Chapter 66 Dimitri
DIMITRI
Lips pressed to my chest, dragging me from sleep. I pressed my face to her hair, breathing in deeply. “Malyshka?”
“We found him.”
My muscles went rigid and my eyes shot open to find my wife inches from my face.
“Did you just say…”
She nodded with a happy wiggle. “We found him. And even better—he’s alone.”
Her hair had halfway fallen out of the bun she’d tied up using a scrunchie featuring pictures of Vovk’s face, which finally convinced me I wasn’t dreaming because my brain could never conjure something so absurd.
I scrubbed my hand down my face, trying to clear my sluggish mind. “What time is it? Did you even sleep?”
Sienna sat up on her knees with an exasperated huff and crossed her arms. “Excuse me, but I have not received nearly the amount of praise I require for such a discovery.”
I snorted and tugged her down so she sprawled across my chest. “I’m sorry, baby. My brain hadn’t woken up yet.” I cupped her face. “You are incredible. The best hacker in the world.” My lips met hers in a slow, sensual kiss. “Now, answer me—did you get any sleep?”
She grinned and kissed the tip of my nose. “I did. You’re the one who slept in. It’s almost noon.”
“What?” I peered over at the clock on the nightstand with a jolt. Had I ever slept this late in my life?
“Now we know what to do to help you sleep better,” she said with a sly smile and a wink. “But that’s not important right now. We know where he is. Maxim is getting everyone assembled so we can make a plan.”
A tangle of emotions rioted through my chest, the primary one being disbelief. I’d spent so much of my life fighting to be free of the monster. Was it really going to happen this time?
“How did you find him?” I asked.
“I figured it out in a dream.” Her eyes were bright with excitement.
“In the dream, I worked at the hospital and the Souleater was my patient. I mean, I never saw his face, but you know how in dreams you just know what things are supposed to be? Well, I knew it was him, and I spent the entire dream running through the hospital trying to find him the exact right type of Band-Aid, which I apparently never located. When I woke up, I was hit by this realization—if the man you buried is the same one coming for us now, he must have done something to make himself appear dead. Which means he probably had to do something to make himself undead.”
Her words flew out of her so fast I barely caught them. She pushed off my chest and grabbed her laptop. I joined her, wrapping my arm around her stomach and resting my chin on her shoulder.
“That’s when I realized what I’d missed. Hospital records.” She aggressively tapped her computer screen while flipping through a series of spreadsheets too fast for me to track. I was in awe of her brain, the way it made connections no one else could see.
“That led me to a surgeon in Moscow with Bratva ties who fitted him with a pacemaker!” She glanced at me over her shoulder, brows raised in expectation.
“What does that mean?” I asked slowly, clearly missing something important.
She turned to face me, grabbing my shoulders as she knelt between my legs. “Pacemakers can be accessed remotely!”
Oh. Ooohh. “So…can you access it?”
She snorted, giving me a look that screamed, do you even know who you’re talking to? “Already done,” she said with a toss of her head. “Unfortunately, there’s no way to make a pacemaker explode remotely.”
My lips quirked. “Yes, interesting that they don’t give them that capability.”
She waved me off. “Something to figure out in the future. But for now, I found a workaround. I accessed the encrypted remote connection and messed with the settings enough that the pacemaker was forced to reset, which sent him an alert.” Her eyes sparkled as she geared up to slot in the final puzzle piece.
“Guess who was caught on camera driving to a cardiac clinic in Chicago this morning?”
I swore, but I couldn’t shake my smile. “My devious little hacker.”
“That’s me! Anyway, it was easy to track his location once he left the doctor’s office. He’s staying in an abandoned building not too far from here.” She picked up her laptop again and pulled up a map, snuggling into my chest to show me the screen. “Right there.”
My stomach churned with nausea before I understood why. Slowly, I moved my fingers to the trackpad and zoomed out. Sweat prickled on skin that flashed hot and cold.
“Dimi?” Sienna’s fingers caressed the side of my face. “What’s wrong?”
I cleared my throat, forcing my eyes away from the map. Away from that place. “It’s the warehouse.” My voice was rough like gravel.
“Warehouse? You don’t mean…”
“Yes. Where she died.”
Sienna inhaled sharply and pulled me in for a tight hug. “He’s a sick bastard.”
My eyes shut and a cold shiver prickled down my back. I clung to her, sucking in air through my strangled lungs.
“You don’t have to go,” she murmured. “Maxim’s gathering all the Bratva men, including the soldiers Matteo and Ronan sent.
They can go instead. The Souleater never recovered the alliances he once held in Russia.
I thought it was weird he was alone in the shipping yard, but I genuinely think he came here on his own.
It’s probably why he’s been able to hide for so long.
He doesn’t have an army. He hasn’t been making any power moves. ”
I filled in the words she left unsaid. He came here just for you. Why else would he choose this specific location for our showdown? Except, how could he possibly know the warehouse’s location or its significance to my past?
I shifted back to meet her gaze. She was so fucking pretty. “I have to go, malyshka.” I tucked her hair behind her ear. “I have to be the one to end him. I’ll never rest until I can slice him straight through his chest.”
Her mouth thinned, teeth tugging on her bottom lip, but she didn’t argue. She knew how much I needed this. To be the one to send him back to hell.
“What if I came with you? I would stay in the car,” she added quickly when I shook my head. “But that way, if something happened with the surveillance or whatever, I could help.”
“No.” I tipped her chin and leaned in for a soft kiss. “You will stay here, safe, with a guard.”
She crinkled her nose and I couldn’t stop myself from kissing it. “I can’t believe you found him. You’re incredible. Brilliant, beautiful.” I trailed my finger over her engagement ring. “And mine.”
“And you’re mine.”