17. Tatiana #2
More words in a foreign language. The voices were high-pitched, angry, and not holding back.
Russian.
One of those was Russian. More words. It was hard to hear them over the buzzing in my ears, but I recognized it. I was certain it was Italian. Russian and Italian.
“She dies. No loose ends,” one of them replied in English, and instinctively I shrank further back into the car, although it was burning, coming closer to becoming an explosion.
“No.” A cold voice. A hard tone. But it wasn’t Adrian’s. Was he even alive? “She knows nothing.”
“Are you sure?” The deep masculine voice filled the air. A pair of expensive Italian leather shoes filled my vision. “Are you willing to stake your life on it?”
I had to be in utter shock. Because I registered the brand of shoes. Santoni men’s shoes. My husband and I were about to die and all my attention was on the shoes, staring at a pair of five grand Italian shoes.
“The woman doesn’t know anything.” A voice sounded vaguely familiar. I couldn’t place it. “I’ll take full responsibility for her.”
“If I find out she had anything to do with her husband’s agreement, I’m coming for her.” A light Italian accent. Deep voice. Another set of expensive shoes entered my vision. Prada.
“She knows nothing. If she does, I’ll handle it.” Another pair of expensive shoes. Art. 504 shoes. Even more expensive. Dark suit pants. Perfectly fit. Expensive material.
I shook my head. Snap out of it, Tatiana.
Smoke filled my lungs. Bile rose in my throat and I inhaled deeply to stop myself from retching. The one pair of shoes left. One remained. My heart raced. My vision swam. My ears buzzed. My lungs burned.
“D’accordo.” Definitely Italian. What the fuck did that mean? “Don’t make me regret it.”
Bu-bum. Bu-bum. Bu-bum.
I thought I heard Adrian’s voice, but the buzz in my ears was too loud, drowning out all the words.
The next words I heard were, “End him.”
Bang.
The last bullet. It felt like a final bullet before it was my turn.
A body hit the dirt with a loud thud. Adrian’s dead eyes met mine. The terror was still etched on his face. The last expression before he died. Staring back at me. Blood covered his clothes. A bullet hole in his chest was marred with gun powder, blood seeping out of it like tomato juice.
A gasp left me, and my heart stopped. “A-A-Adrian,” I choked out, my voice broken. He didn’t move. His stare blank, fixated on something I couldn’t reach. With each heartbeat my life slowly faded, following him.
Until something inside me snapped.
“Nooo!” I shrieked and my world as I’d known it ceased to exist.
A man, a familiar face, pulled me out of the car. He kept saying something but my ears rang too much to hear a single word that left his mouth. Our gazes locked, I held on to his strength as he pulled me out of the car.
My knees weakened, failing me. He caught me before they’d hit the gravel.
I buried my face into his warm chest. The familiar scent of citrus and sandalwood soothed.
Then it reminded me of my husband. My eyes darted back to Adrian.
I couldn’t look away. Adrian’s dead eyes, staring somewhere I couldn’t follow.
“Nooo!” I shrieked, pushing the man away from me and falling to my knees.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, giving me just enough strength to crawl over to him.
“Adrian, please,” I cried, pressing my lips on his and tasting blood. “Please, please, please.”
Tears wet my face, tasting like the bittersweet goodbye.
My hands cupped his head. “Wake up,” I begged. “Wake up.” I shook his body, but it was all dead weight. He refused to budge. Images of our life together flashed through my mind. What we had. What we could have had. “No, no, no,” I muttered.
This couldn’t be the end.
CPR. I had to do CPR.
I leaned over and started pushing on his chest. My shoulder hurt so bad but I ignored the throbbing ache. I gritted my teeth, each move shooting a piercing pain through my shoulder blades.
“Breathe,” I shrieked. One. Two. Three. I prayed to God I did it right. I put my mouth on his, tasting copper, then blew air into his lungs. One. Two. Three. Again my lips on his.
“Please, help me,” I screamed, looking frantically at the men who took him away from me. “Please. Just one breath and then I can save him.”
A sob suffocated me as I pressed my palm onto Adrian’s wound, trying to stop the blood from seeping. It was pointless, but I couldn’t give up. I shook my head furiously. His skin was cold.
“Adrian, please wake up. Please wake up,” I murmured over and over again, pressing my forehead to his.
Blood lined his lips, his gaze lost in a space that I’d never reach. He left me.
A gasp left me and my heart stopped.
“P-P-Please. Come back to me,” I choked out before raising my eyes to the men who took him. Fury unleashed in me and spread through my veins like wildfire. It was freezing cold, then it burned. It unleashed something I never knew I had inside me. Madness. Hate.
I let out a scream. Then another and another. I screamed until my throat turned raw. My hands gripped my hair pulling on it. My heart bled and mixed with rage, pulling me under until I was fully submerged in it.
I stumbled to my feet. Illias’ hand gripped my elbow, steadying me, but I jerked away from him. Then I fisted his chest, hitting him. Over and over again.
“You killed him,” I screeched, hot tears streaming down my face. “You did it.”
His eyes blazed with fire but it didn’t match mine. His hands grabbed my forearms and shook me. Not hard but my head whipped back and forth, like a rag doll.
Shaking my head, I gripped his suit. “I’m going to kill you for this.” My gaze traveled over all of them. “I’m going to kill you all for this.”
Pain clawed at my chest. I couldn’t tell if it was real or I was dreaming. I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating. So I screamed again, hoping this anguish inside my chest would ease.
“I’m here, moya luna.” It was a deep voice with a slight Russian accent and husky tenor that pulled me out of the nightmare. It was the same voice. It was the same scent, but I couldn’t think about that now.
As the pain dulled, the scent of sandalwood and citrus rocked me back to sleep.