My Crazy Killers (The Undertakers #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

WREN

Staring out the window, I watch as the snowflakes slowly fall from the sky, joining the others on the white-covered ground below. I should feel excited, thrilled, and happy to see this. Instead, I just feel numb.

How can I enjoy my first glimpse of snow when I don't know where any of my guys are or whether they’re even okay?

The last I saw of Elias, he was shot. Shot.

He took a bullet meant for Dex, as if his own life was worth less.

Did I give him that impression by choosing the others? Did he do it for me?

Those questions, and many more, have been swirling around my head for the past three weeks. That’s how long it’s been since the feds surrounded us, Elias was shot, and Ivan took me across the world.

I knew my guys were either arrested, dead, or simply stuck in the US.

Our fake IDs were good, but not international-flight-good.

They’d be caught at the airport for sure, and that was if they even knew where I was.

However, I have no doubt they are doing everything they can to get to me.

I just hope they’re all alive. That’s the least I can ask for at this point, and the only thing that keeps me going every day.

I reach up and stroke my thumb over the small, round, pink pendant hanging from my neck. Elias’s gift helps keep me grounded, especially in this room, where a closet door stares at me every day, as if mocking me. I’ve had to go in it to get dresses to wear.

Panicking over a closet seems ridiculous in the grand scheme of everything going on right now. This thought has been enough to stop me from being completely overwhelmed with panic, although every time I step inside, my heart races uncontrollably.

The floorboards creak outside my door, and I turn to face it fully. Is it already time for dinner?

I wait on bated breath, and just as the tension from my shoulders starts to drop, the lock clicks. My hands grip the windowsill behind me as the door is pushed open. Sergei stands there in his usual dark grey suit, an AK-47 held carefully in both hands.

“Come on,” he says in his thick Russian accent as his head motions out the door.

I know the drill. I’ve been doing it for three weeks now, so I try to show that I’m not terrified as I stand up tall, roll my shoulders back, and walk past him into the hall.

I know where we’re going, so my legs are on autopilot as I once again count the doors and the stairs down to the first floor, as well as noting where each guard is stationed, how many weapons I can see on them, and if they are paying attention.

It’s always the same, but the routine gives me hope. If I can figure a way out of my room, I’ll know exactly what the threats are and where they’re located.

I move into the dining room and take my usual seat, close to the head of the table. Sergei takes up his usual position against the wall behind me. He’s been my main guard the whole time I’ve been here, although sometimes it’s another man, Alexei.

It was interesting how different they felt from Robert’s men. I could feel the power radiating off of them as if Robert’s men had been mere boys. It made me nervous about any attempt at escape. Luckily, none of them had laid a hand on me yet, something I was both thankful for and surprised by.

The tension in the room grows thick, the way it always does when Ivan is about to walk through the doors. It’s almost like I have a sixth sense for him now, and I’m not sure why. There is just something palpable about his energy.

He smiles when he sees me. “Dobryy vecher.” Good evening, he says to me in Russian.

I respond with the same greeting, knowing by now that he is easier to get along with if I try to be pleasant.

The fact that he hadn’t made a single advance toward me in the three weeks I’d been here made it a little easier to stomach faking nice with him, although I didn’t see him at all until the tenth day I was here.

“How was your day?” he asks, switching to English.

“Oh, you know, eventful and entertaining, as usual,” I reply sarcastically.

For some reason, my newly found spunk seems to amuse him.

Of course, that isn’t why I did it. I did it because it’s what I wanted to do.

And as long as I’m not being hurt for speaking my mind, I will continue to do it.

That was something the guys had been trying to help me do, speak my mind more.

I miss them so much.

I feel my face scrunch up as the pain of losing them starts to push to the surface. When I see Ivan watching me with an amused glint in his eyes, I take a second to push that feeling back down and offer him a glare in return.

“Well, my day has been good, thanks for asking,” he says, returning my sarcasm.

He continues speaking, but I tune him out.

I don’t care about his day, but he seems determined to share it with me, anyway.

It’s never anything real, so it doesn’t help me with my plans to escape this stupid Russian fortress.

Technically, it is his home, but it seems like a fortress from the inside.

I’ve never even seen the outside, arriving here unconscious as I did.

If he hadn’t told me I was in Russia, though, the view out the window would have.

We weren’t in the city center, but I could see buildings in the distance that resembled Russian architecture.

