Chapter 27 #2
The crowd ducked first and then ran to safety. Breaking glass mixed with panic echoed through the space as people crashed into tables in their despair toward the exits. Adrianne curled into my side, her body shaking in fear.
Dead blood is poison in the veins.
My father’s words crashed into my thoughts.
“GET OUT!” My voice boomed over the chaos. “Everyone get the fuck out of my house. NOW!”
This wasn’t what I’d planned when I kissed Adrianne in front of everyone, but it served my purpose. Having these people out of here before war erupted was for the best. They weren’t the enemy.
“It’s okay, Love.” I kissed the top of her head, my voice dropping to a more controlled tone, “This is what I am, Babochka. This is the kind of man you welcomed into your bed.”
She didn’t move even though I half expected her to run towards her brothers. Instead, she buried her face further into me, hugging my waist with all the strength she had.
While the chaos bloomed and slowly died around us, I watched Viktor’s blood pool around him, dark and warm.
Good. Let it stain. Let that be the reminder of who I am and what I’ll do to protect my family’s memory.
Within minutes, the ballroom was empty, except for my men filing in from various entrances, Adrik appearing at my side like he’d been summoned, Alexei frozen near the bar, staring at Viktor’s body.
Five figures still stood near the back of the ballroom. Adrianne’s brothers hadn’t run like the others. Another point to the Backstreet Boys.
They stood immobile, their masks littering the floor, hands hovering over their weapons, watching me like I was a bomb that might go off, ready to draw if I made the wrong move.
“Adrik.” I didn’t take my eyes off the Battaglias. “Status.”
“We’re fucked.” He moved closer, his voice low, holding a phone in his hand and showing me the text on the screen.
“Viktor’s given the order. His men should have released Vladimir’s forces by now.
We’re looking at a small army, that much we know.
What we don’t know is when they’ll attack or how.
You know how your father likes to play games. ”
“How many men do we have?”
“Thirty inside. Another twenty on the perimeter. Against Vladimir’s numbers?” He shook his head. “We’re outnumbered probably three to one.”
“Then we fortify. Lock down every entrance. Arm everyone.”
“Wait.” Adrianne’s voice was steady despite the panic that coursed through her shaking body.
I pulled her from under my arm to look at her beautiful face.
Her eyes moved from mine to across the ballroom to where her brothers stood. “Let me talk to them. Maybe they can help.”
Every instinct screamed at me to refuse. To put bullets in all five of them and be done with it and not risk losing her tonight, too.
But she was right. We were outnumbered, in a house my father knew like the back of his hand.
“They want me dead, Adrianne.”
“They want me safe.” She cupped my face, grounding me and forcing me to look at her.
“If your father manages to get to me, what do you think will happen?” My breathing skyrocketed, the image of her collared and bruised, gagged and broken had my finger twitching over the trigger again. “What do we have to lose?”
Everything. I had everything to lose if their alliance meant giving her up.
I looked at the five men standing across from us.
The infamous Matteo Battaglia, front and center, his expression unreadable.
I’d heard the stories about him. About what happened after I delivered his wife to her father and the Yakuza when I was still playing my father’s errand boy.
If any of it was true, I respected him for it.
Fuck, I even respected the fact that they were standing here, waiting for the bullets to start raining down on them instead of scurrying away like pussies, just to save their sister.
Still, that didn’t change the fact that they were trying to steal her from me, making them my deadly enemies.
“Adrik,” I said quietly, never taking my eyes off them. “If any of them make a move toward me, shoot them. If they make a move towards Adrianne… kill them all.”
“Nikolai!” Adrianne admonished, her tone worried and serious.
“Those are my terms. You want to talk to them? Fine. But I’m not risking losing you tonight because I was a fool to trust a Battaglia.”
She sighed but nodded, understanding this was the best she’d get.
“And Adrianne?” I caught her wrist before she could walk away, pulling her close enough that only she could hear. “Make them understand this. You’re mine. That’s not up for negotiation. Not for them. Not for anyone.”
“I know.” She stood on her tiptoes, pressed a kiss to my jaw, and the tenderness of it almost broke me. “I’ll make them understand.”
I watched as she walked across the room toward her brothers, my hand on my gun, my heart in my throat.
Each step she took further away from me had me losing strength and patience.
There was more than just rage coursing through me.
I felt like all those times I blacked out with those fucking panic attacks, amplified by a million.
Don’t fly away, Babochka.
God! I think I’m going to puke.