Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Kirill
“We got ambushed, pakhan.”
Before this point, the scariest phone call of my life involved Aralina. That time when she almost died in the house fire. But the crawling sensation that started on my scalp and traveled down the back of my neck and spine was hauntingly familiar.
I rose slowly, fingers gripping the phone, deaf to everyone else in the room asking questions.
“How bad?” My voice was outwardly calm, but my insides were detonating in epic carnage because it involved Lucy, and I was nowhere near her to protect her. Any doubts about how she’d grown vital to my existence vanished.
Without a word to anyone else, I left the parlor room in search of Kolya. The only man I trusted to come with me. He was already at the foyer. With grim determination of the brothers we once were, we headed to the front door where my Porsche was parked.
“Maybe I should drive?” Kolya asked.
Instead of answering him, I gunned the engine. Kolya knew better than to waste time because I wasn’t waiting another second. He barely parked his ass in the passenger seat before I went screeching out of the driveway.
“Get ahold of Sato. If no response, try Feliks again.” He was my soldier following Lucy’s car and the one who called me.
The tracker on Lucy’s vehicle was at a standstill on the 14th Street bridge.
“I already tried Sato,” Kolya answered. “Feliks! What the hell is going on?”
“Put him on speaker.”
“…fell off the bridge.”
“Who fell off the bridge?” I roared.
“Sato and Mrs Zahkarova.”
The rest of his words receded in a tunnel and my vision hazed as a roaring rage ripped inside me, quickly suppressed by the icy vise of fear. Fear that I’d lost Lucy. That my wife was dead.
No.
As I neared the crash site, I heard the sirens of the emergency vehicles. Usually, they weren’t sounds I wanted to hear, but in this instance, I would give up anything for her survival.
She was going to the damn hospital and was seeing the best trauma surgeon. I was preparing for the worst even when I hoped against hope that I’d see my wife walk away without a scratch.
We should have stayed in the fucking cabin another day.
I didn’t even know why the unfinished jigsaw puzzle was a regret taunting me.
I didn’t recognize its significance when Lucy had been hell-bent on bringing the puzzle with us.
But I was seeing it differently at the moment. Our nights in front of the hearth…
“Kirill, watch out!”
But as much as I was drowning in my regrets and barely hearing the sounds around me, my eyes were laser focused in the way that managed to avoid vehicles and pedestrians by a spitting distance.
“You know New Jersey is not a fucking racetrack.”
“Shut up.”
“Getting into a wreck—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I gritted just as I avoided a couple who thought they were strolling in fucking Central Park. The Porche struck a trash can in the corner as the tires skidded on the sidewalk for a few feet before we resumed speeding down the road.
Despite barely listening to Feliks’ recounting of events, the abandoned garbage truck smashed into a store indicated we’d arrived at the scene of the ambush. I spotted the black security vehicle following Lucy’s car. It was riddled with bullets.
Those who did this were dead.
My tires slammed into the sidewalk as I jumped out of the vehicle, where spectators had already gathered at the edge of the road looking down at the street below.
I raced around the slope and jumped, landing on top of a stalled vehicle. I spotted Lucy’s wreckage. The front of the car had pancaked into a concrete pillar.
Adrenaline spiked, and my heart pounded erratically, or was it my lungs trying to drag in air?
I leapt onto the pavement and sprinted towards the destruction. My ears were clogged from the frenzy of my trampling thoughts.
A sizable crowd circled the area, but I threw people aside to get to the vehicle.
“Lucy!” I yelled.
Outraged protests erupted behind me, but Kolya simply shouted, “Husband,” and shut them up.
I ducked under the remains of the sedan. Shattered windows, twisted metal, my wife lying across the front seat, unrecognizable because blood was covering her entire face. The source of the bleeding was at the top of her head. Her body was at an odd angle…her left wrist…I blinked.
“Lucy,” I choked as I reached in and felt for her pulse.
It was faint, but it was there.
“Hang on, baby. Please, don’t leave me,” I whispered.
“Sato’s alive,” Kolya said, but had the sense not to move him any more until the first responders arrived.
“Sir, we need you to move aside.”
I glanced behind me.
Firefighters and, behind them, the ambulance buzzed.
I stood aside and watched helplessly as they worked to save my wife.
