Chapter 43
Irelynn
Ilya kisses me outside the car, both hands on my face.
“Why don’t you just come with me,” I tease, knowing he can’t. He took the entire day with me yesterday, making love, talking, letting me get to know the man I’ve fallen madly in love with.
I’ve learned that although he might be the head of the bratva, a title inherited by his father, and his father before him; Ilya owns and manages many other legal businesses in many countries. He’s a machine. I’d teased him that he surely doesn’t have time for a wife and children. He’d assured me that he would be promoting some very trusted individuals in the near future, so that he would have his hands free for family.
I’d teased him about changing diapers, and he’d kissed me tenderly before telling me he would absolutely be changing diapers, because he intends to be an involved father.
How has this become my life?
The crime boss mastering the diaper change. Ha!
“I wish I could.” Ilya touches his lips to my forehead before he pulls the back door of the SUV open. “Boris will keep you safe.”
“I can’t believe you’re trusting me to go on a shopping spree without you.”
A brow arcs. “Are you planning to run, Little Blue?”
I give him a wicked grin. “Oh, I don’t know.”
From the front seat where Boris waits, he calls, “She won’t get far, Pakhan.”
Ilya grins at me as I roll my eyes. “I might not run, but I can do damage to that card you gave me.”
Ilya chuckles, eyes dancing. “Do your worst.”
I huff. Then I lean in to throw my arms around his neck. “Do I have to go?”
“You need clothes for Christmas at my family home.”
I relent. “Fine. I’ll go.”
“Good girl.”
I pout. “But I’m going to miss you.”
That happy light flashes in his eyes. “Hurry then. I’ll be waiting.”
“I will.” I slide into the back seat and grin wide at Boris as he peers in the rear-view mirror at me. He’d surprised me by volunteering to take me shopping when Ilya had asked Luka this morning over breakfast. Luka had muttered something about hating shopping when Boris had offered, and Luka had jumped at the chance to get out of it, grateful to hand over the task.
I recall Boris offering before, as well. It’s surprising, the introverted criminal guard being so eager to take the kidnapped woman on a shopping spree. But—whatever floats his boat, I guess.
Ilya moves to the driver’s window, his eyes cool on Boris. “Keep her safe.”
I don’t miss the warning in his words, the threat. So, I know Boris doesn’t either. He gives him a nod, rolls up the window, and starts to drive down the driveway. I have to fight the urge to twist in my seat to watch Ilya disappear with the distance.
I’m obsessed with my kidnapper turned fiancé.
Oh, the fun a psychiatrist would have with me.
I settle into the back seat, deciding to get to know my guard. “How old are you, Boris?”
A brow rises in the mirror. “Thirty-seven.”
“Do you ever leave the mansion?”
His hands tighten around the steering wheel. “I do.”
“I haven’t seen you leave once since I’ve been here.”
A small smirk pulls at his lips. “The Pakhan has had the house on a kind of lockdown since you arrived.”
I answer his smirk with one of my own, getting comfortable in the seat to really dive into this conversation. It’s rare Boris talks with me, so I’m taking advantage now. “Is there no nice girl waiting for you? Pining to see you?”
“Are you asking me if I have a girlfriend?”
I shoot him a beaming smile. “That is exactly what I am asking you.”
“No.”
“What about family?”
“Enough about me.” Boris shuts me down, but asks gently, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Who were you before you were his?”
Well, that’s a question I wasn’t expecting. I consider. Then I say, “I was no one.”
“I find that difficult to believe. Everyone is someone.”
“Okay,” I pause. “I was no one who mattered.”
Boris harrumphs and after a long beat of silence, I call, “Boris?”
Boris grunts.
I scoot closer to his seat. “Did you see my home? I mean, the place I lived before Ilya took me?”
He’s quiet, and then he admits. “Once.”
“What did you think of it?”
He shrugs. “It wasn’t in the safest neighborhood.”
That is an understatement. “I was a shell before Ilya. I could hardly afford to eat, much less live.”
“So, you are happy he took you?”
“I wasn’t. You know I wasn’t.”
“But?”
