Chapter 29
Dominik
I continue to make plans from the living room while Alina darts through the kitchen and leaves again, as if she’s on her own mission.
“We move in five,” I tell her and the others.
The men nod. They wear readiness like most men wear shirts.
“And him?” Viktor asks, meaning Archer.
“He runs when we get downstairs.”
“We shouldn’t be the ones who let him go,” he says—not arguing, just measuring the cost.
“I made my decision,” I tell him.
Alina joins us again before I have to go looking for her, a reusable cloth bag slung over her shoulder. “I’m ready,” she says.
“What’s that?” I ask, nodding at her bag. “All your clothes and keys have already been packed and loaded.”
“Oh, I know.” She pats the side of the bag. “This is all your pain meds, antibiotics, and fresh bandages.” She hands the bag to Viktor.
Even with everything going on, she thought of me—of what I need.
“Thank you, dikaya koshka.”
“Oh—and I grabbed this.”
Reaching into the front of her dress, she pulls out a necklace and lets the charm rest on top of the fabric.
My necklace.
Fuck, it looks good on her. Too good.
For a second I hear my father’s voice—your half is for obedience; your brother’s is for ruling.
And Alina is the first person who’s ever made me want to break that balance.
“Beautiful,” I murmur, momentarily undone.
“It is,” she agrees softly. “Too beautiful to leave lying around.”
I lean in to kiss her collarbone where the chain touches her skin. “Thank you,” I tell her.
The sight of her wearing that piece of our legacy—my half of it—hits me harder than any bullet.
And just like that, I’m ready to do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t: find a way to keep her brother breathing simply because she’s chosen to carry me so close to her heart.
Speaking of the pain in my ass—his wrists are free now and raw. He cradles them like a man counting his own pulse to confirm he’s still alive.
“You’ll get your head start,” I tell him. “And then you get hunted by someone who doesn’t accept failure. Choose where you go carefully.”
Archer bares his teeth. “You think running is new to me?”
“I think you’re still bad at it. Stay off the highways. Stay away from cheap motels. That’s the first place he’ll have men look. Watch out for security cameras. Any friend you think you can trust? You can’t. If I were you, I’d go somewhere they don’t speak English or Russian.”
He looks at Alina with all the fury he has left masquerading as love. She steps forward, wraps her arms around him, and tells him a truth he doesn’t deserve. I let them have that moment. There are very few soft things left in my world, and she deserves them all.
When Alina steps back, I take the room again. “We’re moving now.”
Petrov tosses me a set of keys, which I hand to Archer.
In the hallway, the elevator doors open. We step inside—me, Alina, Renat, Petrov, Archer, Viktor. The car drops through the building.
The mirrored steel gives me her reflection. She stands close enough that the back of my hand touches her fingers. I give her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.
“Middle seat,” I remind her.
She repeats it back to comfort me.
The elevator doors open. Lights hum overhead in straight rows across polished concrete.
We turn left. The middle car, a dark sedan with new plates, waits. Renat and Petrov move ahead while Viktor leads the way a few feet in front of us. Alina is a step behind me. I won’t breathe properly until she’s in another state.
I open the rear passenger door, eyes scanning the shadows. “Hurry, hellcat.”
No one speaks. I just feel Gavriil, like a knife pressed to my spine. I see him before anyone else, except Alina. She freezes. She doesn’t get into the goddamn car.
I want to throw her inside, even knowing she’d be furious.
My brother steps out from behind a concrete column. Six men shape themselves along the wall. Not having any cameras on this level is a two-edged sword.
A small, false smile crosses Gavriil’s mouth: generous on the surface, never in truth.
“Little brother,” he says.
“Not today.”
I step in front of Alina, my palm finding her lower back to anchor her and keep her from making the mistake of thinking I won’t hide her with my life.
“Then I suppose that makes me your Pakhan,” Gavriil notes. He scans everything, the angle of my stance, the bandage under my shirt, the direction Archer heads toward the rusty red sedan.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to kill him because of her,” he says in Russian.
“He’s your problem now.”
His eyes return to mine, icy and sharp. “Refusing my orders, letting the traitor go, was foolish. Now, you’ll have to be taught a lesson.”
“I’m tired of your fucking lessons.”
Gavriil doesn’t respond. He looks past me to Alina and lifts two fingers.
Time stops.
None of us can breathe.
My men won’t move until she’s in the car. His men won’t leave until he’s done. And right now, they all raise their guns…and point them at her.
“I hear that you’ve had a sudden change of heart. Maybe I have too,” Gavriil says. “What are you willing to offer me to keep your brother alive?”
And that’s when I realize—Alina holds all the power. And I know, even before she speaks, that she’s not going to run with me.
“What do you want?” she asks, handing a megalomaniac a blank check.
He smiles at her like she’s already paid the full amount. “I was told that you and Dominik had a deal for a week that got postponed. A month should give him enough time to… recuperate.”
“Alina, no!” I snap, grabbing her arm, but she won’t look at me.
“One month—and you won’t hurt or kill Archer, Dominik, or any of his men,” she clarifies.
Even though I know she’s doing this not just for her brother, but for me as well, I fucking hate it.
“Alina, please!” I beg. Lifting her hand in mine, I kiss the top of it. “Archer doesn’t deserve your mercy, and neither do I.”
She finally looks at me. Her eyes are damp, breaking something in my chest. “I can’t lose you, Dom. And you can’t save Archer.” She steps closer to me. Heat radiates off her skin. “If I don’t do this, he’s going to make you, Archer, and your men pay. You know that.”
We stand in the kind of silence that feels like a lifetime.
I know exactly the shape of her mouth when she makes a choice she doesn’t want. And the exact sound of her breath when she doesn’t regret it.
I move first. I release her hand to cradle her face in my palms and kiss her.
Gavriil doesn’t just want to punish me—he wants to ruin me by taking Alina. At least I know he’ll keep her alive, if for no other reason than because the thought of her with him will torment me every second of the day and night.
A knife through my fucking heart would hurt less.