”
I stare at him in such shock I can’t even bring myself to move. I’m truly frozen in place until the shock gradually fades, and then I harden.
I regard him with the same cold, cruel indifference he’s shown me many, many times over.
“No,” I say simply.
Then I turn and walk away.
I’m halfway down the corridor when Killian and the others run into me. Apparently they’ve made their way out of the chamber and have come searching for me.
They’re covered in blood, sporting a few bruises and Lochlan has what looks like a gunshot wound in his arm.
Killian rushes ahead of the other two and wraps me up in his arms.
“Stray, you alright? Did he hurt you? Where is he?”
“I’m fine,” I pant. I’m shaking so hard, coursing with adrenaline so bad I can barely stand still. “Fedorov’s back there. He’s… been shot.”
Killian’s brows furrow as if about to ask, then he seems to understand who did it. He strokes my tangled curls and says, “Good girl. Now let’s get the fuck outta here.”
“This way,” Aleksei grunts. He pivots on his heel and starts barreling down another corridor.
I’ve forgotten how huge Fedorov’s estate is. How it so easily feels like a maze when you’re navigating the halls.
Killian scoops my hand up in his and drags me along. The men run fast, so fast it feels like I’m flying as Killian pulls me.
We head down another corridor and then turn into a passageway I vaguely recognize as the utility room.
“Same way you got in,” Aleksei explains. “You can get out. Follow the passage and you will come out through the grate.”
Killian nods. “C’mon, stray.”
Lochlan hangs back. “What about you? Why’re you talking like you’re not coming along?”
“Because I am not. I have my own vendetta to carry out. Go on without me. I will find my own way.”
Killian and Lochlan exchange a look, both men hesitating for a second longer before they grant the ex-Bratva soldier his wish. I’m pulled along with Killian as Aleksei disappears from view and we get the hell out of there.