65. Vasiliy
We’ve made no progress in the absence of my wife.
This family takes the too many cooks in the kitchen expression way too seriously.
Maybe their dynamic worked when Sasha was alive to preside over their hierarchy, but without him, they’re reduced to an angry mob spouting out competing plans.
Octavia sent me down to keep them in line, but I have no idea how to carry out that task.
I’m an interrogator. I do quiet basements and careful slices. If I raise my voice, it’s only to bark out a laugh that lives and dies inside my walls.
“Look, here,” Nik says, pointing at the creased paper blueprint spread wide over the table. “We split our men. Half go in through the main gate, and half will attack from the servants’ entrance in the back—”
Ben’s fist slams against the table, crinkling the paper. “If you don’t quit pitching a raid, I’m kicking you out! It’s too late to attack tonight, anyway.”
“Then we’ll go tomorrow. We still have one more day before he’ll be expecting us.”
Ivan glances toward me with irritation. I shake my head, assessing the room.
Ben and Nik hover over the Popov property blueprints, scouring them as if the paper will reveal something vital with enough attention.
Alex sits a few chairs down from me, stone-faced.
He’s barely spoken since his youngest son’s finger was dropped onto the dining room table, a few inches from where I eat breakfast. Maksim alternates between pacing the room and gazing out the dark window.
“Only a fool wouldn’t be prepared for an early strike,” Ivan says, picking his nails.
“Unless you have a better plan, you can shut the fuck up,” Nik snaps. Destabilizing, indeed.
“Careful. It’s my soldiers you’re playing with.” Ivan levels him a dangerous look I’ve only seen him bring out a handful of times. It’s enough to make Nik’s face blanch. “Besides, I believe we’re still waiting for your Pakhan’s final word, no?”
“There’s only so long we can hold off on making the tough decisions,” Ben says, stepping away from the map. “Besides, she doesn’t have the best track record with handling stress. The last time she disappeared upstairs, it was weeks before Vasiliy managed to drag her out of bed…”
I rise from my seat so fast that the chair flips backwards behind me. I’m already across the room when he realizes his mistake. He shuffles away, backtracking.
“Hey, I’m just sa—”
My hand wraps around his throat before slamming his skull into the table. Rage flickers so bright in my sight that I nearly black out. Everyone shouts, lurching forward to intercede. Ben squirms in my hold.
He’s her family. You can’t kill him.
But I want to.
Badly.
“You are so unbelievably lucky that she didn’t hear you say those words,” I growl, slamming his cheek back down to the wood and leaning in. “If you ever spew that venom again, I’ll spend hours making you wish you were dead.”
His hateful eyes glare up at me, but not a single sound leaves his lips.
The fact that he could stomach saying something like that about his cousin, after all of the resources she brought them and the grief she’s shoved down to function, makes me physically sick.
He doesn’t deserve her. None of these fuckers deserves her.
“You going to let go of me?” he bites out, nails digging into my wrist as if it will loosen my hold on his throat.
The sound of approaching footsteps is what has me releasing the little shit. He stumbles away, rubbing at the mark left behind on his skin.
Octavia storms into the room before any of us says another word. The tension in here is so thick it’s a wonder we’re not choking, but she walks directly to the blueprints on the table, oblivious to the lingering violence. There’s a leather book clutched in her hand, and a peculiar look in her eyes.
I walk over, desperate to be near her. My racing heart slows the moment my palm slides around her waist.
“Where did you find that?”
Shockingly, the question comes from Alex, who’s been frozen even throughout my assault on his son a minute earlier. He’s staring at the little book in her hand.
“Dad’s office.” She folds the cover open, revealing a page filled with inky scrawls and confusing little pictures.
“What is it?” Nik asks, stepping over. Even Ivan climbs out of his chair.
“He’d been planning on gifting those to you,” Alex says so quietly, the words are nearly inaudible.
“What is it?” Nik repeats.
Octavia pays him no heed, sliding the book over our blueprint plans until it’s in the spot she wants. Then she traces a finger across the drawing in the book until she reaches a line on the blueprint below.
“Pen,” she murmurs, eyes glued to the page.
“Someone get me a fucking pen,” I call out, extending my open hand. “Now!”
A body scrambles forward, dropping the writing utensil into my grip, but I don’t look away from her.
