Chapter Nineteen
Igor
The doctor tells me she’ll live.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I’m still shaken from watching her lose consciousness an hour ago.
How is that possible?
I’ve killed men without feeling anything. I’ve ended lives without a second thought. But knowing I almost lost her again drove me to the point where my hands were shaking and I was praying desperately that she wouldn’t die.
Nothing has ever brought me that much intense emotion.
Not even when my business almost crumbled a year ago.
“She lost a fair amount of blood from the gunshot wound during the attack on the highway, and she hasn’t fully recovered from that,” the doctor continues while removing his gloves.
“But it’s nothing serious. She has a concussion, multiple contusions, and signs of dehydration.
She’ll be in a little bit of discomfort for a few days, but she’ll recover quickly. ”
I nod. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to utter a word in response. It’s all fine as long as she recovers. It’s all fine as long as I get to apologize and tell her how I truly feel.
The doctor glances between me and Audrey before clearing his throat. “She’ll need someone watching her through the night. If she develops a fever or seems confused when she wakes up, call me immediately.”
“I will. Thank you, Dr. Petrov.”
“You’re welcome.” He gathers the rest of his equipment and heads toward the door. Sergei follows him outside, quietly discussing medications and security arrangements before shutting the bedroom door behind them.
Silence stretches over the room when they leave. It’s the kind of silence that pierces through your heart until it starts to bleed.
I don’t go to Audrey immediately. Instead I stand by the door, watching her sleep. She looks so peaceful and beautiful despite how pale she is.
The bruise along her cheek has already begun to darken beneath the soft glow of the bedside lamp, and a white bandage wraps around her forehead where one of Serrano’s men must have hit her.
Even asleep, she looks exhausted, like she’s still fighting a battle inside her own mind.
I realized I should’ve given her a chance to explain herself before I sent her away. Whatever excuse she gave may not have been plausible, but I should’ve listened. I ran after her, but it was too late.
She was gone.
My pride got the better of me, so instead of getting into my car and going after her, I sent Volkov and Dimitri to watch her. I can’t stand to remember the way my chest tightened when I found out Serrano and his men were at her place.
I’d been determined to kill that bastard tonight, but the slimy thing managed to slip from under my grasp the minute I arrived.
My nostrils flare and something more wicked than rage ripples through me.
He dared to hurt my wife. He tried to kill her a second time, and he won’t get away with it. The bastard could crawl into the very abyss of hell and I’d still follow him there.
I won’t be done with him until I’ve drained every last drop of blood from his body. That’s a promise I intend to keep.
Finding my courage, I walk to the bed and sit on the chair beside it. Then I take Audrey’s hand and press a kiss to the back of her fingers. They’re cold. And bruised.
I wonder how afraid she must’ve been when Emiliano pointed the gun at her head. I wonder if she called for me or prayed that I would come save her.
If I’d been just a minute later—
“You’re safe now,” I whisper, pressing another kiss to the back of her hand. “And I’m so sorry for everything.”
I’m sorry for not realizing sooner how much she meant to me. I thought I was just attracted to her and I was only being possessive because of that attraction, but it was something more.
It took me almost losing her a third time to realize I’m in love with her.
A lump forms in my throat and I swallow to push it down.
I never thought I’d use the word love to describe an emotion I feel, but I can’t convince myself that I feel anything less for her.
My biggest fear is her not loving me the same way I do…the same way she did when she confessed her feelings to me a year ago.
Maybe I’ve loved her since then and I just didn’t know, and rather than accept her feelings, I broke her heart.
Pain splinters through my chest, a pang of guilt and regret resting heavily there. I’ll make it up to her. I promise.
My phone rings and Ruslan’s name flashes on my screen. I step outside to answer.
“How is she?” he asks.
“Sleeping, but the doctor said she’s fine.” I pause, the low tone of his voice registering with the screaming and noise in the background. “Are you okay?”
