Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Chloe
“I fucking don’t know, Ilya,” Kolya growled at his phone on the dash. “Use your fucking sources.” Then he launched into a string of Russian. He could have punctuated it with a fuck or two.
He’d been in deep conversation with Dimitri at the party, but for a while there, they disappeared with Kirill, Rurik, and Ivan. Even Lucy asked me what was going on, and I had no idea except for the picture I received with the flowers.
It was close to midnight when we departed Ivan and Irina’s compound. Most of the guests, even Theo and Gage, had left. Sebastian was asleep in the car seat.
When Kolya ended the call, I asked, “What’s going on?”
He didn’t answer, just glared at the road in front of us.
“I’ve never seen you on edge like this, so no, I will not let you keep me in the dark. Tell me what the fuck is going on because I have a feeling it has something to do with Sebastian or me.”
“We have a lead on Marena,” he clipped.
“That’s good, right?”
“We still don’t know where she is.”
“Then what’s the lead about?”
Again, he took a long time to answer. What could be worse than the woman who sabotaged me and led me to almost kill my son? “I want this over with. I don’t care how bad it is.”
He exhaled twice. Which made me edgier because it sounded like he was trying to break it to me gently. I wanted to yell at him just to release the hysteria inside me starving for relief.
“It’s my fault,” he whispered.
“What?”
“I shouldn’t have left that person alive.”
“Who?” The question barely scraped out of my lips.
“When you were fifteen. That thunderstorm.”
“You told me you were there. That there were two assassins, but you didn’t kill one of them.”
“There was no body at the crash site. At least that was what the news reported.”
“You think Marena knows this person?”
He cast me a fleeting glance. “I don’t know.”
A loud explosion followed by a jolt and a screeching of brakes sent me slamming my palms on the dashboard. Sebastian started to cry.
I slowly registered that our SUV had rammed into the back of our lead security car.
The one behind us also hit the brakes but didn’t smash into us.
Gunfire erupted.
Sebastian.
Ignoring Kolya’s yell to keep my head down, I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled to the back of the SUV and reached for my son.
I freed him from the car seat and cradled him protectively against me on the floor of the vehicle.
Bullets pelted the glass and sides of the SUV. I prayed the bulletproofing would hold.
“Just stay down.” Kolya had contacted the bratva and was exchanging terse situation reports.
We were reversing. Or at least it felt that way.
Sebastian was screaming in my ear, but I clung to his cries as an indication that my baby was alive.
“You’re going to be all right. You’re going to be okay,” I whispered as my tears soaked through his clothes.
The SUV spun, and my gut felt like it had dislodged from the pounding of my heart. Still, I continued to wrap my son in a secure embrace. My hands protected his head while my entire body became his shield.
Mayhem everywhere. Kolya shouting on the phone. Voices shouting back. The bumps and sharp pivots of the vehicle—all I could do was hunker down.
I didn’t know what was happening, but no one was going to get to Seb unless they came through me. All my fear was concentrated on keeping Sebastian safe. I was devoted to my son’s survival.
My life for my son.
The SUV decelerated.
“Why are we slowing down?” I shrieked.
“We’re safe.” Kolya’s words were calm.
His calmness in the face of tension usually annoyed me, but I realized in the face of real danger, it loosened the panic that had me in a frightening chokehold since we’d been attacked.
A cacophony of voices and more yelling surrounded us, and I finally felt safe enough to raise my head.
Relief whooshed through a glaze of tears; I made out the architecture of Irina and Ivan’s mansion.
Kolya stopped the vehicle and got out.
The door to the passenger seat flew open. “Are you all right?”
Fingers clasped my shoulders, but the terror hadn’t freed me from its clutches.
“Chloe.”
It was only when I heard Kolya say my name again that my limbs unlocked enough for me to move.
He helped me let go of my death grip on Sebastian, whose face was red from his pissed-off crying. I handed our son to him, who he transferred to his right arm, and with his left, he aided me in getting out of the vehicle.
I stumbled into him and dove into the safety of his arms. This man, the father of my child, was my safe haven. I couldn’t feel safer at the moment.
“You’re okay, Chloshka.” Fierceness imbued Kolya’s calm tone. People surrounded us, asked questions, crowded us. But all I needed was the sanctuary that Kolya had been all along. Sebastian had stopped crying and leaned over and patted my cheek as if reassuring me too.
“Mama,” he said simply. His cerulean irises, still bright from his tears, strengthened my resolve.
I could easily have dissolved in tears; I could retreat into a room with my baby and let the bratva handle the situation, but I wanted to be a part of the solution. I needed answers to my questions.
“I’m fine.” I gazed up into Kolya’s eyes. “Please tell me you know who’s after us.”
It would be another hour before everyone assembled in the great room, full of high-level bratva.
I recognized the man Kolya was talking to earlier, and I finally connected him—Rurik Sokolov—as the younger brother of Pavel, the man who’d abused Dora.
Dimitri, despite not belonging to the Zahkarov bratva, was also present.
The elusive Ilya, who was their intel guy, was showing Kolya and Kirill something on his laptop.
Lucy rushed in, phone to her ear. “Something is happening at Marriage Ink.”
“What?” Baffled, I stood up. What was happening? Was there some kind of coordinated attack? “Who would—”
“The Winthrop Blood Covenant,” she answered. “Margo had been calling just when you guys left. To execute the blood covenant, she had to inform all parties who may have their claim to Kolya or you.”
“She had to inform the Vozhokari?” Ivan asked.
“Yes.”
