Chapter 39
Nika
The strength of Max’s embrace means the world to me. He’s alive. Somehow, we’re both alive and together again, on a tropical island with our enemies dead at our feet.
If not for the throbbing pain in my hand, I’d say it’s all a dream.
His hitching chest rises and falls. With his injuries, each breath costs him.
I pull back just far enough to inspect his wounds, and my throat constricts.
He’s a bloated, discolored disaster. Blood cakes in his beard.
One eye is swollen, the other bloodshot.
But both are fixated on me like I’m the only person on this planet.
Even battered, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“You came.” The obvious assessment spills out of me. He sacrificed so much—almost his life—to fly out here, and for that, I’ll be forever grateful.
“Yeah, well, I was sick of the cold. Much nicer here.” He gestures toward Pavel’s lifeless body. “Minus the company.”
My throat closes as I shove down the typhoon of emotions threatening to overwhelm me, because now is not the time. “We need to get them away from the door. I’ll start dragging them to the edge.”
Max raises an eyebrow, staring at my broken hand. “You go inside and decide what you want to do with what you found. I’ll kick them over the cliff.”
“But your ribs—”
“Will be fine. I won’t bend over or try to lift these jerks. They don’t deserve more than a couple of kicks anyway.” Max steps over Pavel and starts doing just what he said.
My throbbing hand reminds me that the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can seek medical care.
“I’ll be quick.” Walking back inside the cave, I note that even more lights flickered on. Whatever system operates the eye scanner and door seems to still be functioning, albeit slowly.
The cave is bigger than I initially realized in the gloom, and clearly larger than Dimitri anticipated. A path cuts through the stalagmites along the back wall, and more illumination slices through the darkness.
That can wait, though.
First, I pick up the book I threw, smoothing out the bent pages. Then I head to the shelf I glimpsed on the way in, the one holding the journal with my mother’s handwriting.
With trembling fingers, I pull it free.
Dust billows out when I flip open the cover. A printed photo’s on the first page, adhered to the paper with crackling tape. In the picture, Mom cradles a baby in a christening gown.
Is that…me?
After reading the journal entry, I realize the infant is indeed six-month-old me in front of the family church.
Mom even wrote down a list of everyone who attended and what they brought, with check marks beside their names to confirm she sent thank-you cards.
I blink back the welling tears and flip the page. Each entry contains a photo, a few of them locks of hair.
This is a baby keepsake book. With every turn, I see myself growing up, with my mother, father, and more relatives at a dinner table. Dedushka Peter holding me with his fingers as I take a wobbly step. Birthday parties. Christmas mornings.
All the normal moments in a family filled with life and love. This family existed before Dimitri let his jealousy consume him. He destroyed the life I knew in some sick attempt at revenge I helped him enact.
A knot forms in the pit of my stomach, spurring me to put the journal down and grab the album Dimitri hurled at the wall.
I skim through the pages, finding scattered, faded pictures of two young dark-haired boys around ten, give or take a few years.
I recognize the solid jawlines and dark eyes.
Roman’s and Mikhail’s soft, mischievous expressions stare back at me, nothing like the hard men they grew up to be.
I pick up more pages that reveal progressively older versions of the brothers. Finally, I encounter a photo of Mikhail holding an infant.
His face expresses wonder, terror, and absolute devotion. The caption reads, Mikhail Jr., 3 days old.
MJ. My cousin who died.
I flip forward to find another one of Roman holding MJ while Mikhail hovers behind him. In another, MJ sits in a high chair, laughing while Mikhail spoon-feeds him and Roman makes a goofy face.
I continue browsing until I come to my parents’ wedding.
My mother, radiant in a simple white dress and with flowers woven through her hair, emits pure joy as she grins at her groom while they dance. Roman. My father.
His hand rests on her waist and her arms coil around his neck as he gazes at her like she’s his entire world. I’ve never seen my father look so open and vulnerable.
In my memories, he’s hard, distant, and cunning. The Pakhan I thought killed her. The man I spent fifteen years loathing thanks to Dimitri’s manipulation.
For a moment, soul-aching sadness and loss consume me. I’m back in those bushes again, watching him race off into the night screaming my name.
This time, I’m mourning the father I tried to forget.
