18. Chapter Eighteen #2
“You have no power here, Mikhail. You’re not going to win.”
“Fuck that.” I shoot at him but he dives into the office before I can hit him. I make a run for the front door when I hear a gunshot.
And then I feel an intense pain in my upper back shoulder. I stumble forward out of the restaurant.
Denis and Cillian chase after me, getting another shot straight to my back. I fall to the ground.
People on the street scream and run away. This causes Cillian and Denis to leave too. They don’t want to get caught murdering me.
They’re leaving me for dead, I realize.
I couldn’t save Natalya, like I promised her. That hurts most of all.
Blackness seeps in at my vision. I know I’m going under and there’s no way to stop it.
I’m sorry, Natalya. I really did try.
Natalya
Liam finds a car to steal.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask, slurring my words. He hit my head harder than I thought.
“You’ll see.”
“Why?”
“Why did I take you? To hurt Mikhail of course. And for another reason. You’ll see soon enough.”
“How can you do this? How can it make you feel good to do this?”
“I’m a mobster. I was raised to be this way. I don’t question my boss.”
“So, Cillian put you up to this.”
“Who else?” He scoffs. “You don’t get to judge me. You were raised in a Bratva household. You knew what your father did, did you not?”
I did but I’m not going to admit that to him.
“We all have to do what we’ve got to do to survive. It’s the world we live in. I’m doing what I’ve got to do. And you’re the casualty, I’m afraid.”
I keep my eyes glued to the road, paying attention on where we’re going. It dawns on me that I recognize the area we’re in. And then we pull up in front of my family’s brownstone.
Denis’s home now.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“He came to Cillian last night. Your uncle. Wanted to make a deal. You were the deal.” Once he gets out of the car, I try getting out myself but my hands aren’t working right. My head is pounding.
Liam reaches the other side of the car and pulls me out before I can run. He practically drags me to the house. A guard answers the door. One I didn’t kill, clearly.
“Here she is.” Liam walks me into my house and drops me onto the couch. “So, where are your other sisters? I’ve never seen them. I’ve heard they’re pretty, like you.”
I glare at him. “You’ll never get to see my sisters. Or put your hands on them.”
“Cillian and your uncle have made a deal. This is happening, I’m afraid to say.”
Just then Denis storms through the front door and stops when he sees me. “Oh good. You brought her.”
“What is going on?” I ask.
Denis swaggers into the living room and smirks down at me. “You lost, Natalya. Your husband is dead, which makes you a widow. Which means I can marry you off to whoever I want.”
His words hit me like a gut punch. Mikhail is… no. He can’t be dead. Not after we told each other we love one another. He can’t just be… gone.
I don’t even cry. All I feel is shock.
“Do you want to know who you’re going to marry?”
“Who?” My lips are numb.
“Cillian. You’re going to cement this alliance with him.”
“What about Nico?”
Denis scoffs. “What about him?”
“I thought he and Cillian were working together.”
“They had a little falling out when they shot at each other last night. Nico wasn’t happy about what Cillian did so he called the whole thing off. Cillian told me himself.”
All this information is too much for me to process right now. I lay down on the couch, feeling all my energy leave me.
“She looks sick,” Denis comments. “How hard did you hit her?”
“Hard,” Liam admits.
“She needs to be ready for the wedding tomorrow. She can’t be like this.”
“Sorry.” Except, Liam doesn’t sound sorry at all. He sounds like he doesn’t have a care in this world.
Denis mutters to himself. “Josh! Bring her to her old room and make sure she doesn’t get her hands on anything this time.”
The guard enters the room and picks me up. I don’t have any energy to fight. Mikhail is dead. I’m going to be married off to Cillian. I couldn’t save my sisters. I have lost everything.
After Josh places me in my room and leaves, I hear Irina banging on the wall between us.
“Natalya? Is that you?”
“Yes,” I say and that’s all I can say.
“What’s going on? We thought you would be ok. You escaped. What happened?”
“I’m getting married tomorrow.” There’s no emotion in my voice. I don’t feel… anything. No fear. No worry. I’m just numb.
“Natalya? Talk to me. Please.”
I know Irina is worried but I can’t give her any reassurances. Nothing is going to be ok ever again.
Mikhail
I wake up in a hospital room.
My body is in immense pain. It all comes flooding back to me. The gunshot to my shoulder. The gunshot to my back.
It’s a miracle I’m alive right now.
A nurse enters the room and sees that I’m awake. “Hey. You’re ok.”
“What happened? Am I all right?”
“You were shot. Twice. You had surgery. The doctor was able to get both bullets out. You were really lucky. The bullet didn’t hit your spine. Can you wiggle your toes for me.”
I’m able to. The relief that floods through me almost makes me cry and I’m not a crier.
“That’s good. That’s great. It means you’re not paralyzed. Now, can you move each arm for me.”
I’m able to raise them both up.
“You got very lucky.”
“I don’t think getting shot makes me lucky,” I grumble.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ll have the doctor come look at you.”