Lucy was in a coma.
The traumatic brain injury she sustained in the accident led to a subdural hematoma that required immediate surgery. The neurosurgeon was cautious about my wife’s prognosis but assured me it was caught early, but we wouldn’t know the extent of her injuries until she woke up.
She had a broken wrist, had sprained both knees, and had dislocated a shoulder. She might require more surgery.
A cervical collar stabilized her neck. Bandages wrapped around her head and covered part of her face. I could barely recognize her.
She looked so helpless and fragile. Broken.
The hollowness in my chest that had disappeared in the past few days returned with a vengeance, and it became a soul-sucking abyss steeped in hellfire.
The monitor sounds in the room were my constant companion. Each beep was a drumbeat in my skull, taunting me about how I had failed to protect her.
I hadn’t left her side since they wheeled her into this room after the six hours of surgery. The waiting room had been in chaos when Dominic De Lucci went after me.
This is because of you! You did this to her!
Security tossed him out. After all, I was Lucy’s husband.
But those words repeated in my head. This was all my fault.
The De Luccis visited in pairs because the ICU limited visitors.
No one spoke a word to me, probably out of fear that I would ban them from the hospital like the heartless bastard they knew me to be.
Their condemnation spoke volumes. And I kept to my brooding silence, alternating with thoughts of revenge and replaying the moments in the cabin.
The only time I felt compelled to open my mouth was when Lucy’s parents came in.
They were the first ones allowed to visit.
Paulie and Lottie broke down. More so Paulie.
His face crumpled first, before his knees buckled.
After seeing his baby girl laid up like that and the son of a bitch who did this to her was in the same room, he had every right to come after me.
Lottie, the only De Lucci who had been a staunch supporter of my marriage, couldn’t even look at me.
Not that I was approachable. Because I wasn’t. When Irina and Ivan came in and after patting Lucy’s hand, my mother came over and sat beside me on the uncomfortable bench.
“I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”
“Eaten with guilt.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ivan said quietly.
“Tell that to the De Luccis.” They were probably planning how to abduct me and toss me into a torture chamber.
“You need more ice for your jaw,” Irina said.
I touched my face and was reminded of the swing De Lucci took at me in the waiting room. Everything else was a blur. The words exchanged in anger. “Do me a favor. Talk to hospital security and allow Dominic De Lucci back into the hospital.”
“You sure about that?” Ivan grumbled.
“Ivan!” Irina whisper-yelled. “Now is not the time for hostilities. That’s bad for Lucy’s recovery. Lottie said the same thing.”
Movement behind the window of the ICU room drew my attention.
Kolya signaled behind the glass. He was the one running point for me, checking on Sato, who had a concussion and a broken arm.
Sato was my right-hand man. Kolya was…Kolya.
He’d been the bratva’s enforcer, and I wasn’t sure if the brigadier position I tried to fit him in was the right one.
He thrived on operating independently. This reminded me I needed to call a meeting with the other brigadier.
We might be at war with the Moscow mob. We used to be called the Triumvirate.
There’d been two vacancies when Ivan retired and Kolya’s cousin was killed.
Kolya temporarily assumed his cousin’s position, but then he got arrested and went to jail.
I had no replacement yet. That was why I’d been so busy until Kolya was released from prison.
I sighed and stood. “Can you stay with Lucy for a few minutes?”
“Sure,” Irina said.
I stepped out of the ICU.
Aralina was standing beside Kolya.
Jeremiah King had the sense to stay away. We hadn’t discussed how coincidental his being at Ivan’s house was when someone was lying in wait for my wife’s departure. They didn’t even know she was leaving, or did they? How long had they been watching the house?
Aralina hesitantly signed, “Can I see Lucy?”
I exhaled heavily again. My chest was so weighed down it felt like it was impossible to refresh it with oxygen. Maybe I should be the one on a ventilator. I glanced at Lucy. Hooked up to those machines. My gut clenched. No wonder the De Luccis hated me.
“Of course. Maybe stay with Irina and send Ivan out.”
When Aralina entered the room, I turned to Kolya. “Anything on the perps?”
“Our guy managed to get a few traffic cams, but the De Luccis are ahead.”
My molars ground together. “Let me guess? That Trevor guy?”
