Chapter 26 - Sofia #2
Part of me hopes the next one finds me. Solves the problem. Ends this.
"STOP!"
Kaz's voice cuts through the chaos from above. He's on the catwalk, gun aimed directly at my head.
Everything freezes.
"One more step and I put a bullet in her head!"
Alexei looks up at his cousin. Blood drips from his hands onto concrete. Other men's blood, spilled for me. His chest heaves but his voice comes out steady, almost conversational. The calm is more terrifying than rage would be.
"You won't."
"Try me."
"If you were going to shoot her, you'd have done it already." Alexei takes a step forward. The gun in Kaz's hand trembles slightly. "You wanted a tribunal. A show. You wanted me to watch her die."
Kaz's jaw works. "She killed Mikhail. She deserves—"
"She's MINE."
The words echo through the warehouse, bouncing off metal and concrete until they fill every corner. My body responds despite everything. Heat pooling low, that familiar ache even now, even here. I hate myself for it.
"Mine to punish. Mine to judge. Mine to kill if I decide she's earned it. NOT yours."
"The family—"
"I AM the family." Alexei's voice drops to that register that makes grown men pray. "I'm pakhan. And you just committed treason by taking what belongs to me."
The possessive words shouldn't affect me. Shouldn't make me remember his hands on me at the lakehouse, gentle and claiming. But my body doesn't understand context, only remembers his touch.
The gun in Kaz's hand wavers. Just for a second.
"Misha would have wanted—"
"Don't." Alexei raises his own gun, aim steady despite the blood making his grip slippery. "Don't you dare speak for my brother."
One of Alexei's men has been creeping along the catwalk. He tackles Kaz from behind, the gun clattering away into warehouse depths. They struggle, but it's already over. More men swarm up the stairs. Kaz goes down screaming curses in Russian, promising vengeance, promising Alexei will regret this.
Alexei doesn't even watch. He's already walking toward me, and my heart pounds harder with each step.
He cuts my restraints with the knife from the dead guard. The blade is still warm from its owner's hand. The zip ties fall away, leaving deep grooves that seep blood. The Weapon notes the damage. Days to heal, possible nerve involvement. The woman doesn't care.
I don't move. Can't move. Can't look at him.
He's breathing hard. Blood everywhere. His hands, his face, splattered across the white shirt that was clean this morning when he made me breakfast at the lakehouse, when he kissed me like I was something precious.
Other men's blood, painted on him like war paint.
The copper smell mixes with his cologne, violence and tenderness in the same skin.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
His bloody fingers grip my chin, force my face up. Make me meet those pale eyes. The warm wetness of blood transfers to my skin, marking me.
I expect relief. Maybe tenderness. The gentle man who sobbed in my arms about his mother, who showed me how to tend a bonsai with infinite patience, whose hands shook when he told me about becoming his father.
Instead: pure fury.
"You RAN."
The word cracks between us like a whip.
"Alexei—"
"You fucking RAN. Into the forest. Without a word."
"I had to—"
"You had to WHAT?" His grip tightens, and I taste copper where my teeth cut the inside of my cheek. "Go to Marco? Choose your family over me? Again?"
I flinch. The word 'again' cuts deep because he doesn't even know how wrong he is. Doesn't know about the first time I chose his family over mine, water over blood, and got everyone killed.
"I broke for you." His voice cracks on the words, and hearing his pain is worse than any physical blow. "I showed you things I've never shown anyone. Told you about my father, my mother. Sobbed in your arms like a child. And you RAN."
"I know."
"WHY?"
The word hangs between us, heavy as the dead men cooling on the concrete. The words pile up in my throat like broken glass. I chose Mikhail over my father. I let all those people die. I'm the reason for everything.
But I see Marco's face again, the way love turned to disgust in his eyes. I can't watch that happen with Alexei. Can't lose him too, even if I've already lost him by running.
"I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
"I just… can't explain. Not now. Not like this." Not when you're covered in blood you spilled for me. Not when you look at me like I've already broken your heart.
He releases my chin. Steps back. And the look in his eyes, like I've broken something that can't be fixed, like I've proven every doubt he ever had about trusting someone.
The distance between us feels infinite. Three feet but it might as well be an ocean. This man killed his own people to get to me, is covered in their blood, and all I've given him in return is silence.
He turns to his men, voice shifting to that command tone. Orders clip out in Russian and English. Kaz is to be secured, not killed. Survivors are to be disarmed. Bodies dealt with. The whole thing cleaned up before the cops arrive.
Professional. Efficient. Cold.
When he looks at me again, the fury has cooled into something worse: nothing. Just empty distance where hours ago there was heat that could burn us both alive.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
"Then walk."
That's all. No offered hand. No arm around my waist. No checking if I'm really okay despite my answer. He just turns and walks, expecting me to follow.
Which I do. On unsteady legs that remember wrapping around his waist, stepping over bodies that are still warm, their blood mixing with industrial grime. One of them moans as I pass. Still alive. Alexei's men will deal with him.
Behind us, Kaz screams from where they're dragging him. "She's poison! She'll destroy you! You'll see! She'll burn everything you touch!"
Alexei doesn't respond. Doesn't even glance back. Just keeps walking, and I follow because I have nowhere else to go.
The night air hits cold when we exit the warehouse, making me shiver after the adrenaline-heated interior.
The car idles outside, engine running. I climb in because what else is there to do?
The leather seats are pristine, no evidence of the violence inside.
Just Alexei and me and the silence that sits between us like a physical wall.
His hands on the wheel are still bloody, leaving rust-colored prints on leather.
We drive through Chicago streets while normal people live normal lives, having no idea what just happened in that warehouse.
Through the tinted windows, I watch couples walking hand in hand, families leaving late dinners, a world that keeps spinning despite mine stopping.
He saved my life. Killed for me. Brought his men to war against his own cousin for me.
And I feel nothing. No relief. No gratitude. No surge of love or tenderness. Just this hollowness that's been eating me from inside since I remembered the truth.
Except that's a lie. I feel him next to me, every breath, every micro-movement.
My body notes the space between us, wants to close it even as my mind knows I can't. At the lakehouse he held me while I slept, whispered Russian endearments against my hair.
Now he won't even look at me. The whiplash makes my chest tight.
The words pile up in my throat as we drive. I chose Mikhail over my father. But I swallow the truth like broken glass and let it cut me from inside.
His phone buzzes. He ignores it. Buzzes again. Again. He turns it off with one sharp motion that makes me flinch.
"You could have stayed with them." His voice cuts through the silence, flat and emotionless. "Marco. Your family. You could have stayed."
"He doesn't want me."
"But I do?" There's something sharp in the question, hurt disguised as anger. "After you ran? After you chose them?"
I don't have an answer that would make sense. Can't explain that I came back not for him but because I had nowhere else to go. That I'm here because the alternative was dying in that warehouse, and some stupid part of me, the Weapon probably, still wants to live even though I don't deserve to.
"Why did you come for me?" I ask instead.
"Because you're mine." Simple. Flat. Like stating the weather. "Someone took what was mine."
Not because he loves me. Not because he was worried. Because I'm a possession someone stole.
His bloody hand grips the gear shift, and I remember those same fingers inside me, making me forget my own name.
Now they've killed for me. The contradiction, violence and tenderness in the same hands, makes my chest tight.
I hate that my body still wants him to touch me, even covered in blood, even when he can barely look at me.
Maybe being his possession is all I deserve to be.