Chapter 34 Erin
Erin
I wake from a restless dream to an unfamiliar room, with Paige sleeping soundly in my arms, just as she did when she was a toddler.
Memories of the hours leading up to this moment come flooding back in choppy images. Gerard’s sneer as he regarded me. Paige’s terrified face, her eyes streaming while her mouth was taped over. Blood running out across the floor. Brains splattered on a corridor wall.
Nausea starts to creep up my throat and my gaze darts about searching for a bathroom. Then Paige stirs, distracting me, and I press a kiss to her cheek.
I gently extract myself from her warm grip.
I need to know where everyone is before I can fully settle.
I tiptoe down the hall toward the reception room and see Mallorie asleep on one of the couches with a mountain of blankets covering her.
A movement by the window catches my attention and the man who brought Mal here—Arrow—is awake, alert and keeping watch.
I walk quietly up to him.
“Do you know where my mother is?” I whisper, trying not to wake Mallorie.
He points back the way I just came. “First room on the left,” he mouths.
I nod and am about to turn when I feel his fingers lightly touch my arm.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Can I get you anything?”
I glance back at Mallorie and realize he’s not just watching out the window for threats—he’s watching over her.
I shake my head. “No, I’m fine. Thank you. Where’s Augusto?”
He swallows. It’s silent but I see the shadow move over his throat. “He went back to the Lodge.”
A chill drifts over me and I shiver. “When?”
“A couple of hours ago,” he says quietly. “He should be back soon.”
“What was he planning to do?” I whisper.
Arrow takes a long breath in, then releases it slowly. “Finish the job.”
“Is he—” I shift, uneasily. “Is he likely to come back?”
Arrow’s eyes crinkle at the corners, as though I amuse him.
“Yes,” he replies, with the hint of a smile. “He always comes back.”
He pushes himself off the wall and walks past me to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Another lap of the perimeter,” he says. “Augie’s orders.”
I smile gratefully and return to our room after checking on my mom.
She’s out like a light which I’m pleased about.
I hate that this has put her in such danger she’s had to be brought out to the middle of nowhere to stay in a safe house.
My mother is young for her age but I still worry that the traveling and the tension might be too much for her.
The lamps throughout the house have been dimmed. To any onlooker, there’d be nothing to see here. Which is, I suppose, the intention.
I lie down on the bed next to Paige who shuffles close again. But I don’t sleep. I can’t. Not until I know Augusto is safe.
I snooze a little, drifting in and out of light slumber, my mind replaying the worst of the events, keeping me on edge.
Then I hear it.
My eyes snap open.
For a moment, I don’t move. I just listen, my ears trained on the slightest sound. A crunch on the crisp ground outside the window. A rustle of branches. My entire body bristles, tuned into the smallest noise on the other side of the wall.
I soothe myself, thinking it is probably Arrow, or it could be an animal. But if that were the case, wouldn’t I have heard the sound before?
Could it be Augusto returning from the Lodge? But if it were, why would he come around the back of the house and not through the main door?
Crunch.
I suck in a breath, hardly daring to move.
Even though the sound is coming from outside, it sets the hairs all over my body on edge. After the last twenty-fours, my traumatized body is anticipating danger.
I’m staring at the wall when a shadow crosses it. It’s large, bulky and human-shaped. And it doesn’t look like Arrow.
Every nerve in my body fires like a sparkler, and I sit up without making a sound, my heart hammering so hard I’m certain it will wake Paige. To my relief, she only shifts slightly, her breaths still deep.
Panic fills my chest. Where is Arrow? Is Mallorie safe? My mom?
I lower my feet to the floor, my heart pounding and hands shaking. The cold tile bites into my skin as I stand, but my senses are numb, focusing only on the threat outside the window.
Who would be creeping around the house in the middle of the night?
Maybe someone from the retreat? From what Augusto has told me, those people are the last of the threat, but Augusto was going back there to finish this thing—to eliminate that threat.
So, if someone is here, does that mean Augusto failed? He’s not coming back?
My chest tightens like a vacuum, making it hard to breathe. I pause halfway to the door, trying to catch my breath. The thought of something happening to Augusto is physically debilitating. The realization shocks me: I’m not sure I could survive if something happened to him.
I glance back once at Paige, then I step into the hallway.
The house feels different. The air heavy and charged. A door is open somewhere, letting the cool night seeping in.
