Chapter 21
Ilya
I haven’t had a week so disturbing since I took over for my father, and his competitors decided to try their hand at dismantling the organization that was under new rule. The last nine days have been bloodshed.
I’d returned to America to deal with one of my trusted employees, a man who’d stood loyal to my father, skimming from my businesses. The dishonor. The lack of loyalty. The balls.
He’d had a lesson to learn, and I’d had every intention of making an example of him, considering some of my men seem to have made the mistake in thinking I’ve gone soft. That because the men were mine, I won’t dismember them like I would any other man who threatened my business.
What I hadn’t been expecting, was an all-out war zone when I stepped off the plane in L.A.
A war that took me to New York and then later to Florida before coming back to L.A.
I’d been intending to make an example of Laurent, but when I’d landed, he’d already been dead. Assassinated, along with three others I’d held in high regard. Clearly, the man who’d called the assassinations hadn’t known I’d been coming to make an example of Laurent, and that he was no longer one of my most trusted men.
What the assassinations had been intended to do, was call me out. How do I know this?
The three attempts on my life are fucking indicative.
A car bombing where I nearly lost Misha and did lose a driver. He’d had three kids and a wife. A good man with clean hands, despite the man he drove around. I’ve seen to it his wife, a stay-at-home mother, will never have to work. I stood at his funeral as they lay him and my other men to rest.
Then there’d been the bullet that had grazed my shoulder as I entered one of my clubs.
Then the bomb that went off in my shipping yard in New York and had the authorities responding. If I hadn’t had connections within the Police force, the costly event would have been far more costly. As it was, the news spun a story about an explosive substance that had been unsafely transported to my shipping yard, weaving a tragic tale of accidental death as another four men were lost, three more critically injured and currently in hospital.
“Do we have eyes on Popov?” I slide into the car beside Misha. A prickle of anxiety has my heartrate quickening.
I’ve faced death more times than I can count. I’ve never been afraid of it. Never worried about those I would leave behind, to never see again. Never worried about the purgatory that awaited me in the darkness. Now, though, with the thought of my death comes a flash of light blue eyes fringed in sadness. Of creamy skin and pink lips, I’ve yet to taste.
Fuck it, ready or not, I’m taking her mouth for my own the second I see her.
“Yes. He hasn’t left Moscow.”
“He’s a coward.” My eyes slide to the window as the car begins to roll. The car had been scanned. Still, I wait for the bomb.
It doesn’t come.
I release a slow, steady exhale. “He hasn’t left Moscow, but we know he’s responsible. At least for the bullet that grazed you.”
I grunt, because this is true. We’d caught the gunman. I’d tortured him for days before he’d finally cracked. After confirming my suspicions that Ivan Popov had hired him to kill me, he’d also squealed about the whispers of a takeover—of a rat. These whispers weren’t whispered directly to him, but he’d heard them all the same. Ivan wanted my business and my life. He would stop at nothing to get it.
The trouble is, unlike me, Popov doesn’t see to his business personally. He has lackeys for that.
Like I said, he’s a coward.
I consider. Blue eyes flash in my mind, the scent of cookies invades the breath I inhale as though she’s sitting here with me.
This war must end.
I need to call out Ivan Popov. Cutting off the head is the only way to stop the chaos.
“Popov’s youngest son is currently on a yacht, sailing the Keys, yes?”
Misha pulls his phone from his pocket, scrolling the weekly email he’s cc’d on. It tells me everything about not only Popov, but his two remaining sons. I’ve already taken his oldest. I’d hoped it would be enough to sway him to back down.
“Yes,” Misha confirms.
“Is he sailing?”
“He’s docked.”
“Good. We’re flying to Florida.”
I’ve already been away from her for a week. Not long now and I’ll inhale cookies. I’ll learn the taste of those puffy pink lips I think about damn near constantly.
On the plane, I let my eyes drift closed even though I won’t sleep. Like every time I’ve closed my eyes since I left her, the memory plays like a reel behind my lids.
The first night I held her. She sobbed herself to sleep in my arms.
