Chapter 38 Vaughn
VAUGHN
I’m losing my mind.
My thoughts.
My control.
They all seem to have disappeared the moment I read Yulian’s letter.
He abandoned me.
Those are the words that keep playing at the back of my mind—that Yulian left me, that I lost him to someone else.
I’ve had those same fleeting thoughts about him over the years, mostly around the anniversary of the time we spent in the cave.
Or sometimes, when I was lying in bed awake beside Danika, just scrolling through the images he posted on social media.
I imagined what it’d feel like if I heard Yulian was engaged or was getting married.
The thought of him walking down the aisle with someone else always left me in a sour mood.
But that was before I met him again, touched him again, had him so far under my skin and inside me—literally and figuratively—that I haven’t been able to breathe properly.
Ever since I read that letter, I feel like a fireball has been sitting on my chest, suffocating me.
If he says his vows to someone else, I won’t just lose him, I’ll lose myself, too.
I tap my fingers on the phone as the car rolls through the streets of Chicago.
“Go faster,” I tell the driver, my heart caught in my throat.
Since my uncles gave Yulian their private jet, I had to fly commercial to Moscow, where Uncle Anton’s second private jet picked me up.
He gave me clear orders not to step into Chicago on my own and that we should meet up in New York and regroup.
But I can’t do that.
I already lost so much time in Russia’s airspace, not to mention the entire night I was blissfully sleeping while Yulian was flying to his wedding.
So no, I won’t wait. I had to be here now.
I don’t care if it’s a suicide mission. Yaroslav won’t be stupid enough to hurt me, knowing my father will skin him alive if he dares to so much as touch me.
Uncle Anton said Yulian left late that night, so he must’ve arrived in Chicago yesterday. He wouldn’t have been expected to get married so soon, right?
My fist clenches.
I was so mad at my uncles for letting him go without telling me, for facilitating it, for twisting the knife Yulian plunged into my heart.
“He said he had urgent business in Chicago, and he had to go alone to protect you,” Uncle Anton told me. “We couldn’t exactly refuse.”
They still should’ve.
They could’ve at least woken me up so I could stop him. Or go with him. I would’ve done something to relieve this pain that’s been plaguing me since he left.
I stare at the texts I sent him. There’s no reply. He did read them, though.
Fuck.
I run a frantic hand through my hair, my composure ripping at the seams.
He can ignore me all he wants, but this will not go as he wishes.
If he believes he can step all over my heart and walk away, he has another thing coming.
But even as I tell myself that, my fingers tremble around my phone as I refresh our text exchange, holding on to a sliver of hope that I’ll receive a morsel of his attention.
Something.
Anything.
But nothing comes through, and my heart shatters for the hundredth time since he left me.
I’ve never been this distraught and broken. When Danika cheated on me and I wasn’t hurt, I thought it was because I lacked emotions, but now I realize it was because I never loved her.
Not even close.
Not even a little.
Danika was a replacement for the actual man I was in love with.
And now that he deserted me, I feel like my heart will rip out of my chest.
It hurts.
So much, I can hardly breathe.
My dad’s name flickers on the screen, and I wince as I pick up.
“You’re in Chicago?” he asks with veiled concern.
“I have to be.”
“It’s dangerous! You have no guards to protect you in case things go south. Just wait for me, son, okay?”
“I can’t.”
“Vaughn…”
“I don’t have time, Dad. If I must burn Chicago to the ground to get him back, I will.”
“It’s too late.”
My fingers tighten on the phone as my body shakes. “W-what?”
“The marriage alliance between Chicago and Boston already happened. Just come home, okay? Let’s think this through.”
My hand with the phone falls to my side as his words slam into me like a bullet to the chest.
It’s already happened.
Yulian said his vows to someone who isn’t me.
I’m too late.
Just like four years ago, I missed the timeline.
I’m trapped in a parallel world that never crosses with his.
Again.
I lost him.
Again.
No. No.
Fuck no.
A universe where he belongs to someone else doesn’t fucking exist.
Half an hour later, I’m standing in front of the grand gate of the Dimitriev mansion.
Yes, this is suicidal, but I don’t give a fuck.
They can shoot me, bury me alive, but I’ll still come for him.
I stand tall, my hand holding my gun at my side, waiting for the guards to come at me.
The gate creaks open, and suspicion twists in my gut, but I step through anyway, my heart hollow since Dad gave me the news.
No guards wait inside—strange. I move down the long driveway, my breath rough, edging toward a pant.
I still can’t get proper air into my lungs.
Is this a panic attack?
A life crisis?
Otherwise, why would someone as healthy as I am struggle to breathe?
I always thought I’d be the one to hurt him, but he’s the one who shattered my heart to pieces and stomped all over it.
