Chapter 24
Galina
Iwake to the soft noise of the bedroom door opening. It’s dark out, probably late. I feel like I’ve slept for hours. I turn my head to see that Laszlo isn’t next to me. Lifting it off the pillow, I see his silhouette, dressed only in joggers, in the moonlight and the outline of the gun in his hand.
“Shh,” he murmurs. “Someone’s in the house.”
“It’s probably Leonid or one of the guards,” I mumble, dropping my head back down.
“No.”
That one syllable sends ice shooting through my veins. I’m awake properly in an instant.
I sit up, pulling the sheets further up my body.
“Don’t move,” Laszlo whispers, raising the gun and stepping out into the hallway.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” I mutter and then let out a muffled shriek as something slams into the headboard next to my head.
Glass shatters from the window as Laszlo spins and grits out, “Get down.”
I roll off the other side of the bed, completely naked, as another shot buries itself into the brand new mattress.
Another shot cracks through the room so close that my ears ring. Laszlo this time.
“Bathroom,” Laszlo says in that controlled way that would be sexy if I weren’t crawling over the bedroom floor scared for my life.
I don’t argue. I scramble for it, naked and half blind in the dark, heart beating against my ribs.
Laszlo fires once toward the window, then again, the muzzle flash burning white across the room for a split second.
I see his body in that flash, broad and lethal, moving between me and the broken glass.
I make it to the bathroom and slam myself against the side of the tub, reaching out with my foot to push the door closed.
Once inside, I grab a towel and wrap it around myself before climbing into the massive jacuzzi tub.
I know how this works. Mum drilled it into me since I was a tiny child.
We had weekly drills in case of guns, bombs, kidnap attempts, you name it.
That all stopped when she died. None of it saved her, anyway.
Men shout downstairs. Laszlo’s men. I think. I can’t hear what they’re saying.
I need a weapon of some kind. My blade is… somewhere. Probably still on the hall table where Laszlo left it, and I haven’t had a chance to remember to pick it back up.
Fuck. That either makes me very distracted, very stupid, or very incompetent. Probably a mixture of all three.
My gaze lands on the heavy silver soap dish beside the tub. I snatch it and grip it so hard my hand aches. Another shot cracks through the house, then shouting. Male voices. Russian. One of them is Laszlo. The others are too muffled to make out.
My whole body is shaking, but my mind is weirdly clear.
Count breaths.
Stay low.
Wait for instructions.
That was always the rule.
I crouch deeper in the tub, towel clutched to my chest with one hand, soap dish in the other, and stare at the bathroom door. My ears ring from the gunfire. I can hear feet thudding downstairs.
Whatever this was, it was about me. That much I can deduce from them drawing Laszlo away from me and then firing at my fucking head.
Marksman. Not a sniper. This was close range, probably an adjacent property, and we gave them all the fucking ammo in the world by not closing the fucking curtains while we slept.
We were so wrapped up in one another that we forgot every single protocol the Bratva drums into you.
And now my husband is out there, and I’m in here, naked with no viable weapon except a fucking soap dish like that is going to save me from a bullet.
Another burst of shouting cuts through the house. Then a heavy thud. Then silence so abrupt it is worse than the gunfire.
I hate silence in a Bratva house.
Silence means the danger is thinking.
I stay crouched in the tub, every muscle locked so tightly it burns. The towel is twisted around me, clutched to my chest with one hand. In the other, the silver soap dish feels cold, solid, absurdly useless.
Nothing moves outside the bathroom door.
No footsteps in the bedroom. No voices. No fresh crack of gunfire.
Just the dull ringing in my ears and the frantic, ugly pounding of my own heart.
I force myself to inhale slowly through my nose.
Hold.
Exhale.
Again.
If I panic, I get stupid. If I get stupid, I die.
That was always the lesson buried beneath all of my mother’s polished little drills.
Another few seconds pass. Or a minute. Time inside fear stretches until it means nothing.
What if Laszlo is hurt down there? Shot and bleeding out, and I’m sitting in the tub, in a towel like a damsel waiting to be gunned down.
I shift carefully in the tub, wincing as my knee knocks the marble. The sound seems deafening. I freeze, listening for any sign someone heard it.
Nothing.
The bathroom is too warm compared to the cold fear crawling over my skin.
I can’t stay blind in here forever.
Slowly, I rise out of the tub. The towel loosens, and I catch it before it falls, rewrapping it tightly around myself one-handed. The soap dish has left a dent in my palm.
I move to the bathroom door and lower myself beside it, pressing my ear to the wood.
Silence in the bedroom.
No one in there. Or if there is, they’re standing perfectly still.
My pulse stutters.
The shooter had the bed in their sights. This was opportunistic, and we let them straight at us.
I curse at us in Russian, so potent, my dad would be proud.
Dad. He’s going to lose it when he hears about this.
The man outside might still be waiting, watching the broken window, for someone to be stupid enough.
Waiting for me.
My stomach turns.
I close my eyes for a moment and picture the room as I last saw it in the muzzle flash: shattered glass, ripped mattress, Laszlo’s body between me and the window.
Another burst of sound hits my senses from downstairs—feet, a man shouting, then abruptly cut off.
I can’t make out the words.
I hate that I can’t make out the words.
I need a better position. Not the hall, not yet. Just enough to see the bedroom. Just enough to know if anyone’s coming.
I curl my fingers around the handle and ease the bathroom door open a fraction.
Cold air from the shattered window slides through immediately.
I wait.
Nothing happens.
Very carefully, I widen the gap.
The bedroom beyond is dim and ghostly, silvered by moonlight. The open curtains stir in the broken window. Glass scatters across the floor, catching the light in tiny knife flashes. The headboard beside my pillow is split open.
I stare at the bed for one long second.
I was there.
The thought comes flat and clear, without drama. I was there, and now I’m not, and the only reason I’m not dead is that whoever aimed at me is either a shit shot or their angle was off, or wind trajectory or whatever it’s called, or something else that I don’t know, because why would I?
But I’m guessing the angle. No one would take aim into a Voronov home unless they knew what they were doing.
Someone tried to kill me in my husband’s bed.
And failed.
It pisses me off now more than it frightens me.
I open the bathroom door fully and crawl out, keeping low.
Crawling to the wardrobe in the dressing room, I keep to the wall, every nerve in my body alive.
No one comes.
No one shoots.
My mouth goes dry.
It’s still too quiet.
I should go back into the bathroom. I know I should. It’s the most sheltered space to be.
But every instinct I have rebels at the idea of curling back into porcelain and waiting while the attack changes shape around me.
I need something better than a soap dish to defend myself at the very least.
A fresh gust of night air stirs through the broken window, colder this time. Somewhere outside, beyond the dark line of the glass, a car engine turns over.
I freeze.
Not close. Not right under the window. Farther off. Rear lane, maybe. Mews.
Leaving.
Or arriving.
I can’t tell which is worse.
Reaching the dressing room, I crawl in and drag on joggers, a sports bra and an oversized tee while sitting on the floor. Moving over to the drawers on Laszlo’s side, I start a search. He will have weapons stashed everywhere.
“Bingo,” I murmur and snatch up a small pistol and then take a deep breath, letting the seconds tick away as I desperately rethink this plan.