41. Brooke
I leave the hospital to run some errands and spend the next couple of hours shopping for baby items. But I’m so distracted by what just happened with Lev at the hospital, I can’t concentrate.
Yesterday afternoon I was angry at the both of us for what happened in his office so much I couldn’t sleep for it and I was prepared to keep being angry.
But today there was something different between us. The ice has thawed. And when he placed his hands on my stomach they had lingered, and I had felt something between us. The same feelings we had before I ran. I could see them in his eyes. Feel them in his touch.
I need to talk them over with someone. So when I receive a text message from Enya asking me to join her for an early dinner at one of the bratva’s restaurants, I jump at the chance.
The restaurant is a popular venue on the waterfront, but when I arrive, it looks closed. The sign on the door says it doesn’t open until five o’clock, but Enya’s message specifically said to meet her here at four.
Perhaps they’re opening early for us?
As I approach the doors, they open, and a beautiful woman welcomes me in with a big, glossy smile. She’s gorgeous. The kind of beautiful you can’t help but stare at. Wearing a silk suit in the deepest navy and a pair of Jimmy Choo stilettos, she looks a little overdressed to be a waitress, but leads me through the restaurant to a table outside on the deck.
While I’m being seated, one of the two bodyguards Lev insists I take wherever I go, leaves to do a perimeter check, while the other sits far enough away to allow me some privacy.
“Can I get you some water while you wait?” the beautiful lady asks in a thick Russian accent.
I don’t know why, but a cold, uneasy feeling crawls up my spine.
I let out a heavy breath and tell myself to get a grip. I’m safe. Still, I can’t help but glance at the bodyguard sitting mere yards away.
I give the server a smile. “No, thank you, I’m fine for now.”
She walks away, and I open the menu, but it’s all in Russian. Enya will need to translate it for me. Which makes me think that perhaps I need to learn Russian. No doubt Lev will want his son or daughter to speak it, and I should probably learn too.
I’m typing myself a note on my phone to look into online Russian language courses when a shadow falls across the table.
I look up and see Boris smiling back at me.
Instantly, my nerves are calmed. Behind him, I see Maksim talking to the lady in the silk suit. She touches his arm intimately, and I get the feeling that they know each other well.
“Brooke, how delightful to see you,” Boris says. “May I join you?”
I smile up at him. “Please have a seat.”
I’m sure Enya won’t mind Boris and Maksim joining us. After being at the hospital all day, Boris’ jovial demeanor might be exactly what the doctor ordered for all of us.
Boris sits and rests his big, meaty hands on the table in front of him. But Maksim doesn’t sit. Instead, he stands beside his father, and unlike his father, he’s not smiling.
The uneasy feeling I felt earlier returns.
Something isn’t right.
“It’s lovely to see you,” I say to Boris, trying to push back my sudden unease.
He smiles but there is no warmth. “Do you like my restaurant?”
I glance over to my bodyguard but he isn’t there, and a strange sensation begins to tingle in my stomach.
Get out.
I smile but it’s weak. “Oh, yes, it’s beautiful.” I pick up my phone, look at the dark screen, and then put it down again. “But unfortunately, it looks like I’ve been stood up. Enya just messaged me to say that she can’t make it. Looks like we’ll have to reschedule dinner.”
I stand and pick up my handbag and tell myself not to make it obvious that I’m freaking out. That there was no message from Enya. That I’m terrified because something in my gut tells me to run.
But I feel Boris’ eyes on me, and my hands start to shake.
“Sit down, Brooke,” he says calmly.
“I really must get going,” I insist.
“I said sit down,” Boris says again, this time with an edge in his voice.
My mind racing, I slowly sit. “Is everything alright?”
It suddenly occurs to me that something might have happened to Lev, and Boris is here to tell me that my life is about to change again. Because whoever was after him finally got him, and now he’s dead.
God, I feel sick.
“Has something happened to Lev?” I ask, unable to hide my panic.
Maksim breaks his stony facade with a chuckle, but it fades when his father shoots him a look.
Boris turns his attention back to me. “For now, he is unharmed.”
For now?
“What does that mean? I don’t understand.”
Boris gives me a smile, but there is something off about it. “Before I tell you what I came here to tell you, I want you to know that this is nothing personal. I like you, Brooke, I really do. But unfortunately for you, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The way he’s looking at me—the way they are both looking at me—pours fire on my fear and ramps it up to the next level.
Again, I scan the room for my bodyguard. But he is nowhere.
“Your bodyguard is dead,” Boris says, as calmly as he would say, pass the salt. “He put up a struggle, but he was no match for Maksim.”
Fear tightens like a tightly coiled spring in my chest, and I find it hard to swallow for the ginormous lump of fear lodged in it. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry, Brooke. But you’re a loose end that needs tying off.”
I shake my head. My heart is pounding so hard I almost can’t hear him over the roaring of my pulse in my ears. “I don’t understand.”
“If only you hadn’t gotten pregnant with the heir to the Zarkov fortune and head of the table. I would’ve simply executed Lev and let you leave. But I can’t let that baby in your womb take a single breath. It is a threat to me and my sons.”
Sons?
Oh my God, is Feliks involved with this too?
“What are you gonna do?” I ask, my voice trembling.
He nods to Maksim, who clicks his fingers, and the beautiful lady in the silk suit reappears, but this time she is hustling a bound and gagged Enya into the room.
I forget about my own fear for a moment. “What do you think you are doing?” I demand. “Get your hands off her.”