That, plus the fact that it was already snowing, and it was only October.

I had expected much more snow, though I guess it was still early in the season.

“... I was thinking of having my son join us for a meal.” I tune back in to what he’s saying and frown in his direction. This guy has a kid? Who would sleep with him? She was probably unwilling. That thought sends a shiver down my spine. “Would you like to meet him?” he asks me.

When I glance at him, I can see he’s watching me intently, like he’s looking for a reaction. “Sure,” I say with a shrug. “Introduce me to the whole family. We can have a picnic and sing songs around the campfire while we’re at it.”

He huffs out an amused laugh just as the server comes in and places a plate down in front of each of us. Looks like it’s beef stroganoff today. At least he didn’t have me eating salad like Robert did.

In some ways, this was less of a prison than the home I’d grown up in. I was allowed to eat the same as him and could speak my mind. But it definitely felt like more of a prison here. I couldn’t leave my room and was bored out of my mind.

I eat silently as Ivan does the same, all the while I can feel his eyes burning a hole in the side of my head.

I have no idea what he wants from me, and it’s driving me nuts.

I haven’t asked yet because I’ve been afraid of him wanting something I’m not willing to offer.

But considering he hasn’t touched me once and we’ve been eating meals together for the past eleven days, I have a feeling that’s not what he wants from me.

I just can’t figure out what his game is.

When I finish my meal, I set my cutlery down and clamp my hands together in my lap as I turn to him. He raises an eyebrow at me, as if silently telling me to ask my question.

“Why am I here?” I finally ask, unable to bear not knowing any longer.

A slow smile spreads across his mouth as if he had hoped I’d ask. “Why do you think you’re here?”

I frown at him and shake my head. “I don’t know. I know you’re no longer interested in me as your trophy wife, so I’m not sure why you’re keeping me here.”

He cocks his head to the side a little as he asks, “Why do you think that?”

“You’re acting differently than you did in Arizona, and you haven’t touched me or flirted or anything.”

This makes him grin again. “Would you like me to touch you, kukolka?” Little doll.

I lean away from him with a sneer on my face as I quickly shake my head. “God, no.”

An amused noise escapes his throat before he takes another bite of his dinner, chewing slowly as he watches me.

When he swallows it down, he finally responds.

“You’re right. I have no interest in marrying you anymore.

I’ll admit, I was interested in the version of you that your brother had created, the pliant, obedient kukolka.

But now I see it was just a facade. He hadn’t really shaped you at all.

It was merely a fake glamour, and as soon as it was broken, I could see there was no returning it. ”

His words stun me to silence. I hadn’t thought of it like that at all. I thought of it as two versions of myself, the version I was before I escaped, and the version I’m becoming now. But if what Ivan is saying is true, then this version of me was always there, under the surface.

Did my guys not tell me something similar? They showed me that I had always questioned Robert, which is why he started putting me in the closet. They proved that I didn’t obey him because I wanted to; I did it out of fear of punishment. I just forgot that, over time, obeying him had become a habit.

Feeling a little uneasy about the fact that Ivan is making me feel more secure in my skin, I lift my gaze to him as I ask, “Then what is it you want from me?”

This time, a full smile covers his face as he responds. “Who said I want anything from you?”

“Then why am I here?” I ask again, getting annoyed with this verbal roundabout.

He smiles, taking another bite of his dinner, purposely drawing out his response.

My hands clench into fists, wishing I had a weapon other than a dinner knife to use on him.

I had actually tried to stab him the first time we ate together.

But Sergei is much faster than he looks, unarming me before my arm spanned half the distance between Ivan and me.

That’s probably why there’s one space between us; it gives them just enough time to stop any attempt I make to hurt him.

“Are your accommodations to your liking?” he asks randomly, throwing me off at the abrupt change in conversation.

“What? My room? It’s fine, why?”

“I was just curious, is all. I wouldn’t want you thinking I wasn’t taking good care of you.”

I narrow my eyes at him, unsure what he’s not saying.

Suddenly, he pushes back his chair and stands up. “Have a good evening, kukolka. I’ll see you at breakfast. I have a feeling it’s going to be… memorable.”

With that strange statement, he turns and leaves the dining room, leaving behind a sense of foreboding that causes goosebumps to rise on my skin.

I have no idea what’s happening tomorrow, but whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not a good thing.