“She’s pissed. But her security sealed the building. She’s operating from the archive room and getting the ceremony ready.”
“Ceremony? What ceremony?”
“The blood covenant. It has to happen before the sun rises this morning.”
“What. The. Hell?” I locked eyes with Kolya. “Did you know this?”
He shook his head.
“It was an ultimatum from the head of the Vozhokari,” Lucy said. “They will honor the dissolution of all claims to Kolya if it happens before sunrise.”
Kirill chuckled darkly. “But in the meantime, they will exhaust all means necessary to thwart that from happening.”
“What exactly does that mean?” I whispered.
“We can ignore that ultimatum,” Kolya said. “Or let the Vozhokari hunt us forever.”
“How is that fair?” I snapped. “Maybe there’s another loophole.”
Lucy shrugged. “Margo is combing through another archive, but she indicated the Vozhokari lodged a recent incident involving one of their own.”
“What’s she talking about?” I demanded.
“We’ve finally connected Marena to a target of the bratva.
” Ilya looked up from his screen and turned his laptop to face me and Lucy.
“She’s seen here with Xiarra Wilson. Her husband is Jordan Wilson, whom Kolya recently executed to stop a child trafficking ring.
But it was his wife who was the mastermind.
Wilson Ltd is a logistics and port operator for several companies.
But also, Xiarra used to be an assassin for the Vozhokari, whom they planted into Wilson Ltd by marrying its owner. ”
“Do you mean the Vozhokari are human traffickers now?”
“No, but they’re using Xiarra’s connections as a way to transport babies scouted by Marena to be trained as assassins for their dying organization.”
Ilya’s stare sent shivers down my spine, but his words were like a punch in the gut. “Xiarra Wilson and Marena Rodriguez are cousins,” he added.
“What?”
“The motorcyclist assassin Kolya killed the night Esther King sent them after you and your mother was Xiarra’s sister.
They were all part of the Areenova clan, one of the leading vessels for the Vozhokari.
The lack of Petrov bloodline was a concern for them.
After the failed job, the Vozhokari exiled the entire bloodline.
From Dimitri’s source inside the Vozhokari, Sebastian was their way back into the organization by presenting them with a blue-eyed Petrov baby. ”
The thought made me ill.
“That doesn’t make sense, because of what Marena had done, I hurt my baby and…and…” I couldn’t say it. “She disappeared before she even knew I fell into psychosis; how could she have known?”
“There was a nurse who didn’t report for work at The Astorian,” Ilya said. “Your brother submitted their employee roster last week.”
“Theo didn’t tell me.”
“It was a blur to connect the dots until recently,” Ilya said. “We’ve also identified some of Kolya’s fan mail as coming from a P.O. box owned by a Wilson Ltd shell company.”
I remembered those letters. The ones that stated I was unworthy to bear Kolya’s son.
But something bothered me more. “This means they had infiltrated King Industries?”
“We—” Ilya started.
“We have a choice.” Kolya leveled his stare at me. “It’s fifteen miles to the Upper East Side.”
“Make a break for it,” I said slowly as renewed shivers wracked my body. “Did you forget what just happened?”
“We’re prepared for them now.”
“That explosion?”
“Grenade launcher. And that’s why helicopters are a no-go either.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“We go to war.” It was Kirill who answered.
“I’ve traced over bloodlines in the dusty books Aralina found for me in the attic.
Marriage Ink has forged powerful alliances everywhere.
In fact, Winthrop covenants started in the fourteenth century when their scholars noted the weaknesses coming from inbreeding of families of wealth and power.
But the Vozhokari allied itself to the institutions that sprang from the ruling bloodlines we are trying to dismantle. ”
“You’re talking about a secret war.”
“It’s been going on for centuries. The public go about their lives not knowing about the power struggles that are happening behind the scenes. Even us, the bratva, forget about them until something like this happens,” Ivan said.
Kolya rose from his seat beside Ilya and approached me warily. What did he see on my face? Anxiety? No, I was angry. Furious. And I finally realized why.
“I’m sorry, Chloshka.” Kolya gripped my arms. “If there were any other way…”
“I’m angry.”
His jaw hardened, but the slight bob of his throat hinted at restrained, impassioned emotions.
“Not at you,” I whispered. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”
His brows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
I addressed the people in the room. “Can I talk to Kolya for a second? There’s something I need to tell him.”
I spun around, not waiting for anyone to say yea or nay. This couldn’t wait. I had to make him understand.
“Chloe, what’s wrong?” he asked.
When we were in the hallway in front of a side table and a mirror, I looked into his eyes. “I didn’t see it before. My focus was Sebastian and the danger he was in—” I clutched Kolya’s hands and tugged him close. “I didn’t see that you were a victim in this too.”
His mouth parted, gaze sharpening. “Chloshka.”
“I know the bratva sees you as a protector. The Vozhokari sees you as a warrior. But you are also human. This forced copulation to give them a soldier? That’s slavery.
So, yes, we are signing this blood covenant because I want you to be free from them.
It’s angering me how they expect you to breed their next soldiers.
They can’t have Sebastian, but I won’t let them have you either. ”
For a second, we just stared at each other. His fierce gaze interrupted the beat of my heart.
Then his mouth crashed down on mine as he kissed me feverishly, devouring me as if I were his oxygen. I surrendered to the moment and returned his kisses until the scrape of heels broke our kiss, but Kolya refused to let me go.
“Oops.” Lucy was holding the phone. “Margo wants to know if it’s a go.”
Kolya and I locked eyes again, and he dipped his chin in affirmation.
I glanced at Lucy. “It’s a go.”