35. Viktor
VIKTOR
Iwas almost to the mansion to drop off Adrik and Alexei when all our phones started going off at the same time. It didn’t have to mean something bad. We were all kept up-to-date about what was going on.
I didn’t answer my phone since I was at the wheel, but Adrik answered his, sitting next to me in the passenger seat.
“Elena,” he said before answering on speaker, to let us know who it was.
Before he could say any kind of greeting, she frantically spoke. “Adrik, he’s bleeding. He’s bleeding out. There’s blood everywhere.”
“He is alive, Elena.”
My heart lurched at Wren’s voice.
Cool, calm, and mostly collected.
Every protective instinct bombarded me.
“What the fuck is going on?” Adrik roared. “Where—”
“Viktor’s house,” Mila answered. “The situation is secure.”
“What situation?” I roared. I pulled on the steering wheel sharply and sped to get home.
Blood? A man was shot? The others were there and they were alive and so was this man… “What the fuck is going on? Wren? Wren?”
“Hurry,” she said. I didn’t know if she was talking to me or someone else, but I was.
Panicking and hating that I wasn’t there to help, I tried to speed as fast as I could to get there.
“Elena, he will be fine,” Wren said.
Elena sobbed, trying to tell Adrik about the blood and other incoherent strings of fear that I couldn’t follow.
“What the fuck is going on!” I roared. “Wren!”
“Paul is shot. The guards on the property have said it’s clear but—”
“Shot? How? Who?”
“The guards have said it’s clear,” she repeated, as if she was determined to stay cool and calm no matter what. “Elena, it will be okay.”
“But he’s bleeding,” she cried.
“He’s going to go deaf if you keep screaming,” Carina muttered.
“What the—”
“Just get here,” Wren said, speaking over Elena melting down. “And watch out for the ambulance.”
“Wait!” Mila protested. “We need to move the—”
“No,” Carina said. “Let them handle the body when they come, and we will handle the EMTs.”
Adrik stayed on the line, trying to calm down Elena until I pulled into my driveway.
The SUV that Elena drove was parked out front. So was the backup car that followed her and the other women.
The front door was open, though, and I didn’t waste a second to slam the brakes, park the car, and sprint up there.
“Wren!” I pumped my arms, running to reach her. But I couldn’t have anticipated the scene literally right at the door.
If I’d gone any faster, I would’ve skidded in the puddle of blood.
Paul lay there, unconscious. He was propped against Wren as she pressed her hand to a wound on his chest. Elena paced off to the side. Mila compressed another wound while a guard assigned to Elena helped tie off another shot.
“What the fuck?”
My heart hammered at the gory sight. At the blood. Paul, my old, faithful man, hurt. Wren distressed but in charge.
“Come here,” Adrik said, pulling Elena to him and walking her out of the foyer. “Come here. Breathe. I’m here. Breathe. Let’s go to the pat—”
“No!”
Wren, Carina, and Mila shouted it in unison.
“That’s not… ideal,” Carina said, going with Adrik and Elena to usher her in another direction where she could wheeze and damn-near hyperventilate.
I dropped to my knees, ready to help. To protect. To save.
“Smithson,” Wren said, looking up at me.
That was all I needed to know.
“The property is clear,” a guard told me. “We’ve searched the premises and no one else is here.”
I nodded at him, unable to take my eyes off Wren. She didn’t look hurt, but with so much blood everywhere… I shook my head in disbelief. Stunned this was happening. Shocked that something like this could occur when I wasn’t here to protect her.
“What…” I swallowed, my mouth so dry with how these emotions put me in a chokehold.
“I was upstairs and heard a sound. I grabbed the gun in the nightstand and came down. He lunged at me on the stairs and I…” Her throat flexed as she strained to swallow. “I…”
I nodded, putting my hand over hers and taking over compressing the wound.
“So he’s back there. And I found Paul up here. He used a silencer so I didn’t hear when he…”
I nodded again, hating the fear in her eyes. I loathed the terror that lurked in her green gaze.
“I yelled for help, assuming a guard would still be around. And Elena and the others were just coming back over because they thought I’d want… company… and then the guards with them made sure no one else had trespassed.”
She trailed off, looking in the direction of the hallway that led back into the house more from the foyer. “They called for an ambulance and the others are, uh, handling the other mess.”