“I can’t stay. I need to get out of here.”
“You need to rest. We need to keep you under observation for the next few days to make sure you’re ok.”
“My wife is in danger. I need to get to her.”
“How is she in danger?”
I scoff. I can’t explain this to the nurse. She won’t understand. “Never mind.”
“All right. I’ll get the doctor.”
The moment she’s gone, I pull my IV out and force my body to stand up. It takes all my strength to do it. Fuck, does it hurt. But nothing will stop me from getting to Natalya. Nothing.
I stumble out of the room in nothing but a hospital gown. The nurse notices me leaving and rushes to my side.
“Please. You have to get back in bed. You need to rest.”
“I’ll sign fucking discharge papers. I’ll say I left of my own free will. But I’m leaving.”
“You could die. You could develop an infection.”
“Then I’ll just come back. But I have to go. Now give me the fucking papers.”
A doctor appears with his hands raised, trying to appease me back into bed. “You don’t need to do this. Let us treat you.”
“I’m leaving! Give me the fucking papers.”
“You should talk to our counselor we have on staff,” the doctor suggests.
“No. I’m not talking to a fucking shrink. I’m leaving. So either give me the papers or I’m leaving and you can’t stop me. You can’t hold me here against my will.”
The doctor and nurse share a look before the nurse heads behind the nurse station and hands me a sheet of paper to sign. I sign it without even looking at it.
“Now, I need some fucking clothes.”
I leave the hospital in a hoodie and jeans they had from the lost and found. I have to get back home and grab a gun and then I’m going to Denis’s house and I’m going to fucking shoot him.
I make it home, even though I’m in pain the entire fucking time.
I stumble to a halt when I see a car parked in my driveway. It’s not one of mine. The back seat window slowly rolls down as I approach.
It’s Nico.
Of course it fucking is.
“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”
“I am.” His eyes sweep over me. “But it seems that someone already tried to do that.”
“Yeah. Cillian. And Denis. They’re working together now.”
“How do you know this?” Judging from the expression on Nico’s face, he didn’t have this information. It feels good to know something he doesn’t.
“Doesn’t feel good to be tricked, does it?
They both shot at me. Denis told me to my face that he’s going to marry my wife to Cillian.
They left me for dead. Denis and Cillian are going to join forces and they’re going to be more powerful than you are.
So yes, you can kill me. But you’re still going to have a problem on your fucking hands. ”
“When is the wedding?”
“Do you think they told me? No. They shot at me before I could ask. I have no fucking clue. I’m going to figure it out. So either kill me or don’t. But I’m not going to stop until I get my wife back.”
“I appreciate your determination, Mikhail. It’s an admirable quality of yours.”
“Glad I can amuse you, Nico. Now either kill me or leave.”
He leans forward, resting his arms on the window. “Or I have an idea. We work together. I want to kill Cillian for backstabbing me. You want to get your wife back. We work to do this and then we can go back to hating each other.”
“I suggested making a deal with you weeks ago and you declined.”
“I know. And I’ve come to see the error of my ways.
I’m not saying we work together forever.
I know we don’t trust each other. But we have a common enemy at the moment.
You want your wife back, and I want Cillian dead for backstabbing me.
He thought he could kill you when it was my right. How about a temporary truce?”
“It’s not a bad idea,” I grumble, “except for the fact that I don’t fucking trust you.”
Nico chuckles like all of this is funny to him. “I know. But for this. Let’s work together for this. It will piss of Cillian even more and that will just make me laugh. What do you say?”
I know trusting Nico, even for a short time, is utterly stupid. But I’m hurt and I want Natalya back and I’m low on resources. I could use his help, not that I would ever admit it.
So with a heavy sigh, I nod. “Fine. Just this once we work together. And you will not hurt Natalya.”
He raises his hands in surrender. “I get it. You’ll kill me. I’ll find out where they are and get back to you.”
“I know where they are. They’re at Denis’s house. We’ll go there tomorrow. Attack. Before Denis can marry Natalya off to Cillian.”
“Sounds like a plan. See you tomorrow, Mikhail.” He rolls his window back up and the car leaves the driveway.
I just made a deal with Nico Bernardi, the man I fucking despise most in this world, to save my wife. That’s how fucking desperate I am.
Natalya
Denis opens my door the following morning. I barely got any sleep last night. Mostly, I watched the sun fall and the sun rise.
And now, I know what day it is. The day he’s going to force me to marry Cillian because I’m a widow. Because Mikhail is dead.
“It’s time, Natalya. Don’t make me drag you out of that bed.”
Slowly, I push myself up. “What now?”
“I have a dress you can wear. It’s downstairs. The whole family will be in attendance for your wedding this time. No sneaking off like you did last time. You will marry Cillian and you will smile.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll see what happens when you test me. So be a good girl and do what I want.”
It’s time to act like the white swan – innocent and demure. But inside, I’m boiling. Inside, I’m ready to kill.