Chapter 10
NIKOLAI
I’d spent twenty years chasing the dead, and it only took two days to learn that the living could haunt you just as deep.
The gravel crunched under the tires of my car as I drove away from the Volkov Estate, my hands gripping the steering wheel to avoid switching gears to reverse and going back. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to turn around, to go back for her.
But I couldn’t.
At least, not yet.
Her kiss still burned on my skin, and I couldn’t help but trace the spot with my fingers.
The image of Adrianne kneeling on that marble floor, collared like an animal, was burned into my retinas. The way she’d silently mouthed “please” when Vladimir put that knife to her throat. The tears streaming down her face when I left her alone with that monster.
My monster.
For twenty fucking years, I’d been his weapon, his perfectly trained attack dog, all for the promise of laying my mother and sister to rest. And now, I’d handed him an innocent woman to torture for that same promise, and yet, nothing came of it.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I couldn’t decide if the worst part was that I’d brought her there, or that I couldn’t just leave her and get on with my life. I should have been able to walk away, complete the mission, get my coordinates, and forget she ever existed.
Instead, I looked into those big brown eyes and promised her midnight. Promised her I was coming back. Some fucking knight I was.
When I reached the gates, I pulled over and rolled down the window. One of the guards approached, his face professionally neutral.
“I need to use a phone,” I said in Russian.
He handed me his cell without question, knowing I was his Pakhan’s son.
I got out of the car and lit a cigarette with stiff hands.
I needed a lot more than nicotine to numb me down to a more manageable state.
I didn’t know what to do with the way my heart pumped each time I thought of Adrianne trapped with that monster.
I punched in Adrik’s number and waited for him to pick up.
“Warehouse District. Pier 47. Twenty minutes,” I barked into the phone, then hung up before he could respond.
I deleted the call history, then hurled the phone to the ground with enough force to shatter the screen into a spider web of cracks. The guard looked at the destroyed device with raised eyebrows.
“Sorry,” I muttered, pulling out a stack of bills and throwing them at him. “Buy yourself a new one.”
Without waiting for a response, I got back in the car and stepped onto the accelerator until it was stuck to the car’s floor, gravel spraying behind me as I sped away from the estate.
The drive to Pier 47 felt like it took hours, but it was only seventeen minutes and forty-three seconds.
I counted.
Long enough for me to chain-smoke half a pack and work myself into a fury that had my vision blurring at the edges.
Adrik was already there when I arrived, leaning against his car with that patient expression he wore when he knew I was about to lose my shit completely.
“That was fast,” he said as I got out, already reaching for another cigarette. “Got the coordinates?”
“We have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
I took a long drag, letting the smoke burn my lungs before answering. “The kind where I just handed an innocent woman over to a psychopath and promised her I’d come back for her.”
Adrik’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “You told her you’d rescue her?”
“Midnight. I told her to stay alive until midnight. And I’m honestly questioning if she’ll make it till then.”
“Blyat, Nikolai. What happened in there?” Fuck.
I started pacing, unable to stand still, the anxiety in my veins mixing with adrenaline and forcing me to move.
“He’s worse than he used to be. Much worse. He had her on her knees, collared like a fucking dog, feeding her scraps from his plate. He put a fucking knife to her throat just to watch me squirm.”
The words tasted like poison in my mouth, so I used the cigarette to try and mask it.
“How does that surprise you, Nikolai? You knew what you were walking her into.”
“I didn’t know.” It wasn’t a direct answer to his statement.
“You didn’t know what?”
My hands shot to my hair, my fingers threading it before pulling at the roots. “That I could care.”
“So you couldn’t just walk away.”
“I should have been able to.” I flicked my cigarette into the water with violent force. “I should have completed the mission, gotten my coordinates, and moved on with my life. But I can’t get her brown puppy dog eyes out of my head.”
“Because she saved your life?”
“Because she’s innocent.” The admission came out rougher than I intended. “She doesn’t deserve to be collateral damage to Vladimir Volkov’s craving for grandness. She doesn’t deserve what he’s going to do to her. And I? I put her there.”
Adrik kept silent for a while, studying my face. “So what do you want to do about it?”
“I’m keeping that promise, Adrik.”
“You and your fucking promises, Volkov! You’re talking about storming a fortress. With what, the four of us and some water pistols?”
“I need all our men. Everyone that we can get here on time.” I lit another cigarette, my hands steadier now that I had a plan brewing at the back of my mind. “We go in hard and fast, extract her, and disappear before he can retaliate.”
“And your mother and sister?”
The question hit me like a gunshot to the gut. Twenty years of waiting. Twenty years of being his perfect son, his obedient weapon. All for the chance to bury them properly.
“I’ll figure something else out.”
Adrik nodded slowly. “Alright. What’s the plan?”
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the contacts until I found what I was looking for. “First, we lose the car,” I said, pointing to my SUV, “I’m sure it picked up some new features while I was at the mansion. Then we get Vladimir out of the house.”
“Oh, that’s rich. How?”
“We’re using Dmitri’s phone. Make him think there’s a threat he needs to handle personally.”
“And then?”
“Then we go to war.”
“Nikolai,” Adrik’s voice was cautious, his hand resting on my forearm as he spoke. “Are you sure about this? Once we do this, there’s no going back. He’ll never stop hunting us.”
I thought about Adrianne kneeling on that marble floor. About the fear in her eyes when Vladimir yanked that leash. About the way she whispered, “I forgive you,” even after everything I’d put her through.
Placing my palm over his hand, I nodded firmly, “I’m sure.”
We hit the estate at 11:47 PM. Thirteen minutes before midnight.
Kirill’s jamming device worked perfectly. The lights went out across the entire compound, and I could see the guards fumbling for flashlights, testing their devices before running off to find new communication equipment in the sudden darkness.
