Chapter 48
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
LOCH
Weeks pass in peace.
Well, relative peace when it comes to my family. It’s a journey of all hell breaking loose, punctuated by heavenly days and hot nights.
Can’t complain.
It gives me moments like this.
“Blech!” Alena sputters, spitting chunks. “There’s sand in my turkey sandwich.”
I laugh. “I’m trying here, but beach picnics are overrated.”
I lie, propped on my elbow on our blanket. Our lunch is fucked, but our love isn’t. It started right here, on Folly Beach, and Fate is right here with us. Giving us a mild, sunny January afternoon with practically no one here but us, the dunes, lulling waves, and a question I need to ask.
Again.
“So, is dessert out of the question?” I reach into our basket and pull out a wrapped surprise.
She eyes it, smiling. Her sparkling glare slides from the treat in my hand to the gleam in my eyes.
“Okay.” She sighs warmly. “I know what you’re going to do today, and of course, thank you, I love you, and I’ll say yes, but please don’t let me crack a tooth on a ring hidden in cheesecake.”
My face falls. “You just ruined my second proposal.”
“I’m sorry.” She jumps up, kneeling beside me. “I didn’t mean to, but—”
“Nope.” I look away, shrugging my shoulder, hurt ripping down my face. “Too late. I thought it’d be romantic in honor of our first date, but I’m not asking you now.”
“Loocchh.” Her voice bends with worry. Her hand tries to turn my clenched jaw toward her. “I’m sorry. It is romantic, and I’ll eat the cheesecake and go slow so I don’t choke on the ring. Oh, please, don’t be mad. It’s sweet and—”
“Psyche!” I whip my smile back at her before whistling for Mutt, chasing crabs in the surf.
He bounds over while I meet her on bended knee. Tied to his leather collar, I fastened a green ribbon, praying like fuck it wouldn’t break with his frolicking.
Alena’s shocked silent while I fumble with the ribbon and rings.
The one my mom gifted to us. The green Russian demantoid royal heirloom ring. The five carats I’ve been wearing around my neck, praying for this moment again.
And the one I bought months ago, knowing I’d never give up on our love. It’s an elegant gold eternity band set with small green diamonds.
The precious stack shakes in my hand as I hold it over her finger. But…
“Alena, I, uh…” Can’t find words this time.
I’m too overwhelmed, staring into her happy, crying eyes and seeing our future. Kids. A cabin. Creeks and cozy nights. Nothing stands in our way now.
She saves me from stammering stupidity with her whisper, “Yes. Again and again and always.”
Fuck, the wind is making me cry.
The rings slide into place before I pull her into my arms, lying on the blanket. Minutes we spend kissing, admiring her rings, pushing Mutt’s licking muzzle away.
Then, Alena gasps, and I jolt, “What’s wrong?”
“Where are we gonna get married now?” she stresses. “The mountains or the beach, because like hell if I’m ever setting foot on a golf resort again.”
I chuckle, cradling her head to my chest. “Let me plan our wedding this time. Everything. You just show up looking beautiful in your dress. Deal?”
“Deal.” She rubs her sandy foot over mine. “But how long, so I can—”
“Goddammit, Alena.” I laugh. “Give me a few months, and I’ll make it perfect. I swear.” Squeezing her tight, I mumble, “Besides, we need to catch our breath after everything we just found out.”
She palms my chest, muttering, “I still can’t believe Axel has a son. That Katya left him, knowing she was pregnant with his child, and that she’s married to your father now. What a bitch, and poor Axel. He’s missed three years with his son, and—”
“And our father found us years ago, and Sire kept the secret.” I stare at the sky, still in shock, almost forgiving one brother, and in awe of another.
“Our father bribed Sire with threats because he wanted us back.” I kiss her hair, hovering, protective.
“He wanted revenge. He wanted an heir. The lengths he’d go to get one, Sire knew.
He tried to protect us. It’s why he went to Moscow, not Ukraine, and—”
“And then Katya tried to kill him while he was there.” Alena sits up, staring in disbelief at the horizon. My heart clenches with this new knowledge.
I almost lost my brother.
Sire came home Christmas Eve, after weeks of being virtually MIA. He was, unbeknownst to us.
Then, he summoned us to an emergency meeting at his church. And dropped a holy bomb.
Our father found us over a decade ago and bribed Sire for an heir. Sire stalled, so our father sent Katya to seduce Axel. To get pregnant by him and return to Moscow with his grandchild.
But the evil joke was on our father.
Fate doesn’t like to be fucked with.
Our father fell ill with a fatal kidney disease.
His grandson, Axel’s son, is too young to harvest an organ from his little body, so the devil bargained with Sire; if he gave him his kidney, Sire could bring Axel’s son home.
Katya, with her twisted mother’s heart, didn’t like that plan.
Secretly, she sabotaged Sire’s surgery. He almost died from sepsis.
But Fate intervened again.
My brother lived to bring his nephew home.
And we, the king and queens, were left with questions.
Why would Ruslan Kholodov give up his grandson so easily? Why are we still alive today when his reach is far and fatal?