Who is Roman Kozlov? What’s he like after losing his wife and daughter and having to fight every day to keep his family safe?
My fingers skim over the photos as realization sparks through me. That’s what the Bratva really means.
Family. For the first time since childhood, I see them that way.
Tears sting the backs of my eyes, forcing me to set the remaining pages aside. I can take this with me, but for now, I need to focus on what else I can carry out of here.
Footsteps behind me get my attention. “He still looks at her painting like that.” Max appears at my shoulder, a strong, sturdy presence.
“As if she was his moon, sun, and stars. It’s one of the few times he looks happy.
When she died…and he thought you’d also died…
I think that’s when the light went out of him. ”
The words pierce me like bullets.
Dimitri did that, and I helped him.
The chasm in my chest—the one that opened up on the night of my mother’s murder—gapes wider.
I study Max, feeling like a lost little girl again. “I don’t know what to do.”
He shakes his head and drifts deeper into the vault. “Me neither. But maybe don’t just take my word for it. See for yourself and decide. There’s no rush. Roman waited fifteen years to see you again. He can wait until you’re ready.”
As Max continues his retreat, a prickle of anger stirs in my heart.
I need his insight for a life-changing choice, and he’s walking away?
But maybe don’t just take my word for it.
Has anyone ever said that to me?
My anger morphs to shame as I ponder the situation. Dimitri always told me to trust him, to believe him. That I didn’t need to doubt him.
Now Max advises me to decide for myself rather than blindly trust him.
I keep an eye on him as he limps between the stalagmites in the back.
Then he laughs, pressing his arm against his broken ribs. “Take all the time you want. You’re not going to go broke waiting.”
“Hate to tell you this, Max.” I add more loose pages from the photo album to my stack. “Everything was in Dimitri’s name. I don’t have a single penny or asset. Not even a bank account since I was hiding from Roman.”
“Anika.” The use of my full name gets my attention. “Come here.”
I set down the album and wander over to discover what he found. As I get close, I realize the flat wall between the stalagmites is actually a tight curve tucked into the shadows.
My heart beats a wild rhythm in my chest.
Holy shit.
The cave opens up into a new chamber.
Shelves crafted from steel and heavy grating stretch from floor to ceiling. Stacked on top of them…
Shock weakens my knees at the sight of bundled, plastic-wrapped stacks of currency. Euros, US dollars, yen, rubles, pounds… Not just stacks, but cubes at least two feet per side.
Next to those lie neat piles of silver bars. Below that, I spot gold bars and crates of coins. Chests full of gems with colors that span the entire rainbow.
My head spins, and I think I might collapse.
“Dimitri was right about one thing.” Max gestures over my shoulder, pointing at a shallow handwoven basket filled with blue-gray crystalline clusters. “Pretty sure that’s at least a million dollars’ worth of osmium.”
I have no idea what osmium is, but I recognize the imperial green of the two raw jadeite crystals sitting in a basket of cushioning pine needles.
Just one of those would be enough for me to buy a new house, complete with hydroponics, geothermal heating and cooling, and solar power so I’m never stuck relying on a fireplace again.
Hell, the resources in this one room could purchase and operate this island for the next hundred years, maybe more.
Judging from the glow coming from the back, the cave doesn’t stop here.
But this is Kozlov money. I can’t take it.
Max fixes me with a don’t be stubborn look when I shake my head.
“Peter gave your mother the locket and keyed your retinal scan to the door. This money was apparently never meant for your father. It’s yours.
I bet it was his way of ensuring that Roman worked to prove himself, but he always had a rainy-day fund set aside for the next generation in case things went wrong. You can do with it whatever you like.”
Mine.
Not the family’s. Not Roman’s. Not the Kozlov Bratva’s collective wealth. Mine.
I’ve got my freedom and enough money to do whatever I please.
Now I just need to decide what that is.
Stepping up to the baskets of precious gems, I scoop a handful of cut emeralds and pour them into my pocket.
Then I grab a stack of American dollars and head for the mouth of the cave.
“Right now, I’d like to get a cold glass of water, a warm shower, and medical attention. Everything else can wait.”
Max shrugs his broad shoulders and follows me out. “That sounds like a damn good plan to me.”