With a two-finger signal, this impromptu operation was a go.
We moved like shadows through the perfect gardens, our night-vision goggles turning the world into green-tinged clarity.
The front door was reinforced steel, but we’d come prepared for that.
One of the men who’d come in from Chicago was a bombing expert, and luckily, he was armed to his teeth with enough C4 to blow up an entire block.
The explosion echoed across the grounds like thunder.
More guards ran out of the side entrances, shouting in Russian, their muzzle flashes lighting up the night and everything around them. We returned fire, our movements coordinated and precise.
A man in a security uniform rounded the corner ahead of me, his rifle already raised. I put two bullets in his chest before he could pull the trigger, his body spinning backwards into the marble fountain with a splash of water and blood.
“Clear!” Kirill shouted from behind me.
We pushed deeper into the house, moving through the hallway I’d walked down earlier, past portraits of dead Volkovs and display cases full of medals my father had earned for the Motherland. Some fucking war hero.
The gunshots outside were loud while I rushed down the hall with Kirill flanking left. He moved like the trained killer he was, taking down a guard that came from the opposite direction with a single shot to the middle of his forehead.
“Where is she?” Kirill asked as we passed several doors, empty rooms that were as barren as my damn chest.
“Two doors down.”
Finally, we reached the heavy wooden door I was looking for. Locked, of course.
“Step back,” Kirill said, pulling out another small explosive charge.
“No. You’re not using that.” I couldn’t risk her getting hurt from the blast. “Adrianne, step away from the door!”
Silence.
My heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to break free. “Adrianne!”
Nothing.
I grabbed the burner phone Adrik had given me and dialed my phone number. It rang out until it reached voicemail.
Panic clawed inside my chest and up my throat, tasting like copper and fear. She should be answering. She should be telling me she was okay, that she was alive, that she’d kept her promise to survive until midnight.
“ADRIANNE!” I shouted, not caring if my father’s men heard me.
The silence on the other side of that door was the loudest thing I’d ever heard, and I hated the damn sound.
I backed up three steps, then hurled myself at the door with everything I had.
The impact sent shockwaves up my shoulder and down my spine. The thick wood held, but I heard it crack.
“Boss, let me–”
“No!” The word came out as a growl before I slammed into the damn thing again, ignoring the fire that shot through my shoulder. The wood groaned and split, but still held.
My hands were shaking now, my breathing coming in short gasps. She could be dead in there. She could be gone, and it would be my fucking fault.
I backed up and threw myself at the door again, this time leading with my foot. The kick landed right next to the lock with a crack that sounded like breaking bones. My own bones, maybe, but I didn’t care.
The door frame splintered, the slightest of gaps appearing and giving me hope. Almost there.
One more kick, putting every ounce of rage, terror, and desperation I had into it. The door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and hardware, the lock tearing free from the frame with a shriek.
And there she was, lying on the bed in a fetal position, her back towards us. But she didn’t even move a muscle.
“Jesus fuck!” I roared, running towards her.
Her wrists were tied together so tightly that her fingers had lost all their rosy color.
The collar she had around her throat earlier was now tied higher, across her open mouth like a gag, biting into her skin in a way I knew would leave abrasions and bruises under it.
The leash was on, too, tied to the bed frame as if she were some kind of animal.
“Adrianne. Wake up.” I shook her fragile body, but she still didn’t respond. On impulse, I put my fingers to her carotid, waiting to feel the pulse, hoping to hell her heart was still beating.
I was too wired to be still, meaning it took longer than normal, and my chest almost caved at the possibility of that fucker killing her in the few hours she’d been here. I held my breath, forcing myself to calm down, and then I finally caught the pump of her blood under my index.
“Hold on, Babochka. Don’t leave me.”
I unclasped the damn collar, the corners of her mouth already split and cracked, while the dried blood was the only color on her porcelain skin.
Then, I pulled out my army knife and cut the ropes that bound her hands before I shrugged out of my jacket and draped it over her frame, covering as much of that degrading outfit as I could.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured to myself before picking her up and heading straight out the door. “Call in the extraction,” I ordered Kirill.
If she ever opens her eyes again and tells me to burn this place to the ground, I’ll ask her where she wants me to start.
One small glance towards her had me fighting demons in my own head. The ones that forced me to get her to safety and not wait in the living room for my father to return with enough C4 attached to my chest to blow us to the fucking moon.
There was a fresh cut above her eyebrow, more blood dried on her cheek. Dark bruises bloomed across her face like dirty reminders of the monster I was.
We moved through the house, out the front door, and down the driveway, where one of the guys arrived with a car. We practically dove into the damn thing before he sped away and out the gate.
By the time we reached the extraction point to change cars and part ways with our allies, Adrik was already there with the others. His eyes widened when I stepped out with Adrianne in my arms, her head falling back, lifeless.
“Jesus Christ! What did that bastard do to her?”
“She’s drugged. We can’t know the extent of the damage until we get her to a doctor or she wakes up.
Whichever one comes first. We’ll deal with Vladimir later,” I said, slowly stepping into the back of my SUV while Adrik took the passenger seat and Kirill sat behind the wheel.
“We need to move. Are the others here already?”
“They’re at the strip. I’ve got some of Sasha’s clothes in the jet,” Adrik offered as we pulled away from the pier. “She can help change Adrianne into something more appropriate.”
I glared at him, fixing my jacket around her limp body as we drove at maximum speed towards the jet that was waiting to get us the fuck out of here. “She’s fine like this.”
“Nikolai–”
“I said she’s fine,” I growled, tightening my hold around her.
“I’m not sure leather catches fire as easily as cotton,” He mocked, turning his gaze to the road to avoid the glower he knew I’d direct at him for the hit.
“Keep talking and we’ll find out how easily flesh burns instead.”