CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX #3
Mikhail’s mangled hands are bound.
He drinks the water Roman gives him, looking at Lachlan.
‘We will help,’ he says, although for some reason it makes dread coil in Lachlan’s guts. The foliage surrounding the mansion is now merrily burning, a ring of pure raging fire, the air thickening with smoke. ‘Let’s go.’
Just as Lachlan thought, the last three are holed up in the bunker, but no Fenwick. The cowardly fucker has fled elsewhere. ‘Flashbangs and cover fire,’ he tells them both, pulling things from his backpack. ‘I’ll lead.’
‘No, I will,’ Mikhail says.
‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘I cannot make cover fire.’ Mikhail shows Lachlan his mangled hand. Only the left remains intact. ‘Give me a handgun. I will go down.’
‘Papa,’ Roman says softly, ‘maybe you should—’
‘Roman, you stay back and provide cover from behind,’ Mikhail tells him.
Lachlan hands over one of the few handguns they found. ‘Ready?’
‘I am.’
Lachlan arms two flashbangs and tosses them down.
He makes sure Roman’s face is angled away when they go off, then he opens up a blast of fire into the area below, providing cover for Mikhail as he runs down the spiral staircase. Roman does the same.
Three shots are fired from the handgun and then Mikhail calls out, ‘Clear!’
Lachlan goes first, beckons Roman down only when he sees three bodies.
‘Let’s go.’
The smoke from the flashbangs lingers.
There’s yelling coming from inside the safe room.
Lachlan bangs on the door. ‘It’s clear, open the door!’ he calls out.
There’s a moment of hesitation before Jules says, ‘Lachlan?’
Lachlan presses his head to the door, eyes tight shut.
‘It’s me, baby. They’re all dead, open the door.’
It slides open, black smoke curling out and then Jules throws himself into Lachlan’s arms, coughing, choking, crying.
He’s shaking, terrified, clinging so hard it hurts.
Lachlan clutches him, kissing skin and hair, heedless of who sees because this place is death incarnate and Lachlan knows now not to waste a single moment of life.
‘I thought you were dead, I heard him killing you,’ Jules sobs, pulling back to look at Lachlan, assess the damage.
He’s a sight for sore eyes if there ever fucking was one.
Lachlan kisses him full on the mouth. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you,’ he mutters before setting him down and going in to get Savannah, but Roman already has her, carries her bridal style out into the open space between the blue room and the safe rooms. She’s still attached to the IV, currently unconscious, likely from the smoke. Roman pulls the needle out.
Alistair comes last, nose and mouth rimmed with black. He wheels out Ariadne, still on her bed, mask over her face. Alistair freezes, staring at Sorrenko. Lachlan follows his gaze.
His mind jars, because Mikhail Sorrenko isn’t aiming the gun Lachlan gave him at Alistair Penhalyx, but at… Savannah.
‘It’s too late,’ Alistair tells Mikhail quietly, not moving at all.
If Lachlan didn’t know better, he’d say the old man was afraid.
‘Papa,’ Roman utters, frowning, holding her closer. ‘What are you—?’
‘Opusti yeyo, synok, i otoydi.’
‘No, I won’t put her down, Papa. I won’t.’
‘Mikki,’ Alistair says again, wheezing slightly. He grips the metal railing of Ariadne’s bed tightly. ‘You are too late.’
‘I know your voice when you lie, and it has not been four full days. There is still a chance.’
Lachlan drags Jules behind him, raises his gun to Mikhail’s head. ‘Drop it.’
Mikhail sighs. ‘I told you it would come to this.’
‘Drop the gun.’
‘Roman, put her down and move away.’
‘No, Papa.’
‘I am doing this for you.’
‘Mikki, I know you are unhappy,’ Alistair says, tone entreating. ‘We have endured this disconnect before and we will again. All three of us, always the three of us and all that we desire will be—’
‘Shut your mouth!’ Sorrenko barks. ‘I have seen enough, mladshiy brat! I have conquered enough of this worn-out world. I dream of warmer waters, and other coloured suns and a place where you and I are strangers.’
‘Then do what you must but do not take her…’ Alistair says, looking at Roman, shifting tone as if remembering they aren’t alone, ‘from your son.’
‘Papa, please,’ Roman begs. ‘I love her.’
‘I know, dorogóy moy. That is why I must.’
No longer connected to the IV, Savannah is waking, trying to speak. Her movements draw fresh tension between Alistair and Mikhail.
Lachlan inches closer.
‘Sorrenko,’ Lachlan says, gun aimed squarely at his head. ‘Don’t.’
‘You will take care of my boys,’ he tells Lachlan.
‘Otets, pozhaluysta, ne delai etogo!’ Roman begs and then he flinches as a voice calls out from above and Lachlan’s heart backflips hard.
‘DANYA! WE’RE DOWN HERE!’
