25. Damian
DAMIAN
W alking away from Sienna is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
But I have to, before I can change my mind, before the look of hurt in her green eyes breaks down what's left of my resolve. I leave her there outside of the library, staring after me, and I don’t look back. I can’t bear it if I see her cry.
This is for the best . I tell myself that over and over again as I stride down the hallway, each step feeling like I'm tearing something vital out of my chest. She thinks I'm good with her son. She thinks we could have a family. She thinks I'm worth fighting for.
She's wrong about all of it.
She doesn’t understand, not really. She’s been here for a few weeks. Not long enough to realize what committing herself to this life would mean, what it would do to her in the end. The world that she would raise her son in.
The marble floors of the estate echo under my boots as I make my way to my office, trying to put distance between myself and the woman who's managed to crawl under my skin in ways I never thought possible.
I can still smell her on me, still feel the phantom touch of her hands on my body, still hear the way she said my name when I was buried deep inside her.
The memory makes my cock twitch, and I curse under my breath.
I need my head clear if I'm going to protect her. If I'm going to finish this.
I pour myself three fingers of vodka when I reach my office and down it in one swallow, welcoming the burn.
It doesn't help. Nothing helps when it comes to her.
From the moment I saw her in that warehouse, from the moment she fought me in the church like a wildcat, she's been under my skin.
I told myself it was just lust, just the natural response of a man who's been focused on things besides sex for too long.
But it's more than that, and I'm too much of a coward to admit it.
The door to my office opens without a knock, and I don't need to turn around to know it's Konstantin.
I turn to face him, taking in his grim expression.
Konstantin Abramov is a man who's seen his share of violence, who inherited an empire of blood and brutality, but there's something different in his expression. Something final.
"The Russos?" I ask, though I already know the answer.
He nods, moving to pour himself a drink from my bar.
"We've located them. Giovanni, his remaining soldiers—or most of them, anyway. They moved to a new safe house, one they don’t think anyone knows the location of. But one of his men had a loose tongue. Guess he didn’t want to die with the rest of them, saw the writing on the wall.
” Konstantin's smile is cold. "This ends tonight, Damian. "
“Good.” I want it over with. All of it, except for?—
Except for what I have with her.
I’m not ready for that to end. But when the threat of the Russos ends, so does that.
And it’s for the best. I keep telling myself that, as I reach for the gun and bullets in my desk.
We go over the plan. Twenty of our men to take out roughly a dozen of theirs.
There might be others, scattered around—it’s hard to salt the earth of any crime family, but if the boss is killed, the others will melt away.
We can’t kill all the vermin, but anyone there tonight, we’ll take out.
“And Sal?” I ask, remembering him in the warehouse, the way he spoke about Sienna. I want him dead, too.
Konstantin frowns. “We don’t have any intel on him. Giovanni might have cut him loose—he might have gone to ground. We can’t be sure. But Giovanni is who we need to focus on.”
I nod. I know he’s right, no matter how much I want to get revenge on every single one of them. The don is the one who needs to die, first and foremost.
I strap on my shoulder holster, then add a knife to my boot.
The familiar weight of weapons grounds me, reminds me who I am.
What I am: the enforcer for the Abramov Bratva.
I'm a killer, a man who's taken more lives than I can count.
I'm not husband material. I'm not father material.
I'm certainly not the kind of man who deserves someone like Sienna.
She’ll be grateful, one day, that I cut her loose. That I protected her from something she thought she wanted. She’ll meet someone kinder, gentler?—
The thought of another man touching her makes me feel feral, makes me want to lock her in a fucking room so that no one looks at or touches her but me. Which is just another reason why I need to end this.
She’s not meant to be possessed by someone so violent.
“Did you let Sienna know where we’re going?” Konstantin asks, and my jaw tightens.
“I talked to her.” I holster a gun on my thigh. “When I come back, I’ll deal with the divorce.”
Konstantin snorts. “Still stuck on that?”