“He has access to government databases, and Tima is missing.”
“Fuck!” He was our tech guy and also the expert in deep fakes. I was going to have Sato follow up on him after what King told me, but apparently, everyone was plotting while I went on vacation with Lucy.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Kolya asked. “Why do you think Peter is behind this when we have other enemies?”
I debated what to tell Kolya. Lies could never stay buried, could they? And the person who was an expert at burying scandals was in a coma.
The ICU doors slid open. I’d been expecting him.
Moretti and his wife, Natalya were walking briskly my way.
And he was pissed.
“Start talking, Zahkarov,” Moretti growled. “Tell me why Peter called me to tell me it wasn’t them? Why would he think that?”
We were on the rooftop of the hospital. De Lucci and his uncle briefly looked in on Lucy before we obtained access to a location where no one could overhear us.
Kolya told me it was the worst place for a confession because he wasn’t sure he could stop Moretti and De Lucci from tossing me off the roof.
To which I responded, if that happened, then he wasn’t very good at his job in keeping me alive.
It was just the four of us. Dom, Luca, Kolya, and me. Although I could tell Lucy’s other relatives were rabid to get a shot at me.
They could all fucking fall in line.
I related what King had told me.
“So, you’re admitting Lucy was in the car's trunk?” De Lucci growled. “You instigated the traffic stop knowing she’d get caught in the crossfire.”
“It was acceptable collateral damage at that time. I wanted Viktor caught and ejected from my business by any means necessary.”
“So you rescued Lucy?” De Lucci asked. “Don’t tell me she married you out of gratitude. And as far as we know, you didn’t care about Lucy. In fact, you wanted her dead. If Peter is blaming you for Viktor’s death, then he should come after someone closer to you.”
It stung. When they thought Lucy didn’t matter enough. Again, my fault. “Lucy shot Viktor.”
Dead silence. Three men belonging to the mafia, who’d seen and done the most shocking things in their lives, were dumbfounded and rendered speechless. Their brows were identically furrowed, gazes narrowed as if they misheard me.
“She was the one who killed Viktor.” I rephrased just in case they needed more clarity.
“Holy fuck,” Moretti whispered.
“Viktor killed the troopers and was deciding what to do with her. She grabbed the trooper’s gun and shot Viktor.”
“That’s…” Kolya rubbed a finger over his mouth. It was what he did when something impressed him and he wanted to grin but the moment was inappropriate. “That’s impressive.”
“It is.” My chest swelled with pride, and if I were honest with myself then, she impressed me, too. “Lucy married me to prevent a war. I married her for revenge, for the opportunity to torment her. You know the history.”
Both men cut me down with their venomous stares.
“We could have protected her,” De Lucci snarled.
“And be at war with Moscow?”
“You had the power to bury this!” he snapped.
It was Moretti who interjected with an unexpected derisive chuckle. “Zahkarov doesn’t owe us anything. I wouldn’t have expected anything less. We’re mafia first, not Boy Scouts. He saw the marriage as leverage to prop up the bratva when faced with a takeover from Moscow.”
De Lucci glared at his uncle.
“But I also know Peter wouldn’t retaliate this way,” Moretti added, unperturbed that De Lucci was looking like he might toss his own uncle over the rooftop. “It’s sloppy and too public.”
“False flag?” De Lucci offered after realizing he was three to one in his outrage.
“King showing up and warning us is too coincidental,” I said. “But it’s in his best interest that I stay married to Lucy because of the existence of the trust. The only way he could control it is if he marries Aralina.”
“How about your mistress?” Moretti asked sarcastically.
“If you’re referring to Anya, she was never my mistress.”
“Yet you abandoned my niece on your wedding night.”
“My actions at the beginning of the marriage were deplorable, but this isn’t the time to get into it.”
That shut them down. I wasn’t going to analyze how despicable my behavior had been in the beginning of my marriage with anyone else except Lucy. Not even Kolya would get to see that side of me.
Only my wife.
De Lucci received a buzz on his phone. “That’s Trevor. He’s identified one of the perpetrators.”
Fucking Trevor again was determined to be the hero. But I set my jealousy aside because finding the bastards who attacked my wife was the priority.
“Does he have a location?”