Silk Suit shoves Enya toward me.
“Sit down,” she commands.
With a whimper, Enya sits in the chair beside me. Her wrists are bound in front of her, and her hands are shaking. Our eyes meet. She’s been crying, but other than that, she looks unharmed.
“It’s going to be okay,” I try to reassure her, but my voice trembles because I’m not sure that is true.
I glance around the empty restaurant, looking for signs of help, but the place is empty.
“No one is coming for you,” Maksim says coldly. “Your fiancé is otherwise detained.”
My gaze darts to Boris. “What have you done to him?”
He waves it off as if it’s nothing. “Just a mild distraction to ensure that he is nowhere near here.”
I lift my chin. “So what happens now?”
“Now I move the final pieces into play.”
Fear is a bullet zipping through every part of my body.
He’s going to kill us.
“Let Enya go. She’s not involved with any of this. Why is she even here?”
“She was a means to an end, I’m afraid, my dear. We needed to lure you out from the safety of the mansion. We were only going to take her phone so we could send you the message. But she caught one of my soldiers lifting it from her bag while she was in with Igor. Now, she will join you in death.” He sighs. “Another case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Three minutes later and she would be looking for her phone now, not living her last few minutes here with you and me.”
Enya whimpers around her gag, her eyes wide and frightened.
“You don’t need to do this,” I say in a low, calm voice I don’t even recognize. But it comes from a place of strength, that part of me that will do anything to save the life of my baby. “Let us live, and we will go away, and you will never see either of us again.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late, Brooke. The die has already been cast.”
He doesn’t seem sorry at all. He’s just toying with us and getting off on it, the sick fuck.
“Please,” I whisper desperately.
“Now, don’t go and do that,” Boris snaps. “Don’t go begging. You’re stronger than that. Given the chance to live, you would have been a great wife for the pakhan. I admire your strength, so don’t let it fail you now. I will make it quick. There’s no need for the two of you to feel any pain.”
Beside me, Enya whimpers again, but it’s not fear—she’s calling him something nasty in Russian that I don’t understand. Her eyes are hard and sharp.
“Now, now, no need for name-calling,” Boris says, turning his attention to her. “This is how it has to be.”
He removes his gun from the breast pocket of his suit and sits it on the table in front of him. Fear blasts through me, and I have to bite back a cry of panic. I let out a rough breath in an attempt to control my quivering chin.
God, he’s going to kill us here.
The sudden shrill of the fire alarm makes me jump. Boris turns to Maksim. “Go check it out.”
Maksim obeys, leaving us alone with Boris and Silk Suit.
The odds are against us, but we have to try to stop this from happening. I look at Enya and gesture with my eyes to Silk Suit. Enya’s eyes tell me she understands. I know there’s very little chance what I’m about to do is going to work out. But I won’t go down without a fight.
I give Enya a nod, and the moment she swings her legs around to topple Silk Suit off her feet, I flip the table.
It takes Boris by surprise, and his gun falls to the floor.
We both go for it at the same time, but I’m smaller and faster, and I reach it first. I hold it up, but I don’t have any idea what I’m doing with it.
Silk Suit gets Enya in a chokehold, so I point it at her. “Let her go.”
“Or what, you’re going to shoot me?”
Enya elbows her in the solar plexus to break free. With a growl, Silk Suit goes for the gun concealed in an ankle holster, so I shoot her.
Honestly, I don’t mean to shoot her. It’s almost a reflex action. It gets her in the leg, and I watch with wide eyes as blood begins to spill down her silky pants. It’s enough to stop Boris from lunging at me. He steps back, arms high. But I know it’s only a matter of time before Maksim comes running back in, so I grab Enya, and we both flee down the stairs leading to the parking lot. I hear yelling behind us. Heavy boots clomp along the deck, and I aim the gun and just start firing randomly to buy us some time. In a matter of minutes, this place will be swarming with Boris’ men.
When we reach the parking lot, we stop briefly so I can untie Enya‘s hands. She rips the gag out of her mouth. “Those motherfuckers, we should have shot them all.”
“There will be plenty of time for that later.” When Lev hears about this, he will rain fire and brimstone down on his uncle and cousin.
That’s when I think about Feliks. Is he involved with this too? Did he conspire with his father and brother to murder Lev?
I look around in a panic for an escape route. The parking lot is empty, and I don’t know what to do. I hear the fire alarm stop and voices shouting inside the restaurant. They’re coming, and we’ve got no way of getting out of here.
It’s then I hear the screech of tires and the roar of a car engine, and I turn and see a car barrel toward us. It stops with a skid in front of us, and inside is Vadim. I take a step back.
No.
“Get in,” he demands.
Both Enya and I make a run for it. And I hear Vadim growl as he chases after us in the car. He comes roaring past us and blocks our exit out of the parking lot. I aim the gun at him, but it’s empty.
He pulls his weapon on Enya and me, and I’m pretty sure his has bullets in it. “Get in the fucking car.”
I want to cry. We’ve come so far only to be stopped just before we reach freedom.
Enya and I do as he tells us to, and we climb in the car. Vadim barely waits for us to close the doors before he roars out of the parking lot and onto the road.
I look behind us as Boris and his men descend onto the parking lot.
Did Vadim just save us?
I turn to look at the old Russian.
“You’re not taking us back to Boris?”
His face is unreadable as he looks at me.
His phone rings, and I watch as he brings it to his ear. “I found them.”