“Voyeur was raided by Serrano’s men,” he says. “You need to come over.”
Every muscle in my body goes still. “How bad is it?”
His silence lasts barely two seconds, and then he sighs. “It’s gone.”
***
Voyeur is barely recognizable.
Half the building has collapsed inward. The massive glass facade I imported from Italy is nothing more than glittering rubble scattered across the parking lot.
Firefighters are still spraying water onto pockets of flame that refuse to die, while paramedics weave through the wreckage pushing stretchers toward waiting ambulances.
In just one night, one hour, the biggest piece of my empire has been reduced to ruins.
I step out of the SUV and heat immediately rolls over my skin.
The air tastes like ash.
Rubble crunches beneath my shoes as I walk forward, every step slower than the last. Around me, my soldiers are already securing the perimeter, dragging wounded men away from the debris while others search desperately for survivors buried beneath twisted steel beams.
Ruslan rushes toward me, his face black with smoke. His hair is tangled and disheveled. He never looks anything but put together, even when he kills ten men at once.
I narrow my eyes at the blood smeared all over his shirt, worried that he’s wounded. His eyes follow mine, and a tired smile plays on his lips.
“It’s not mine.”
I sigh with relief. “What happened?”
“The Mexicans happened.” His breathing is ragged. “One minute everything was peaceful and happy. The next there was an explosion, followed by gunshots.”
So this was Emiliano’s plan all along.
It was never to use Audrey to get something on me, though that would’ve been a plus. What he wanted all along was to use her as a distraction. He knew I’d come to her with my men, and he had this planned.
And like a rat, I walked straight into his trap.
A violent, thrumming vibration shudders beneath my skin, turning my blood to jagged ice.
“How many were injured?”
“Twenty-three.”
I swallow, my fists clenching so hard that I can feel my nails digging into my palms. “And the dead?”
“Still counting.”
I exhale. My pulse drums in my ear with the suffocating demand for blood. I nod, pat Ruslan’s shoulder, and walk past him into the wreckage.
Emiliano has torn my pride down to dust, broken bottles and glasses, shattered tables and pools of blood.
A movement to my left catches my attention. Paramedics wheel someone past on a stretcher, and my heart stops beating when I see who it is.
Lola.
Her blonde hair is soaked with blood, her face almost unrecognizable beneath cuts and burns. An oxygen mask covers her mouth while one medic desperately presses gauze against her abdomen.
Her eyelids flutter. When she sees me, tears gather in the corners of her eyes. “Boss,” she gasps.
I step up beside the stretcher. “Lola?”
“They...” She coughs violently, blood staining her lips. “He was dead when they brought him in. He was…” Her voice trails off.
The medic pushes the stretcher faster. “We’re losing her!”
They disappear into the waiting ambulance, and my stomach twists. Lola has worked for me for almost eight years.
She doesn’t deserve this.
None of them do.
She was talking about someone. Someone who was brought in dead. I wonder who she was referring to. She wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t important.
“Boss.”
I turn to find Dimitri standing several feet away. For the first time since I’ve known him, his eyes are teary and his lips are dry to the point they’re chapped.
I know it’s more bad news coming, and I brace myself for it. I can survive anything as long as Audrey’s alive.
“We have another victim,” he says, then pauses for a moment before he continues. “Matthew.”
The world around me goes silent. Out of everyone who works for me, Audrey was closer to Matthew than anyone else. They’d been even closer when he worked at one of my smaller clubs a year ago, before we broke up.
And now…he’s gone.
In that moment, I know Emiliano brought Matthew in dead. Dread twists in my stomach as realization starts to dawn on me.
It was never as simple as I thought.
There’s a pretty good chance Emiliano threated Audrey using Matthew’s life. It could be why she kept the truth from me.
I close my eyes for exactly one second before opening them again. Grief has no place in my world. It never has.
But revenge does.
“Find Emiliano,” I order. “I don’t care what it takes. I need him alive.”