Everywhere is still, only the breeze running through creating any kind of movement. Then my heart stops.
Up ahead, at the end of the hall, there’s a shape. The same shape I saw cut across the wall.
I want to run back to my room, lock the door and cover Paige with my body, but my feet won’t move.
Moonlight slices across his face and I shiver at the sight of his eyes. They’re pale and cold, like polished ice. He has a presence I’ve never felt before—like he could command the earth if he wanted to.
Slowly, but surely, fragments of memory piece themselves together in my scrambling mind.
I’ve seen this person before.
My bristling body knows it too.
He’s been in my home—a guest of my husband’s. It was a long time ago and it was fleeting but definite. I recognized the name when Augusto mentioned it but I couldn’t place it. I couldn’t figure out why it was so familiar.
Now I can.
It’s Nikolai Morozov.
A chill travels down my spine.
What was it Augusto had said? He suspects Morozov is the man behind the entire deal. And now he’s here, which can only mean one thing: Augusto isn’t coming back. He’s the threat that has been eliminated, and we’re the unfinished business.
As that stark understanding dawns on me, Morozov smiles.
“We meet again, Erin,” he says softly, his accent thick and recognizable.
My spine locks, terror flooding my veins. But something else infuses me too. Something primal and fierce and maternal. I feel like a lioness guarding a cub. He gets to Paige over my dead body.
“Stay exactly where you are,” I say, my voice shaking but loud enough to echo down the hall.
His smile widens and he starts a slow walk toward me, making a mockery of my demand.
“Don’t come any closer,” I try again.
He doesn’t listen. Just keeps walking toward me. I spread my body across the door to my daughter’s room. My muscles are solid with tension.
“Where is Augusto?” I ask.
“Ah, your new husband,” Morozov says with a calculated grin. “How quickly you forget your old one.”
He stops a few feet away and tucks his hand into an inside pocket of his leather jacket. My eyes train on the movement.
“He was always so good to you, Erin. And this is how you treat him.” His features contort into a backdrop of disappointment, but it doesn’t penetrate my armor.
“He gave you a rich life, a beautiful daughter, a wonderful home. And you leave him. For what?”
“He beat me,” I reply, not that this monster deserves any explanation. “The man who invited you into our home was evil. He would have killed our daughter.” I tilt my chin. “But then, you knew that, didn’t you? You’re cut from the same cloth. You would have done the same.”
He shrugs a shoulder and pulls out his hand. A flash of silver glitters in the moonlight and my breath catches.
He’s holding a blade.
He’s going to kill me.
And then he’s going to kill Paige, and everyone else in this house—everyone who has ever meant anything to me. Mallorie, my mother…
“This isn’t just about the deal is it?” I ask in a raised voice, trying to stall him until someone—anyone—realizes he’s here and can distract him for just a second so I can lock Paige’s door somehow. “You must spin these deals all the time. This one is no different to any other.”
He cocks his head, seemingly appeased by my estimation of him.
“You’re not just a dumb blond, are you?” he sneers. “I warned Gerard not to underestimate you, but he never listened.”
“So,” I continue, “what is this about? Really?”
“It’s about sending a message,” he answers, easily.
“What kind of message?”
His grip tightens around the blade. “That the Russians are not to be fucked with.”
“Who needs to receive the message?” I know the answer but I need to draw this ‘conversation’ out.
“The Italians of course.”
“Why? They never bothered you before?” I have no idea if they did or not but something tells me I need to let him think I know more than I do.
“You are correct. But they have greasy fucking hands that hold tight to things I want.”
“Like what?” I try to contain the tremor in my voice.
“Like Manhattan.”
My head swarms with confusion. The Di Santo’s own Manhattan. Not officially, of course, but everyone knows their influence is far greater than that of our governing and law enforcement bodies combined. That means the Russians tried to take control of Manhattan, but the Di Santo’s didn’t back down.
Augusto is a Di Santo. And there’s every chance he’s dead. So, what’s left to do? Send a very stark, brutal, over-the-top message. Anyone who gets in the way of Russian business pays. And so does anyone remotely close.
Morozov is here to kill us.
All of us.
He watches the realization infuse my face.
I take a breath, but he moves fast.
There’s no time to react before his hand closes around my throat and slams me back into the wall. Pain explodes through my shoulder, and my vision blacks out for a second.