Chapter 39
RORI
“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” I keep my voice steady, even. “Get me here, all so you could make it easier for him to take me back, or kill me. No, it’ll be kill me, won’t it? You don’t need the competition being his favorite.”
“Competition? There is no competition when it comes to you and I,” Tatiana replies. I restrain my flinch when she presses a sharp knife to my spine. “I was always going to be the star. I was the daughter he actually wanted.”
“You were the one who embraced every evil thing he taught you. Not because he wanted you, but because you couldn’t stand me being better than you. So desperate for attention.”
“Perhaps, but after you left, I was the best. You weren’t in my way, and you were a disappointment. I thrived. I soaked up everything he taught me, and everything you taught me. You wanted us to be friends, to take him down, but that was never going to happen.”
“He’ll kill you one day.”
“Why would he kill his successor?”
I snort, ignoring the pressure of the knife in my back. “You really think that he’s going to give you anything? You’re his little puppet, and that’s all you’ll be until someone else comes along with promise. Someone with a dick swinging between his legs.”
My mind is spinning, trying to figure out how I missed it.
How did I not realize that this is exactly what she was trying to make happen in the first place?
I was an idiot thinking that she would be operating on her own.
No one ever leaves my father’s clutches.
Even me, who and what I am will always be tied to him in some way.
I stare at my father, who is watching this with a gleeful look in his eyes. He enjoys shocking me. What, does he want me to fight her? Prove I’m better?
“We need to move,” Tatiana tells my father sharply, ignoring my words. “We’ve got incoming.”
“I have business to settle first,” Pasha says, turning the gun on Timur. Timur barely reacts, and none of us wince when he kills him with a quick shot to the head. The Belov dynasty officially finished.
I want to feel sadness for that, but I can’t pull it up yet.
“Move,” Tatiana orders. I’m too tired to argue or fight my way out of this. Yet. Tatiana will kill me with one bullet, or simply sever my spine with the knife, making me unable to fight back. A slower and humiliating death. Neither of which is a good option for me.
I need to bide my time. An ache starts in my chest, knowing I won’t get to see Alonzo or Hades again, but I force myself not to think about it. I need to focus.
“Get her back in the room. We’ll get out of here. I have a plane waiting to take us back to Russia at the landing strip not far from here.” He gives me another cold smile. “We’ll see if you survive the flight back.”
There is no way I’m getting on that plane. Still, I don’t fight, and I don’t struggle as they lead me into my room. I glance back at Tatiana, but her gaze is cold, dead, on mine, and it’s then I realize that she looks exactly like my father wanted us all to look.
Wearing all black, short hair, and colored contacts. The only difference between her and me is that her hair is bleached blonde and her eyes are now a bright blue. Our heights are similar, and if someone didn’t know I changed my hair and eye color, they’d think she was me.
I want to ask her how the hell she can think that this is going to end any other way than both of us dead, but what’s the point?
She’s been as brainwashed as the others.
They all think they’ll live forever, and while she might be the most successful, that doesn’t make her invincible.
And no matter how much she thinks she’s going to pull away from my father to do her own thing, like doing the Chameleon work she does, she’ll always belong to him.
My father moves to stand beside the large window seat, and I see the rope ladder lying on the cushions. Guess that answers how they got in. They had to have blocked the cameras because there is no way anyone would miss that.
“You go down first,” Tatiana tells my father. “Make sure she doesn’t try to make a run for it when she goes down.”
“You think you’re going to give me orders?” The words are dangerously low. I bite back a smirk. My father will never take orders from anyone. Especially not someone he feels is beneath him.
“I think you’re wasting time,” Tatiana replies evenly, no fear. Not even a tremble where she’s got the gun and knife at my back. “And you’re the one who allowed himself to get shot. Someone comes behind us, you’ll be dead.”
His face contorts with fury. “You do not give the fucking orders, bitch. Get her down the ladder. Now. I’ll deal with you later.”
“Uh oh, looks like trouble in paradise,” I jeer.
“Shut up!” he spits. I can practically see him shaking with rage. I also don’t miss how Tatiana has angled me to block her, and from the look on his face, he knows it. He can shoot me, but he won’t reach her, and he hasn’t decided yet to kill me. I’m still possibly useful.
This little battle of wills might be the thing I need.
I need to do this right. I’ve got one shot. It’s a risk I have to take.
I drop, letting all my weight pool against Tatiana, the knife digging into my back, and I feel it slice my skin, but I ignore it. Tatiana doesn’t curse, she lets me drop, and then she’s moving, gun up and already firing on my father, who fires on her.
Both of them manage not to get shot, but that doesn’t give me hope that they’ll turn on each other.
That was a power play, but I’m still the main goal.
I roll, swiping my leg and taking Tatiana down to the floor, kicking the gun out of her hand, and I manage to barely dodge the bullet my father fires at me before I get off one of my own.
