Chapter 38 - Anatoli
Masha was asleep with her head tucked under my chin only a few minutes later, and I lay beside her, wide awake, fighting anger every time I noticed a new bruise. Also, almost shaking with the desire my insatiable wife could raise in me, even after she was brought close to death.
She was a powerhouse, resilient, and so adorably stubborn.
I listened to her slightly rasping breaths due to the tight bandages around her cracked ribs, unable to drift off even though I was confident no one had a clue about where we were.
The motel was close to the border crossing but far enough outside of the major tourist areas that only locals used the ramshackle motel, and even then, there was only one car out in the lot.
Was I actually feeling guilty for lying to her?
It wasn’t even really a lie when I hustled her away from that horror shack by telling her others were on the way.
That was the complete truth. The only thing I left out was that the other people were Daniil and his guys.
Since he knew what was going on, that meant every other Fokin did too by now.
It was mildly amusing thinking about how pissed off he must have been when he arrived to find I took off with Masha instead of waiting for him, but he’d be crazy to expect anything else.
It was why he was so adamant about me hanging back and waiting for him to arrive.
There was no way I could have done that. When I kicked down that door, one of those animals was about to slice through her jugular. She would have been dead in seconds. I shuddered now, holding her closer until she murmured in her sleep.
No, I wasn’t about to wait, just like I wasn’t about to give her up. I couldn’t. Not for anyone, especially not when she seemed content to stay with me now. More than content, if her voracious display before she passed out again was any indication.
“My sweet wild thing,” I said, kissing the top of her head and easing lower onto the bed to get more comfortable. She didn’t stir, her whole, bruised and battered body completely relaxed in my arms.
Could it be possible that we were truly a team?
I fell asleep, wondering, not sure I dared to hope.
Masha slept for forty-eight hours, only waking once to take a few sips of water, then collapsing back into the deep healing sleep she needed.
I was antsy and impatient, but I promised her she could be part of the raid to take out Julio Santino.
It was only fair that she got to smash some heads after what she went through because of the Collective.
My pilot flew into the nearest airfield with the crew he gathered, and while Masha recuperated, we went over all the information I had acquired and put together a plan.
It wasn’t much, but I had the strength of a thousand men due to the rage that bubbled up in me whenever I saw my beautiful wife’s swollen eyes and split lip.
On the third day, she made a huge show of being perfectly fine, pulling herself out of bed like her ribs didn’t hurt, practically skipping to the leaky shower. By the time she emerged with her long hair wet and falling down her back, I had a big meal ready for her.
“It’s not exactly five-star fare,” I said, laying out the fruit and rolls from the grocery, along with a half-grilled chicken from a street vendor about a block away.
She tore into it with gusto, barely wincing. “I’m good, Anatoli,” she said. “Stop looking at me like I’ll fall apart from getting a shower and eating two bites.”
“A bit more than two,” I teased as she practically inhaled an entire chicken thigh.
I couldn’t figure out why watching her eat was so mesmerizing, but it was the relief that made me keep staring at her as she double-fisted the fresh rolls.
I couldn’t help but worry all the time she spent in deep sleep, but now she was up and acting like her old, tenacious self.
She gave me a sunny smile that caused a small cut to reopen, nearly breaking my heart.
And replacing my relief with another burst of guilt. Things might go smoother if I included Daniil in our plans to raid Julio’s hideout. But then I might have to face giving her up. I might have to face her choosing to leave.
I shook it off. That wasn’t going to happen, not with the smile still shining on her face.
I couldn’t help myself and leaned across the cramped little card table in our motel room and kissed her on her cheek.
She turned so our lips met instead, reaching up to grab the back of my head and hold me there for more.
No, she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Should we leave tomorrow?” she asked, finally finished with her meal and leaning back to pat her stomach. “Gosh, I feel like I didn’t eat for days.”
“You didn’t,” I told her. “You’ve been asleep for more than two days, and I don’t remember the last time you ate before they grabbed you.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “That long? We really need to get going then.”
“I’ve got Julio under surveillance,” I said. “The arrogant bastard isn’t going anywhere.” Worry clouded her eyes, and I quickly told her that no one had been able to track us.
“Yet,” she said, not convinced and raring to go.
She would have left that night if it was up to her, but no matter how she tried to hide it, she was still shaky on her feet after the beatings she had taken.
It was a miracle that nothing more than a few ribs were broken.
I fired up my laptop and let her see the cameras I was able to hack into, my software recording all the incidents of Julio coming and going from his house.
“Well, I guess all those rumors about you being some computer genius were kind of true,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Kind of true?”