“But things changed. I’ve fallen in love with everyone. Ilya, Polina, and Danill. Luka, and Misha, and even you. You’ve all become important to me. Like the family I’ve wished for since my parents died.”
Boris shifts, clearly uncomfortable. He clears his throat. “How did that happen?”
I tell him how my parents went. How mom went in for routine dental work and never woke up. How dad couldn’t exist in a world without her, even if that meant leaving me behind, completely alone.
“There was no family to take you?”
“My mother was from Ireland. She met my father while he was vacationing, fell in love, and returned home with him to America. Her parents were furious, disowned her, and she never went back. My dad’s parents passed when he was younger. Both were only children, so there really was no one when I lost them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. I miss them.” Another long stretch of silence, and I ask, “What about your parents?”
“My mother is dead.”
“Oh, no.”
“She was murdered by my father.”
My horrified gasp is sharp as a blade as it cuts through the car. “Boris…”
“She knew who he was when she decided to betray him,” Boris says. “I am lucky he did not kill me, too.”
“Is—is he still in your life?”
“I see him from time to time.”
I gape in horror. I can’t imagine. “He didn’t go to prison?”
“No.”
I feel queasy. “Were you afraid to tell someone?”
His eyes land on mine in the mirror. “I was for a long time.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“There is very little to say. It happened a long time ago.” We make it to the city, and even though I’m relieved, all I want to do is turn around and go home so I can snuggle under the covers and read with Lucy purring close.
“I’m sorry, Boris.”
Boris looks at me in the rear-view as he signals, slowing as massive iron gates swing inward to allow us to turn into a wide dirt parking lot of what looks like a lot of construction warehouses. It’s clearly a very used area, as the fresh snow has been churned with the dirt of more than one car passing through.
I watch out the window as he rolls to a stop outside the furthest warehouse on the expansive property. He sits stone stiff for a long moment, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles are white.
His eyes lift from the windshield to the mirror, meeting mine. Then he says, “I’m sorry, too, Irelynn. I really am.”
My door flies open before I can reply.
I’m dragged forcibly from the car by two rough hands. I stumble in the snow, shrieking in surprise at the harsh treatment.
“Boris!” I scream for my guard, confused. Terrified.
He exits the driver’s seat slowly, his dark eyes cool on me before they move to the man who has me in his punishing grip.
What is happening?
“Take her inside. Tie her up in the holding room.”
The man behind me dips his head. “Do we get to play with her?”
Boris’ eyes flick to me, but other than that, no emotion crosses his eyes. “Not yet.”
“Play?” The cold from outside is beginning to seep into my bones. What are they talking about? “Boris, what is happening?”
Boris says nothing as he begins to move toward the warehouse, but I’m starting to come around to my new and terrible reality.
I’ve been kidnapped. Again.
But this time, my kidnapper doesn’t have feelings for me.
And I know for a fact, as I’m shoved through a yawning warehouse where a distant and terrible echo of a man’s tortured scream reverberates off the walls, that I’m not going to be subject to the same beautiful treatment I’d had under Ilya’s care.
When I stumble, I earn a knee to my spine that has me sucking in a cold, sharp breath of air. Pain explodes in my spine. It’s everything I can do to keep myself upright.
I wonder, if I fought—would I be able to somehow get to the car? And then drive the car through the gates to my escape?
I doubt it—and it doesn’t really matter, because I’m too afraid to try. Never mind the pain in my back. If I tried to run, I can only imagine how much worse it would be.
Then I hear it. A loud pop.
The man’s scream is abruptly cut off.
My brain goes utterly blank for two terrible seconds. And then I lose my shit.
That had been a gun. Someone had shot the screaming man. And the screaming man stopped screaming.
I don’t realize I’m screaming until Boris snaps. “Shut her up.”
I’m swung around viciously. My footsteps fumble on the poured concrete floor before I’m righted. And then I’m knocked off-balance yet again by a fist to the side of my face. The hit is so hard, so violent and shocking, my ears ring. Nausea swirls as pain explodes. Then black stars dot my vision. As my vision blurs, those little black dots swell until there’s nothing but the black.
I sink into it, an unwilling prisoner yet again.