“Come on.” I shake it off, taking Alena’s ringed hand. “Enough of his shit for the day, I have a wedding 2.0 to plan.”
We pack up our picnic, and I keep cherishing Alena’s smile. Pretty fucking overwhelmed with the confidence that if I drowned in that ocean, Alena would be strong enough to save me.
Like I wouldn’t die to save my Babygirl.
Tossing our sandy blanket into the back of my truck, I tuck away our picnic basket while Alena kneels, using baby powder to get the sand off Mutt’s paws.
We have a day of shopping I won’t hate; we need a sofa for our beach condo we use when we’re home visiting family.
And a giant flatscreen.
It makes me smile…
Before the hairs on my neck rise, sensing danger. Wicked energy snakes through the briny air, coiling around my throat. I glance over my right shoulder as instinct taps it again, my glare clocking a gleaming black Mercedes with tinted windows creeping into the empty sandy lot.
It stops, feet from my truck, idling, ominous and concealing the threat within.
“Loch?” Alena senses it, too, securing Mutt inside the truck’s cabin as I reach, unsnapping my gun holstered to my back.
“Cover your six, Babygirl.”
Alena’s no damsel in distress. She’s trained. She’s armed. She’s getting her gun, secured under the passenger seat.
The sedan’s back window slides down.
Lurking close enough for me to recognize who it is.
Though I’ve never laid eyes on him before.
Shocking my soul to its core.
“Lyov, my youngest prince.”
My father says my name, his accent eerily familiar yet bitter, betraying the lie and the claim it’s had over me for so long. It doesn’t race my heart; it hardens it.
I’m not his.
Perfume wafts from his open window. I lift my glare from him to the stench, to Katya sitting beside him. Her legs crossed. Cleavage pronounced. Voice mocking. “My, my, how the youngest lion has grown so large.”
I lift my Glock, aiming the muzzle at them. “What the fuck do you want?”
Ruslan flits his hand, his skin ashen and bruised. “Bring me the girl. I’m here for her.”
“She’s no one’s fucking girl; she’s my queen.”
Alena appears beside me with her gun drawn. “Damn, Katya,” she mocks back. “It’s true. Beauty is skin deep, but ugly is to the bone.”
Ruslan huffs, maliciously amused by Alena. “You are not the girl I want. Though clearly, you are the queen for Lyov.”
His voice is guttural, but there’s an odd friction in his tone. An anger. An agenda.
“I am here for another girl,” he threatens. “This is the arrangement I made with your brother, Sergei.”
Sire.
He didn’t get a chance to debrief us. The family was too overwhelmed watching Axel meet his son. The moment felt like a precious gift you didn’t want to risk with questions.
That was two weeks ago, and Sire’s been resting with Wren. She’s very pregnant, and he’s still weak, recovering from a kidney donation that almost killed him.
A transplant that doesn’t look like it worked.
The pallor of Ruslan’s skin is dangerously gray.
The shadow of death lurks in his eyes.
He risked his life to travel here from Moscow; the contrast of his terminal disease is stark against Katya’s glaring youth beside him.
“What arrangement?” I want to hear it from the devil’s mouth, whatever his plan is.
Twisting his chin, he aims his arctic eyes at me before his glare slithers to the ring on Alena’s finger. It gleams on her hand, cupping her pistol.
I clock it. His recognition. His rage.
It’s Maxim’s ring.
Of course, he’d recognize the royal jewel.
“Come closer, Lyov,” he summons as if I’ll listen.
“Fuck you. I was raised to defy you.”
He jeers, “You do not even remember me.”
I flinch at the truth.
“So, you do not know.” He sucks his mottled teeth. “If I wanted you dead, your mother would’ve buried her child’s coffin years ago.”
Her child. Not his. I feel it, pounding in my heart.
“What do you want?” I seethe.
“A deal,” he dictates.
I don’t need memories to know I’m in the presence of pure evil. The scars on my mother’s back. Sire’s chest. Axel’s feet. Grant’s arms. Jace and Nick’s minds.
I’m the only one free.
For years, I felt less than and left out. Like I didn’t belong. Grieving my guilt and ashamed that I escaped him. I survived without a scratch. With only nightmares that my legacy was a lie.
Until now.
I step into it.
Maxim’s legacy.
Nearing him, I growl, “I don’t owe you a goddamn thing. We both know I’m NOT your son.”
He judges me, his glare tracing my distinct face, my towering form, how not even my memories belong to him. They belong to a man who died with honor. A man, even in death, Ruslan couldn’t defeat.
I’m proudly Maxim’s son, while Ruslan’s sons hate him.
I can’t imagine a punishment more fitting and fatal to the soul.
But he points his dark brow, aimed at his raven hair. His face wrinkled but chiseled. His lips full, yet ashen. His power diminished, but still vicious enough to destroy everyone I love.
“Indeed, Lyov.” He regards me. “I may not be your father. But you and your queen…”–he nods to Alena—“will bring your sister, Sasha, back to me.”