Chapter 37
CHAPTER 37
TITUS
I have no time to think and a calmness settles over me as my mind switches to the job at hand.
As planned, Simeon and Ana are responsible for protecting Tia and getting her to safety while I carry out my family’s revenge. Arman is responsible for mama and they will already have left along with the other members of our ever-growing family.
It happens so quickly everything goes on around me because my gaze is firmly fixed on two men. One of whom is lying on the ground with a bullet through his brain.
The Kremlin guards do their job and Denislav Orlov is protected by a wall of security away from prying eyes as Boris shouts orders. I note his ashen features and the sweat pouring from his brow and I watch with morbid fascination as he attempts to take charge. The stretcher arrives and as he issues his instructions, it’s as if I am a bystander watching the scene from a movie.
The room is cleared and as the body of our president is whisked to the waiting ambulance, I hang back for the most anticipated kill of my life.
“Titus.” He gasps as he wipes the sweat away from his brow, the room now empty except for a few of his men. Mine are carrying out my orders and I shake my head as he stumbles against the table and reaches out to steady himself.
“I don’t feel so good.”
He is sweating profusely and I shout to his men loudly, “Call a doctor! I believe Mr. Fedorov may be having a heart attack.”
I act concerned and rush to his side, guiding him into a nearby chair and loosening the tie around his thick neck.
He clutches his chest as I yell, “Now!”
His men react and soon there are only four of us in the room and I bend down to his ear, so only he can hear me and whisper, “How does it feel to be poisoned in your own home, Boris? The place where you are assured of safety. To realize your life is slipping away despite the steps you took to keep your enemies out. To know that all you have plotted and planned for is slipping through your fingers. To be betrayed by your closest friends, who were always your enemies in disguise. Hating they have won, and you have lost.”
Realization dawns in the fog of his consciousness as he battles to breathe, speech one of the first things to shut down.
His discarded shot glass mingles with the others that were dropped on the floor the second the shot was fired, handed to him by one of my men disguised as a waiter. The poisoned chalice, if you like.
His eyes glitter as he clutches his chest, his breathing ragged and getting fainter by the second. I stare into his eyes the entire time as his life slips away, emotion clutching at my heart as I avenge my father’s death.
He slumps back in his seat, his eyes glassy and unseeing as the medics rush in and I turn to them and shake my head, pretending to care as I say, “He’s gone. He had a heart attack. It must have been the shock.”
They crowd around him and attempt to revive him, but I already know that is impossible. The same poison that killed my father is now running through Boris Fedorov’s fading veins and as I walk away, the red roses lie on a carpet around me as a silent tribute.
So many people are dead because of these men and their souls are dancing with joy as their murderer’s tainted souls rise above the crushed roses with the most jagged thorns.
I slip out of the room to find Mikhail waiting and as we head to the car, he nods, his dark eyes gleaming with the same emotion that I share.
We take our place in the car as the sirens sound around us and as the door closes, he exhales deeply.
“Thank fuck for that.”
He laughs, a deadly sound with no emotion as he whispers, “That was the most satisfying kill of my life.”
I’m aware he is not referring to the bullet through the decoy president’s brain. That delight was awarded to Nikolai Barinov. The government assassin who believed he was acting on the orders of Boris Fedorov. The man he has served for close to forty years. He will be arrested and tried, but will never make it to prison. He murdered the woman my father loved and this was revenge for that. Nikolai’s body will join the rest of the men who dared to believe they could take a man’s life over and over again. They controlled my father from the beginning and tried to control my family, and revenge is the sweetest taste any man can have.
“Were you seen?” I have to ask and Mikhail shakes his head, the dark expression in his eyes a delight to see.
“He was alone. The guards did a good job of making sure the staff were allowed to view the wedding and as I held to the gun to his head, I whispered our father’s name in his ear. If he was conscious that was the last name he heard before he joined the devil in hell.”
“The ambulance?” I ask, checking the plan worked, and he nods.
“Valentin made the switch. The real president is now at the hospital where he will be declared dead. The decoy is on his way to the incinerator.”
We had two ambulances standing by, both staffed by our men in disguise. When they were required, the first team went to the reception and dealt with the decoy while the second team moved the real president from his private hospital room at the Kremlin into the ambulance.
When he arrives at the hospital, he will be declared dead, courtesy of the same gunshot wound to his head that Barinov fired. Any subsequent investigation will be intercepted and re-written, but I am confident that nobody will ever discover what really happened today. Boris himself made sure any documentation was disposed of and the man who has been in a coma for several years already, effectively died a long time ago. Boris himself ran the country using the decoy as a front man. Now Russia is in chaos and an election will be forced. The old threat gone as our country rebuilds her identity.
“Congratulations, Titus.”
Mikhail’s words are not meant for my marriage, and I lean forward and reach for the bottle of vodka and two glasses that are well placed in the limousine.
I fill them and, handing one to Mikhail, I say with rare emotion, “To Andrei Romanov. May your soul now rest in peace.”