She smiled. “You know you’re amazing if you could get all this.”
“Maybe I still like to hear it from my wife,” I said.
Her cheeks turned a deep shade of red under the fading bruises, and she looked down, uncharacteristically shy.
We stayed another two days in that motel, until I could no longer come up with any more excuses to keep her hidden away, all mine and only mine.
Her bruises were faded, her movements were strong, and she was practically champing at the bit to get revenge.
“Honeymoon’s over, I suppose,” I said as she lay in my arms on the lumpy mattress for the final night. “We can leave first thing in the morning.”
“Was this our honeymoon?” she asked, faking a scowl before curling up and closing her eyes. “I think you can do better.”
“I think you’ll have to wait and see,” I said, falling asleep to the soft sound of her breathing, my new favorite music.
We boarded the plane at first light and were back in Los Angeles by mid-morning.
We were all on high alert as we wound our way up into the hills to Julio’s secluded hideaway.
The extra days I spent in Mexico with him were useful in getting a handle on when he was home.
According to the messages I was able to intercept, I also knew where most of his key men would be.
Despite there only being seven of us, we decided to go big.
I was pissed off enough to want to make a real dent in the Collective, and it went without saying that Masha did too.
The plan was to split up and hit Julio and his top guys in one blow, hopefully bringing along plenty of underlings at the same time.
Yury, my longtime pilot, would head his team of two guys and lace Julio’s second in command’s home with explosives. One of the guys he brought in was heading to another building where we had fairly good intel that a group of high-level people would be gathered there for a meeting that very morning.
And Masha and I were taking care of Julio. I almost felt sorry for him when we arrived, and Masha reached behind her for a rifle.
“Like we discussed,” I said. “We wait to hear from Yury.”
She nodded. “And then no hesitation.”
We took out one of the perimeter guards and snuck onto the property, hovering below one of the back windows.
As soon as I got the text from Yury and the other team saying their bombs had gone off, I gave the sign to Masha.
She stood up to cover me as I shattered the window with my gun and sprayed the room with bullets before climbing up and over the sill.
She followed me, nimble as a squirrel, taking out two guards who rushed in at the commotion.
We stormed down a hall, aiming our guns into empty rooms until we spotted Julio scrambling to get into a panic room behind a bookshelf.
Masha shot him in the leg, and he fell to the ground, squealing like a pig.
As soon as he recognized her, he spewed a stream of curses, which Masha ignored as she disarmed him. As she rolled him onto his back, I noticed he was reaching behind him. In another blink, he had a gun trained on my wife.
As much as I knew she wanted him for herself, I acted on instinct and ended him with a bullet between the eyes. His arm dropped, and the gun clattered against the parquet floor.
“Sorry,” I said. “I know you wanted him.”
She shook her head, pale at the close call. “He’s not going to be a problem anymore, that’s all that matters.”
She was right. With Julio dead, his second in command and a big group of his top-ranking people up in flames, the Collective was going to need a good long time to recover, at least in this area.
We had to deal with a few more armed men, but soon we had the house locked down.
Or so I thought. As we were on our way out, more people spilled in, a veritable army.
There was no way we could fight our way out past all of them, but I was damn well going to try.
As soon as I raised my arm to start shooting, Masha suddenly slapped it out of the way, throwing off my aim so my spray of bullets landed uselessly on a wall.
“Dan?” she asked incredulously.
Damn it. Apparently, the Fokins were also keeping Julio’s properties under surveillance.
Her cousin led the pack, in full riot gear, with at least ten men around him, aiming guns at us.
At me. One of them ducked around Daniil and grabbed Masha, dragging her behind the row of armed men as if she were in danger from me.
She looked a hell of a lot better than she did after I pulled her out of that shack almost a week ago, but the evidence of a beating was still clear on her face.
As soon as he noticed, he turned a death glare on me.
“Get the fuck down on the ground,” he shouted.
I didn’t, looking past him at Masha, who appeared stunned, her arm held in a tight grip by some asshole I didn’t recognize.
Was she going to fight him, make a stand for me?
Tell her cousin to lower his damn weapon from where it was currently aimed at my face?
I raised my own gun in a standoff, but I couldn’t even kill any of them. She’d never forgive me.
All I could do was wait for Masha to clear up the confusion.
As I tried to catch her eye, there was a sharp blow to the back of my head, then what felt like the weight of a pygmy elephant crashing into my back to bring me to my knees.
My face smashed into the floor at the same time I realized I might have been played by Masha one last time.
The pain of that was worse than the next blow to the head, which made everything go dark.