Chapter 29 Alik
ALIK
Icrash into Sera’s room just as Renzo shoots at her. I run at him, weapon drawn, but I don’t have a clear shot. I can’t get my brain to catch up to what’s happening, but I can see that she’s still standing. He hasn’t killed her. Not yet.
Dimitri is hard on my heels. Renzo is cursing, bleeding, his eyes wild as he stares at his daughter.
Sera’s not making any noise. She’s just swaying on her feet, gun still leveled at her father.
Fear, real fear, scours my chest as I launch myself across the room. Dimitri charges Renzo, crouching low. I can see blood spreading across the Italian’s dress shirt, staining his side red.
“La puttana! You fucking bitch! You deserve everything Shkodra is going to do to you!”
Sera answers by pulling the trigger again. The gunshot echoes around us as the door behind Renzo spews out splinters and shards of glass. He ducks, diving out of the way just as Dimitri crash-lands on the spot he’d been standing a half second before.
I grab Sera at the same time, hauling her away from her father as she screams at him. She thrashes against me, fighting to get closer to Renzo even as I try to move her to safety. “Let me go! Let me go!”
“Sera. Stoy! Stop. He’ll shoot you—”
“I don’t care!” she screams. “I need to kill him, Alik. Let me kill him.” Screams turn to sobs as Sera sags against my arm. I can feel the adrenaline desert her as Dimitri and Renzo fight violently a few feet away.
Renzo’s neck snaps back and his head cracks against the ground as Dimitri lands a satisfying punch. Primed to shoot, I watch my man pummel di Salvo. Dimitri’s enraged, possessed even, his expression capturing every ounce of hatred we all feel toward the man bleeding all over the white carpet.
I pull Sera’s back tight against my chest, my arm banded around her stomach. She grips her nails into my forearm and I relish the pain, the proof that she’s alive and breathing.
I’m so focused on her that I don’t see Renzo’s move in time to warn Dimitri. The Italian slams the butt of his gun into Dimitri’s head. My man grunts, thrown to his side and Renzo thrashes beneath him, worming out from under the giant’s weight.
His eyes are bloodshot and swollen as he twists, seeking and finding Sera. He’s still on the floor as he aims up at her.
Dimitri and I move at the same time. I turn, my back between Renzo’s gun and his daughter, and fling us to the side and onto the floor as Dimitri dives to cover us. I hear him grunt. See him hit the ground from the corner of my eye. He’s still, blood spreading out from beneath him.
Sera sees it too, her screams ear-splitting as she tries to get out from under me and over to him.
I have to use all my strength to keep her pinned down as her father pushes himself to his feet.
From where I’m covering Sera, my aim is shit, but I fire anyway.
Lucky fucker that he is, Renzo manages to escape my bullets and doesn’t look back before throwing himself over the balcony railing.
“Dimitri!” Sera crawls out from under me, rushing to him as I race to look over the edge. I stare at the patio below, searching for the body that should be there. But Renzo is gone. There are blood stains, a rope, and a few footsteps outlined in red, but otherwise no sign of di Salvo.
The men not dealing with the fire are storming the grounds. They’ll find him. He can’t have gone far.
Cursing, I turn back to Sera and Dimitri. She’s gotten the big guy turned onto his back. She’s searching his body for the bullet wound as he labors to get enough oxygen into his lungs. He’s barely conscious.
“Alik, tell me help is already on the way.” Sera gives me a pleading look, her eyes flaring as she finds the source of the blood. “The bullet hit his side. I’ve got pressure on it, but he needs a doctor. Now.”
My soldiers are already rushing into the suite, crowding the small foyer and spilling into the living room.
I shut down the raging desire to scream at them, and focus on helping my friend.
The first one through the door—Anatoli—is already on the phone with Dr. Ruiz.
He disconnects and confirms she’s on her way.
“Gloria is coming,” I assure Sera. “She’ll take care of Dimitri, but we need to move him to the medical wing now.”
Sera doesn’t seem to hear me. She’s whispering to Dimitri, curled over him in a protective position. The pool of blood beneath them is getting bigger and I need to get her off the ground, to find out if Renzo’s bullet caught her.
“Sera. We’ve got him.” Four of my men surround Dimitri, start to gently pick him up.
Sera is crying silently, tears dripping off her face and dissolving into her hoodie.
I pull her away and Anatoli puts his hands where hers had been, keeping pressure on the wound.
I order him to send regular updates as they hustle Dimitri out of the suite.