“I’m not good for her,” I repeat, counting bullets. “You know that?—”
“Bullshit—”
“I have nothing to offer her?—”
"Protection. Loyalty. Love, if you'd stop being such a stubborn bastard about it." Konstantin’s mouth twists, and I look up sharply at him.
Love. The word hangs in the air between us like a loaded gun.
I've never said it to anyone, least of all her, but hearing it out loud makes something twist in my chest. Is that what this is?
This consuming need to keep Sienna safe, to make her smile, to hear her say my name in that breathy way she does when I'm inside her?
"It doesn't matter," I say, turning away from him. "After tonight, the threat will be gone. She can go back to her life."
"The men are ready," Konstantin says after a long moment. "We leave in ten minutes."
I nod, checking my weapons one final time. This is what I'm good at. Violence. Death. Keeping people like Sienna and Adam safe from the monsters in the dark, even if it means that I’m one of those monsters myself.
"Damian." Konstantin's voice stops me at the door. "When this is over, when Giovanni Russo is dead and buried, think about what you really want. Not what you think you deserve, but what you want."
I don't answer him, even though I know what he’s saying is coming from a place of love itself, the love of a man who has been as close to me as a brother all these years.
I can't. Because what I want is upstairs, probably crying because of the things I said to her. What I want is a life I gave up on years ago, one that I buried so deep I thought it was dead. I thought I didn’t want a wife or a family or any of what I would have called bullshit, but it turns out that one woman changed all of it.
She changed me. But I can’t change the world we live in to make it safe enough for her.
The drive to the warehouse is silent, twenty men in four cars, all of us focused on the job ahead. I've done this countless times before, but tonight feels different. Tonight feels final, like more than just the Russo threat is ending.
The safe house sits on the edge of the industrial district, surrounded by empty lots and abandoned buildings.
It’s not the kind of safe house I would think Giovanni would normally hole up in—too dirty, too old, and used for him to feel comfortable—which means we’ve been putting enough pressure on him to make him hide like a rat in a hole.
That makes me feel good, pleasure licking through my veins at the idea of him running scared.
Konstantin’s voice crackles through the linked radio channel. “Remember, men. Tight formation, don’t split off unless absolutely necessary. Give them a wall to fight against. And no survivors. Leave Russo to Damian and me.”
We move in coordinated silence, twenty shadows slipping through the dark. I take point with Konstantin, my weapon ready, my mind focused on the task at hand. This is what I was born for. This is what I'm good at.
This is what Victor Abramov trained me to be. A killer. A monster. The thing that goes bump in the night.
Not a husband or a father or a lover.
The first guard goes down with a knife to the throat, never knowing what hit him. The second manages to get off a shot before I put two in his chest, but by then it's too late. We're inside, and there's nowhere for them to run.
The safe house looks like absolute shit, rundown furniture and curtained-over windows, nothing like the kind of place I’m sure Giovanni Russo would rather be.
In the back of my mind, I’m concerned that it might be bad intelligence again, but we’re here, and there’s nothing but to fight our way through this and hope our target is at the end of it.
The gunfire erupts like thunder in the confined space, muzzle flashes lighting up the darkness in strobing bursts.
I move through the chaos with practiced efficiency, my body operating on pure instinct honed by years of violence.
A man rushes me from the left, and I put two bullets in his chest before he can raise his weapon.
Another tries to flank me from behind an overturned table, and I drop him with a headshot that paints the wall behind him red, splattering over the stained drywall like modern art.
The acrid smell of gunpowder fills the air, mixing with the metallic scent of blood and the stench of fear. Men are screaming, some in pain, others barking orders that no one follows. It's chaos, but it's the kind of chaos I understand. The kind I was molded for .
Konstantin moves beside me in tandem, his movements fluid and deadly.
We've fought together so many times that we don't need words, don't need signals.
We know each other's rhythms, each other's blind spots. When he goes left, I go right. When he reloads, I cover him. I know if I fall, he’ll kill whoever puts a bullet in me, and vice versa. It’s a brotherhood that goes beyond words, forged with blood and years of loyalty.