Alistair seizes the opportunity when Sorrenko looks up, briefly distracted. He throws himself at his friend, the two tussling while Lachlan drags Roman closer, preparing to cover them all, keep them all safe.
Danya is here. He brought backup.
Alistair grabs Sorrenko by the mangled hand, twists it viciously, the pair speaking in some language Lachlan doesn’t recognise at all.
In Roman’s arms, Savannah is almost fully awake.
‘Alistair,’ she croaks, reaching weakly for him.
This time it’s Mikhail who takes the distraction and uses it, punching Alistair hard in the mouth. He then looks at Savannah, swinging his gun outward towards them all.
‘Stay back!’
‘Mikki, you cannot take her from me again.’
‘Stay the fuck back, and don’t play your tricks with me!’ Mikhail snarls. ‘I already killed my tether in Rozhenska. There is no coming back this time.’
‘I will never let you go,’ Alistair warns quietly, gaze lowered. ‘Never.’
Mikhail’s wrist tendons flex. ‘My fate is my own.’
Lachlan has to make a choice who to cover in the moment.
The gun is pointed at Savannah.
His instincts kick in, no time to compare outcomes.
Lachlan covers Jules.
A shot is fired.
Danya comes down the spiral and yells, ‘FREEZE!’
With Jules covered, Lachlan spins around and shoots Sorrenko in the chest. It knocks him down, his handgun clattering onto the burned concrete.
Jules lets out a strangled noise.
Lachlan turns to see why.
Sorrenko shot Savannah in the heart.
And the bullet went all the way through.
‘Roman,’ Lachlan utters softly. ‘Ana. No, no, no,’
Roman collapses back just as Lachlan moves in to see the clean hole in her chest leading straight into Roman’s own, dead centre.
The boy holds fast to her even while dying.
And he is dying.
They both are.
Lachlan knows it because that kind of shot is fatal.
Blood in his mouth, Roman’s lashes flutter, movements jerky, confused.
‘I’m… I’m sorry,’ Roman says, frowning a little.
Lachlan touches his face, can’t think straight.
He hasn’t felt the weight of deaths in so long now.
Maybe not ever.
Not like this.
‘Ro,’ he hears himself say, wrecked and useless.
Roman swallows thickly, final breaths frantic and agonising.
He manages a weak smile. ‘I w-was so brave, wasn’t I?’
Lachlan nods, tears spilling.
‘You are.’ Grief breaks his heart the way only earthquakes can. He strokes Roman’s hair, Savannah’s too, but she can’t talk, is barely moving. ‘You’re really brave. We’re going home now. Everything’s OK.’
Savannah chokes on blood and, distantly, Lachlan hears someone else coughing. Maybe Ariadne. He doesn’t care.
Roman’s eyes glaze over.
He’s going.
Oh God, he’s going away and Lachlan should say a million things, should save him, should try something, anything, but nothing will work.
Roman is dying in front of him.
‘You are… b-brave, too, Lock.’
Lachlan has never watched someone he loved die before, and he didn’t realise until now that he loves this kid… and he never told him.
‘Roman.’
But Roman Sorrenko is gone.
Gone away, gone elsewhere.
Gone to be with angels if there are any.
Jules tries to shake him awake, crying, saying Roman’s name, but Lachlan knows he’s gone, Savannah too, there’s no way she could survive—
‘Roman,’ she gasps, arms lifting to touch his face. ‘Oh God, no.’
Lachlan stares in total shock.
Alistair, with horror, utters, ‘No.’
And then Danya is there.
‘Lachlan,’ he says, hand on his shoulder.
When he sees Roman, he goes still.
Lachlan makes himself look away, dazed beyond belief.
‘Danny,’ he whispers, gripping the other man’s arm tight.
Danya returns the grip, staring at the boy Lachlan thinks is his brother.
Danya is fully suited up. He stares at Roman with barely restrained loss and grief and Lachlan knows that he knew.
‘Take him,’ he says, means Jules, as he rises to stand.
Sorrenko is bleeding out on the floor.
Alistair goes to the bed Ariadne lies upon. ‘My love,’ he cries. ‘Please, no.’
Others come streaming down the staircase, bringing medical support, telling everyone they need to leave, the island is burning.
‘Help Savannah,’ Lachlan instructs tonelessly. ‘Get them out.’
Mikhail Sorrenko is not yet dead.
Lachlan stands over him. ‘You killed your own son.’
Mikhail, whose tears run down his temples, gurgles on blood.
‘And yet,’ he chokes out, ragged and pained, eyes glassy, ‘it is better… than this life I now break f-from. Death frightens all men who dream… but what dreams may come for monsters?’
Lachlan has Roman Sorrenko’s blood on his hands.
It doesn’t belong anywhere else.
‘None,’ Lachlan says, and shoots Mikhail Sorrenko dead.