I miss his head by an inch, and he runs to put himself on the other side of the bed.
“Bitch!” Tatiana hisses, already rolling over me, knocking the gun and sending it sliding toward the door.
Damn it.
She still has her knife, but before she can use it on me, I kick at her trying to dislodge it. She shifts, the kick missing her, and she gives a laugh of delight. “You’re still predictable. We’ll need to work on that.”
“We’re not going to be working on anything, you crazy bitch.”
She opens her mouth, but then a low snarl fills the room, and real fear seizes me. “Hades, no!” I shout, even as his body rushes through the door.
My father’s gun goes off, but somehow misses him, and Hades barrels toward Tatiana with a singular focus to get her away from me. Tatiana curses, rolling, but Hades takes her down with a vicious snarl, teeth bared, and almost foaming from the mouth.
Any other time, I’d laugh, but if Hades is here, that means Alonzo isn’t far behind.
On cue, Alonzo and Ilya burst through the door. Alonzo’s eyes are on me, but Ilya’s is on the woman being held down by Hades. “Move!” I scream, cursing them both as I try to get to my feet.
My father is already firing, and Ilya falls with a cry, Alonzo whipping around and firing too. Shit.
Desperation has me moving fast, but it’s not fast enough before my father gets another shot off and I see Alonzo fall.
“No!” I scream, rage and panic giving me the power to launch myself over the bed at my father.
He whirls, but it’s not fast enough. His shot goes wide as I slam into him, taking him down.
I slam my fist into his face, then my elbow when he tries to dodge. He lets out a groan of pain, and I don’t stop, kicking the gun away, too angry to realize that now that I’m in danger again, Hades has turned his attention to me, releasing Tatiana.
Hades is over the bed, hitting my father and me, and knocking me away from him.
I lie on the floor, stunned, head spinning from the impact.
Hades towers over my father, snapping and snarling, and I vaguely see my father trying to reach for his gun, only stilling when Hades’s teeth snap inches away from his face.
“I’ll make him tear out your throat,” I rasp, rolling to my side.
“He’s not yours to kill, Aurora,” Tatiana says coldly, and I turn my head to see her standing there, gun pointed at…my father. I realize slowly that her gun isn’t aimed at Hades. Wait, what? “Call him off. Now.”
“I’m not doing shit,” I spit, staggering to my feet. My gaze moves to where Alonzo and Ilya are slowly getting up, faces etched in pain. Relief washes over me. He’s alive. He’s okay. The bullets must have hit their vests.
Then I register the look on Ilya’s face. Pure, unadulterated rage, along with shock. “You,” he gasps out as he rolls to his knees.
My mouth drops open in shock when her expression goes from cold to full of happiness. “Hello, pet,” she purrs his way. “Miss me? I missed you, but don’t worry, we’ll have lots of time to catch up once I’ve got this all handled.”
Pet? Wait, Ilya is the man she was talking to on the plane when we left New York?
Hades lets out a cry of pain, and I instantly turn, seeing my father trying to drive a knife into his side. The only thing stopping him is the vest, but some of it must have poked through as blood starts to drip down Hades’ side, and he jumps away instinctively.
Uncaring that Tatiana might just shoot me in the back, I move quickly, kicking my father hard across the face and reaching down to twist his wrist painfully, making him drop the knife.
I grab the knife, putting it to his neck, my boot pinning him down as I step on his wounded bicep.
He lets out a sharp cry of pain, his face reddening in agony and fury.
“I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch,” I hiss, blood welling under the blade.
He doesn’t fight; he just stares up at me.
“You don’t deserve a swift death, but that’s all I’ll manage this time.
The devil will do the rest for everything else you’ve done.
Maybe you’ll get lucky, and I’ll join you there one day, but something tells me that even if I do, I’ll be the one holding the pitchfork and whip.
You hurt my dog, shot at the man I love, and you tried to break me. That’s done.”
He grunts, trying to struggle away, but I put more pressure, and he stills. That first trickle of fear fills his gaze. The one I’ve always wanted to see. But I don’t feel elation. It’s grim determination.
Then I feel the gun on the back of my head. I don’t stiffen. Dying is worth knowing that this fucking rat bastard will be joining me.
Then I see it, the flash in my father’s eyes of sick pleasure. What, he thinks Tatiana is going to kill me to save him?
“Back away from him, solnyshko. Now.”
It takes a second for my mind to catch up as my body stills. No. It can’t be. This is some kind of cruel trick.
I stare down at my father, too scared to turn around.
I don’t even care that he’s looking up at me with a triumph that he shouldn’t be allowed to feel.
“Now, Rayea,” the deep voice orders again, pouring steel into words.
A voice that used to be so caring and gentle.
That used to laugh and tease me just to make me smile.
A voice that I haven’t heard in over a decade.
A voice that should be dead.