I heaved out a deep breath, looking her over again as the lights and sirens approached. The sounds of the emergency vehicle were sharp and loud, but I welcomed the sight of help on its way.
“You’re not hurt?” I checked again, unable to even start forgiving myself if she was wounded at all. “He didn’t hurt you?”
She shook her head, biting her lip with a worried frown. “No. He didn’t hurt me. He barely even had a chance to grab me. I knocked him down, and before he could shoot, I did.”
I backed out as the EMTs came in. The paramedics moved with the urgency they were trained to operate with, and as the foyer grew more crowded with too many bodies, I retreated.
They took over compressing the wounds. Mila took her hand away and scooted out of the way.
Wren edged back to the wall, and I joined her.
“Should you go with him and make sure he’s okay?” she asked as I grabbed her in my arms.
“No.” I shook my head. Alexei was already on it, still here and helping with the chaos.
“I’ll stay with him,” my cousin told us gruffly. He glanced at his sister-in-law. “Unless you want me to wait until Lev is here, Mila?”
She shook her head, looking at me and Wren covered in blood, then down at her own hands. “No. I’m okay. We’ll try to start cleaning up.”
“He’s on his way,” Alexei said before rushing out the door to follow the gurney that held Paul.
They loaded him up and closed the back doors to the van before they sped off. Lights continued to spin, but in the brightness of the sunshine glaring down on the earth, it wasn’t that noticeable. The sirens faded as the ambulance sped off.
Still, we stayed there and waited. Watching. Staring into the void of where the ambulance had been.
Adrik and Elena were further in the house and their voices carried. I held Wren to me as she caught her breath, clinging to my arms. In the other direction, I heard the men who were already handling Smithson’s body.
That motherfucking…
I relished the fresh wave of anger, the white-hot, molten fury that traveled through my blood and ignited my heartrate into a fast tempo. With every beat, my rage escalated more and more.
He dared to come here.
To my home.
To break in and shoot Paul.
To attack my woman…
“I killed him,” Wren whispered.
I nodded, holding her closer and trying to calm down.
She had. I had faith in that. If anyone else on this earth could hate that agent and want him dead as much as I did, it was her.
I couldn’t tell if she was saying it so bluntly because she felt how tense I was, but it didn’t matter.
What mattered now was that she could know that she had my full support to move past this.
To overcome the rush of adrenaline that prompted her to be the badass she was, to not wait for me to defend herself but to prove she was strong and resilient to handle danger herself, too.
I tucked my head down, resting my chin on the top of hers. My beard caught strands of her red tresses and I closed my eyes to let her presence soothe me. To ground me. To calm me down with the fact that she was unharmed. That we were alive and together.
And that the chapter of that agent was closed.
She’d killed him and he would never be able to bother her again. Never be able to be bribed and weaken the Bratva again.
“Maybe we can…” Mila spoke up, like snapping out of a trance as she hugged herself with one arm. “Maybe we should all clean up.”
Wren nodded, coming to like she had been in a trance. “Yes.”
I guided them both toward the other side of the house, away from where the men handled the scene of what Smithson earned for daring to threaten and endanger Wren.
I would let them handle it all. For now, it was critical that we decompress and clean up ourselves.
I showed Mila to a bathroom near the patio’s entrance to the pool, but before Wren and I could leave her, Lev’s voice reached us as he arrived, looking for Mila.
“Maksim’s with Carina and Adrik and Elena,” he said, squeezing into the bathroom and checking Mila like she’d been hurt.
I backed Wren out of there with me, letting him have the peace of mind to see that his wife was okay. Perhaps shaken, but okay.
“She’s… she’s had a hard life, hasn’t she?” Wren asked quietly as I led her to another bathroom on the first floor. It was technically a guest suite but it was never used. I never had guests—except for her.
“She has,” I replied.
“She’s too calm. She had to have been traumatized before,” she stated neutrally.
“Yes, she has,” I answered, aware of how she’d been beaten as a slave in the Cartels. And at the camp where Yusef Antonov was training sadists and killers to do Gregori’s dirty work.
Wren shook her head as I led her to the shower. “I won’t pry.”
“She’ll tell you,” I said, knowing she was just talking for the sake of filling the silence.
