Chapter 49 #2
She circles behind Ruslan and wraps her arm across his throat, cutting off his air.
He claws at her but she doesn’t budge, her face close to his ear as she speaks.
“But first, we’re going to spend some quality time together.
” Her laugh is cruel. “By the time I’m done with you and your family, there won’t be a single Baronov left to carry the name.
Your legacy, your bloodline... it all ends tonight. ”
Katya lets out a small whimper, pressing closer to my side. I slip my arm around her waist, pulling her against me.
“We had nothing to do with my father’s crimes,” Kirill says, his voice steel. “We were children when this happened. Leave us out of this.”
She releases Ruslan with a final shove and rises to her full height. “Did you know your father was about to launch another trafficking pipeline? The Voronins—my twisted family—used to be his partners in the flesh trade. But this time he was building it with his new friends, the Morozovs.”
Kirill’s jaw clenches, disgust rippling across his features. His hands curl into fists at his sides. “I didn’t know that. I was a little distracted trying to stop your soldiers from burning this city to the ground.”
Marina shrugs, unbothered. “An eye for an eye. That’s how justice works in our world. And unfortunately your last name is Baronov.”
Fear twists my gut into a tight knot.
She’s talking about killing Kirill. My husband. The man I love more than my own life.
She’s going to take him from me—this woman who I went to the ends of the earth to find, and I might as well be a stranger she passed on the street.
The rejection, the hurt, the abandonment I’ve carried for eighteen years bubbles up inside me, burning hotter than the rage. “After all this time… did you even look for me?” I choke out. “Did you even care if I was dead or alive? If Papa was?”
Kirill’s hand settles on my back, warm and grounding, his thumb moving in slow circles against my spine.
She crosses to me, closing the distance until she’s close enough to touch. Up close, I see the faint lines around her eyes and the hard set of her jaw. She takes a slow breath, closing her eyes for a heartbeat. When they open, the mask cracks just enough for me to glimpse the grief underneath.
“When I escaped from that basement of horrors, there was only one thing to do. Run and never look back. It was the only way to keep you safe.” Her voice is wistful.
She gestures at Ruslan. “I knew he’d be watching.
Waiting for me to make contact with you or show my face in Russia or the US.
As soon as I did, we’d all be dead. His power was far-reaching for a long time.
I walked away and never looked back. I did what I had to do for us all to survive and live in peace. ”
The pain of hearing her say this splits me open. I understand survival—I know what you have to do to stay alive in this world—but somewhere along the way she lost more than her old life. She lost her humanity. She closed her heart to me and Papa long before any of this.
And with that, she steps back and signals her soldiers.
“Grab the Baronov heirs. We’re moving locations.”
“No.” The word tears out of me and I step directly in front of Kirill, placing my body between him and her soldiers.
“You clearly didn’t love me enough to reach out once you had the power to keep us safe, but he does.
He’s my anchor in this world, my family now, and I won’t let you take either of them. ”
She closes the distance between us and lifts her hand to my face, running her fingers down my cheek in a gesture so tender it makes my chest ache. “You think you love him, but you’re young. You don’t know what love is yet. Everything I did for you was out of love, even if you can’t see it.”
She steps back, clearing her throat. When she speaks again, all the warmth is gone. “I’ll arrange your transport back to Moscow. Go back home and don’t look back.”
“Take her to the plane,” Marina orders her soldiers. “The others we bring back to the compound.”
“No fucking way,” Kirill snarls, stepping forward.
When one of the soldiers grabs my arm, Kirill twists the man’s wrist back hard enough to break the grip, spins him around, and yanks a knife from his back waistband, pressing the blade against the soldier’s throat. “You don’t touch her. Ever.”
Every weapon in the room swings toward us. Katya makes a strangled sound beside me.
He stares them down, his hand steady as a rock. “Anyone who moves toward her dies. Starting with him.”
Marina watches with detached interest, as if waiting to see how this is going to play out.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch movement—another soldier raising his rifle, barrel aimed straight at Kirill’s chest.
Cold realization hits me hard. This man is about to shoot him. He’s about to kill the man I love.
The man I want to call my husband for the rest of my life.
There’s no conscious thought as I throw myself forward, launching my body in front of Kirill as a shot cracks through the air.
Fire explodes in my side, white-hot and all-consuming. My legs give out and I’m falling. Kirill catches me halfway down, his arms wrapping around me as we hit the concrete together.
“Dinara!” His voice is raw, panicked. “Stay with me. Please.”
But the darkness is already pulling me under. The last thing I hear is my mother screaming my name.