“And turn off the fucking cameras in the medical bay. You know the deal with Ruiz—no proof she’s been here. ”
“I’m so sorry, Dimitri,” Sera calls after them, voice breaking. “For everything.”
I run my hands over Sera, searching wildly for any signs of injury. “Did that fucker shoot you?”
Sera turns to me, dazed. “What?”
“Renzo. I saw him shoot you. Where are you hit?”
“I’m not.” She unzips her hoodie, drops the bloodied thing to the floor. The t-shirt beneath is unmarked. “I think he was just trying to scare me. I’m no good to him dead.”
Relief washes down my spine, icy-hot. I grip Sera’s upper arms, twisting and turning her just to be sure. “You’re okay?”
Her expression is tormented. “I-I’m not bleeding. I’m fine. But Renzo—he got away. He blew up your house and attacked your guards and shot Dimitri and he got away. Oddio, it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not. Stop. Nothing about this is on you.
” I pull Sera into a crushing hug. For a moment she’s still, then she hugs me back and I can breathe normally for the first time in what feels like hours.
“He blew up a car, not the house. And the guards are coming-to. Renzo put some bullet holes in them, but nothing fatal. The doc will get to them after she’s seen Dimitri. ”
“Will he be okay?” she asks against my neck.
I hold her even closer. “Dr. Ruiz will do everything she can for him. Dimitri’s a stubborn fucker. He’s been through a lot. Has survived a lot. I’d bet my life that Renzo di Salvo won’t be the one to take him down.”
Sera stiffens when I say her father’s name. “He’s not going to give up, you know. He’s going to keep coming back. He’s going to keep coming until he finally takes me.”
“Assuming he isn’t dead.”
Sera pushes out of my arms. Her eyes, when they finally meet mine, are uncharacteristically flat. “He’s not dead. I know it. He’s too evil to be killed that easily.”
“A problem we’ll rectify when my men find him.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we’ll hunt him down, Sera. The plan hasn’t changed. We hunt him down, we find out where he buried my sister, we kill him. Shkodra too. We’re going to get revenge on them for everything they’ve done, moya voitelnitsa. I promise.”
Sera shivers. I start to wrap my arms around her, but she backs away. “That thing you say in Russian, what does it mean?”
“Moya voitelnitsa?”
“Yes. That.”
“It means ‘my warrior’.”
Sera looks at me with surprise. “Why do you call me that?”
“Because that’s what you are.” I let the truth ring in every word.
“Like the folklore warrior princess Marya Morevna my mom told me about when I was a kid. You’re a fighter, Sera.
I’ve known it from the moment I first saw you.
You are one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.
A survivor and a warrior, through and through. ”
“Marya? Is that where you got that name, why you called me that before you knew my real name?”
I nod.
She pauses, thinking. Then quietly says, “You said, ‘my warrior’. Am I that too?” She catches her breath, hesitates. “Am I yours?”
Serafina di Salvo is asking if she’s mine and, heart racing, my brain doesn’t even kick on before I say, “Yes.”
She looks at me. I look at her. Both of us silent. Then, braid flying, Sera whips around and strides away, like she can’t get away from me fast enough.
“Sera—”
Her back to me, Sera holds up a hand. “No, stop. Just give me a minute.”
Dumbfounded, I study every visible inch of her, forcing myself to stay quiet, to give her the moment she needs. The longer time stretches, the more certain I am of my answer.
Sera is mine.
I don’t know why or how or when I came to the realization, but I’m past the point of letting her go.
Not now that I have felt her warmth, seen her strength, touched her body.
The idea of losing her is unbearable. Giving her up would drive me mad.
I can’t fathom her absence any more than I can stop craving her presence.
I think about her constantly. Worry about her and want to protect her.
I want to fight for her and take care of her and provide for her and do all the things someone does for the person they lo—
The word stops me short.
Love?
No. I can’t possibly be thinking that. Feeling that. I’m not allowed to love anyone again. Not after losing Rina. I lost the right to love someone, to connect that deeply with someone when I failed to protect my sister. That’s a privilege I’ve had to forfeit.
A truth my heart is rebelling against with every thump and squeeze. Especially when Sera turns and looks at me dead on. She’s disheveled from the attack and distraught about Dimitri and still so determined to face me. To face us, whatever we might be.
“I’m yours?” Sera’s green eyes are sparkling, and a little wild. “What does that even mean?”
“I, uh…” For all the decisiveness I feel, I don’t know what to say.
“Yours to touch and kiss and have sex with? Yours to order around, to lock up? Yours to keep until you get bored and leave?”
I smile, despite the somber mood. “Yes, to the kissing and sex part. No to other stuff.”