“Yeah,” she whispered. She stood there while I turned the water on, then took off her shirt and then mine.
“I killed him, Viktor.” She peered up at me as I got us into the shower. I held her close, letting the water rush down over us and start rinsing Paul’s blood away.
“You did.”
“I’ve never killed someone before.”
Fuck.
I braced myself for her tears. For guilt. For the sorrow of taking a life.
“I wish I could do it again.” She set her hands on my chest, letting out a deep breath. “I wish he could come back to life so I could kill him all over again.”
I stroked my hand over her back and held her until we were calm enough in the quiet of the shower to wash off the blood.
She explained again how it had all gone down, and I admired her more for keeping her head high and not falling into a hysterical fit like Elena had.
She was softer than the others, and I was glad that Wren could be this strong and bold to accept that she wasn’t inherently bad for taking a life, and that it had been necessary.
A guard brought us a change of clothes, and by the time we were dressed and had exited, all traces of Smithson’s body were gone.
Our cleanup crews were notorious for getting the job done well.
And fast. But I didn’t miss how Wren glanced in the direction of the stairs when we met to join the others in the great room.
“He’s stable,” Adrik said. “I just got a call from Alexei.”
“Good,” Wren replied, holding a glass of water between her hands.
Carina and Maksim had taken Elena to the mansion already. Both women needed to get back to the babies that the nannies were watching over—something they didn’t often allow for long.
“Will Elena be okay?” Wren asked.
Adrik nodded. “She will. She’s not as… hardy as you two. Or Carina.” He stood there and looked between both Mila and Wren. “Are you handling it okay?”
Wren nodded, and Mila glanced at Wren before giving him the same gesture.
“I’m sorry I killed him—”
“No, you’re fucking not,” I said for Wren, cutting her off sharply.
“—before anyone could question him about his ties to Gregori,” she finished saying slowly.
I sighed, keeping my arm around her.
“Safety matters first,” Adrik said plainly. “And I thank you for taking him out.”
A guard came to speak with us, explaining that Smithson had tased a guard at the back of the property and snuck in along the garden wall. Surveillance cameras showed that he had been watching where Paul was, tracking him so he could get past him and get into the house.
“And it just so happened when we weren’t around,” I growled.
Adrik nodded. “Makes me wonder if Rico Johnson or the Konstantins are in on this.”
I agreed. They were the ones we’d expected to see today, and since the politician hadn’t been where he was supposed to be, it seemed like it could’ve been nothing but a diversion.
I explained that to Wren and Mila and Lev, but once Alexei arrived after staying to make sure Paul was recovering in surgery and that guards could stand in the hallway to protect him, Wren seemed anxious to get up.
Maybe to pace. Walk off the emotional turmoil. Whatever.
I watched her as she stood, excusing herself to go to the bathroom.
From my spot on the couch, I watched her hesitate slightly and look down at the floor where Smithson had been shot.
“I’ll go…” Mila stood. “I’ll go and keep her company if she wants.”
I nodded, grateful for her. Mila was quieter than the others and slow to come out of her shell, and it was a big step for her to want to help Wren after that scare.
It bothered me how Wren hesitated at the steps.
I’m going to knock them all down. I’ll change it all so you never have to think about it again. Never look there and remember fearing for your life when I should’ve been here to protect you.
“Good thing she knew how to handle a gun,” Alexei said.
I nodded vaguely, almost zoning out now that it seemed like I could.
“I am grateful that she did,” I replied, “but I am not willing to ever let her come near danger like that again.” I rested my elbows on my knees.
“I’m increasing guards. More security around the entire property.
She needs to be trained even more to protect herself in case something worse could ever happen. I…”
I blew out a deep breath, unafraid to let my brother and cousins see me this emotional.
“I can’t bear the thought of losing her.”
Adrik cleared his throat, and I lifted my head to face him.
“If you want the highest protection possible for her, you need to consider marrying her, Viktor.”
I smirked. “You think I need to consider it?” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ring box that I’d grabbed that morning from the mansion when I picked him up.
The emerald ring nestled in the velvet lining was a family heirloom, a rare piece of artwork with an emerald to match her eyes, surrounded by smaller diamonds.
And I couldn’t wait to see if she would accept my offer to stay indefinitely, as my wife.