I should have let her go, as she demanded. Instead, I’d held her tighter.
I’m woken by a sharp scream. A knife of fear threatens to gut me as I realize it’s coming from her. This sound, like an animal begging for death. It’ll haunt me.
“Wake up, Blue.” My hands are on her face when she opens her eyes, tears streaming from them like a river of sorrow. If I stay here, I might drown. Only, with her, I welcome the end.
“It hurts.” There is a rattle of pain in her voice that scores into me. Marking me.
“What?”
“Make it stop.” She sobs. My eyes track her body for a wound.
“What hurts, love? Where?”
“My heart,” she whispers, burying her face into my chest. Tears wet the flesh, seeping through my skin to travel my bloodstream, weakening my own heart that thunders and rages for her. “It’s so sore.”
“I’ll make it better,” I vow. Though I don’t know how I’ll do it. I’m the cause of her pain, and as much as I want to make it all go away, I’ll never give her up. I’ll never let her go. Never. I will find a way. “I’ll make it better.”
She falls into sleep like she never woke at all, but it’s troubled. Every few minutes, she whimpers into my chest. Then she snuggles closer, seeking comfort from the monster who commands her pain.
I’ve never hated myself more than I do in this moment. Because I’m selfish. If I let her go, my heart will never beat again. Never feel. It’ll never want or yearn or rage again.
I’ll be a dead man walking. A wraith bound to this hellish place without the promise of salvation.
Without her.
My eyes snap open as we begin our descent.
As I step out of the car sometime later into the parking lot of the docks, I move with Misha at my side toward the line of docked yachts. I find the one I’m looking for, and board easily enough. The idiot has left the boarding gates down, probably expecting ass or hoping to send it packing when he’s finished.
Either way, I enter with Misha at my side, gun drawn. We encounter only one member of the staff, a middle-aged woman who holds her hands and blubbers about not wanting trouble. Misha confiscates her phone and sends her to her room, and she scurries that way fast, slipping into silence.
With the schematics of the yacht on my phone, I find Lev’s room easily enough. The title of idiot is confirmed again when I find the door unlocked.
And, yep, he’d left the boarding gates in place to send ass away when he’s finished, if his rutting into the black-haired screamer is anything to go by.
“Fucking hell,” Misha mutters.
I shoot a shot into the pillow beside the girl, watching feathers fly. Her screams of scripted pleasure turn into real fear. Lev falls on his ass, dick already flaccid. “The fuck! Do you know who I am?”
“I do.” I toss him a cool smile and see the moment recognition lands in his eyes. Fear follows close on its tail. My grin widens, but I say to Misha, “Sit with the girl until I’m done.”
I wait for the girl to grab her clothes with trembling hands before she follows Misha from the room. He won’t release her, not yet.
The door closes and Lev stands naked and trembling. “My father is going to kill you.”
“Unlikely. But I’m definitely going to kill you.”
There’s always a wildness that overtakes a man’s eyes when he faces death. It’s a truly exquisite thing, as though the soul knows it’s near its end, and it rises from the depths of its cage to push at the portal of the eyes, begging, stretching and yearning to be set free.
“Please,” Lev pleads as I tuck my gun into the back of my pants. He’s going to fight, and I’m ready for it.
I’m always ready for it.
Revel in it, even.
“Your father has attacked my businesses and killed my men. He’s made attempts on my life and called for a war. This is my response.”
“Fuck man, I don’t have anything to do with that shit. Please!”
“You’ll give your father a message for me, won’t you?”
“Yes, anything. Fuck.” His hands scoop through his hair. His nods are frantic. “Anything.”
I grin, and then I lunge. He fights back. He even gets a solid hit into my jaw before I’ve bound his wrists to the bed.
I leave him there on the bed, chest open wide, heart torn from the cavity to lay on a bed of feathers next to his head. Popov will get my message. It’s officially war.
Still, my heart doesn’t even quicken as I take his life. Not until I’m walking from the room to find Misha. Not until I think, it’s time to return home to her.
That’s when it flutters.