My feet drag slowly on the concrete until they come to a halt.
For a heartbeat, I think it’s a hallucination. But then the figure rushes nearer—hair wild, shirt untucked against dark suit pants, movement so achingly familiar.
Yulian.
I’m ready to tackle him to the ground, tie him the fuck up, and haul him over my shoulder. Kidnap him. Hide him somewhere no one will find him.
He stops in front of me, panting, and I notice the blood splattered on his shirt, soaking through the fabric and marring his neck.
It can’t be—
“Not mine,” he breathes out, his face brighter, looking happy, radiant even, because…he got married?
The thought drags me under, as if someone’s cut the wire holding me together.
I grab the back of his head, pulling at his hair as I growl, “How dare you get married?”
“It’s—”
“I don’t care if you are married.” My voice is harsh, brimming with rage, and pain courses through my veins. “You’re already fucking mine. Do you hear me?”
He grins wide.
“You think I’m joking? I’ll kidnap you and hold you captive for the rest of your life if I have to.”
“Toxic. I love it.”
“Shut the hell up.” I search our surroundings, holding the gun up. “Where’s your wife? Let me meet her real quick.”
“Aw, you’ll kill her?”
“If she doesn’t divorce you, yes.”
He laughs, and the rich sound stings deeper because now, he’s not all mine anymore.
Someone else has him.
Temporarily.
Just for now.
I’ll make sure to end this marriage even if it’s the last thing I do.
“Stop laughing.” I pull on his hair harder. “Where is she?”
“There’s no wife.” He shows me his empty ring finger. “Will be open to having a husband, though. Not now, but I’m putting it on the table, just in case.”
“What?” My grip loosens a little.
“I didn’t get married,” he admits softly, then he tells me about the switch, that Alina got married instead, and how Levian Markov played a role in it. He recounts the story of how the Boston Bratva was behind the attack that both brought us closer and pulled us apart four years ago.
The alliance with Lukas.
Killing Yaroslav.
My head reels from the onslaught of information, but every word rewrites the last couple of days of hell in my head.
By the time he’s done, my knees almost give out.
I’m now holding on to his shoulders tightly as sharp breaths puncture my lungs. It’s as if I’ve been drowning for years, and I’m finally coming up for air.
He’s here.
He’s not someone else’s.
Yulian is still fucking mine.
“I don’t think I would’ve been able to do it anyway.” He palms my cheek, stroking gently. “Marry someone else, I mean. Knowing me, I would’ve probably dramatically run back up the aisle or something.”
“I love you, Yulian,” I confess with my heart in my throat, my voice slightly choked.
“I think I’ve been in love with you since we were teens.
I fought it, ignored it, denied it, tried to replace you with someone else, but it never worked.
The more I tried to strangle my feelings for you, snuff them out, and bury them, the stronger they became.
I’m done fighting you, us, and everything we can be together.
I’ll fight for you, kill for you, I’ll protect you from the world with my life, but you’re not allowed to leave me.
You make me a better man, baby, and I don’t ever want to see the version of me without you again. ”
He lets out a breath, his fingers trembling on my face. “Fuck.”
“Is that…all you have to say?”
“Give me a second. I need to process that and learn it by heart. Tattoo it on me, maybe.”
I smile, stroking his hair. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I always tattoo you on me, though.” He steps back, forcing me to release him.
Before I can complain about the lack of him, he undoes the top buttons of his shirt, then takes my hand and makes me trace the tattoo right over his heart.
The Cyrillic script disappears beneath my fingers as he says, “Я с тобой (Ya s toboy). You told me this in the cave when I thought I’d die. It was the first time someone other than my mother cared about me so deeply. I’ve been in love with you ever since, Mishka.”
My lips part. “Yulian…”
“I might have been desperate in chasing you, and sure, from the outside looking in, some would think I’m an idiot for always loving you when you could be emotionally stunted and aloof.
” He tightens his grip on my fingers, then brings them to his mouth to drop a kiss on them one by one.
“But I always knew you cared about me. You might act cold and distant at times, but truly, you’ve always looked out for me, cared about me, spoiled me shitless.
When I’m in a dangerous situation, you always show up for me, and that’s what makes me love you more, baby.
I don’t want my life without you. I refuse to have it.
And I’m never letting you go again. Not in this lifetime, not in the next. ”
“That’s what I should be saying.” I slide the gun into my waistband and palm his face. “You’re mine, and I’m yours for the rest of our lives.”
“You’ll never get rid of me.”
I smile. “I’m counting on it.”
And then he kisses me, sensually, passionately, with every morsel of wildness that Yulian is.
And I know, I just know, that our new life starts now.
No more hiding.
No more fear.
Just him and me.
The villain I hunted only to fall in love with.