She takes the pen from me and presses the tip to the paper below her book, then draws a short, curved line along the first floor’s layout.
When she’s done, her pen falls to the table, and she glances up at me with a new fire in her eyes.
“Mom left a way out.”
My lips part. I look between her and that curved line. She hands me the journal, pointing to the neat diagram. Is that…? It’s a miniature version of our blueprints. There’s an identical line to the one she drew on our version, with a small note written beside it.
Twenty minutes when the ovens are loud.
I look back up, finding her attention already locked on me.
A way out.
She found a new way out. Which means, she also found us a new way in.
I’m so shocked, it’s all I can do to stare back.
“I don’t understand. What’s going on?” Ben asks, stepping far too close for my liking. I’ll never forget what he said as long as I live. I don’t care if the stress of his brother’s kidnapping drove the attack. One day, when this is all over, I’ll dole out the punishment he deserves.
“Thirty years ago, Popov’s new wife became fixated on renovating his house,” Octavia explains.
“My mother managed to create a pathway out of the property during the rebuilding process. They never found it. She used it for years to sneak out without anyone noticing. And she used it the night she ran away with me.”
Ivan’s trademark smirk falters as he shoves his way to the blueprints. When he glances back up to me, the same thought is flickering between us. This could actually work.
“Seriously? We’re going to trust a thirty-year-old drawing?” Ben’s brows lower.
“The diagram is twenty-one years old,” Octavia snaps. “It’s dated to her final year alive. Neither her father nor my dad figured out how she got away, so Popov wouldn’t have known where the weakness lay. There’s a good chance that the passage survives.”
My hand squeezes her waist. This is something.
“How does the passage work?” Ivan asks.
“There’s a gap in the lining of the kitchen pantry,” Octavia says.
“She’d wait for the ovens to turn on for dinner preparations so there was enough noise to remain hidden.
The opening leads to a small area that used to be part of the old kitchen.
They blocked it off, but it was never properly filled.
That kitchen had a storage closet right…
” she searches the blueprints, stopping with her finger on a junction that’s supposed to be a wall.
“There. But here’s the thing. The way they extended the back of the house, it actually opens up right here, a few feet from the back gate. ”
Everyone steps closer, crowding the table to catch a glimpse of her finger tapping the map.
“So, we send someone in alone?” Ivan asks, scratching his jaw in thought.
Octavia shakes her head. “Too risky. Back in the day, that part of the gate might have been left unguarded, but he’s expecting our attack. There’s no way it’s still bare. Our best bet is launching a series of distractions before the passage is used.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?” Nik asks with interest.
“Simple. He’s expecting a bride.”
My stomach drops.
“I’ll go in first to meet my husband-to-be. His note demanded I show at seven PM sharp, so dinner will surely be involved.”
And the ovens will be on. I suck in an impressed breath at her foresight.
“Then we’ll split our men and attack from both sides, just as he expects us to. No one will notice a single man hopping the back fence in a shootout. I’ll be keeping tabs on Popov while our inside man gets to Kirill.”
We’re all staring at Octavia now. This is the best plan anyone has dropped onto the table, but despite her brilliance, I can’t support it. The entire thing hinges on her walking into the enemy’s house and offering herself up as a distraction.
My strong, beautiful woman, reduced to a fucking distraction.
“That will get us to Kirill, but we’ll still be fighting his men with a fifty-fifty shot of winning the territory from the outside,” Ivan muses, folding his arms over his chest.
“Not at all,” Octavia says. “We’ll give our inside man a head start through the secret entrance, but then we’ll start slowly slipping our forces inside using the hidden route. Before long, we’ll have the advantage of infiltration and finish the fight from inside his walls.”
It’s brilliant.
But bile still rises in my throat.
“And how will you get out?” I ask, burrowing into her gaze. I can tell that there’s something she’s holding back, but I’m not sure what.
“I’ll stall. When the action starts, and he’s distracted by the fight, I’ll find somewhere to hide out until our forces work their way inside. If all else fails, I could take my mother’s passage.”
It’s still there. That slight twitch of her brows. The clench of her fingers. She’s holding something back.
“Now this is promising,” Ivan says with a decisive nod. “Let’s start running some specs.”
Alex jumps into action, pulling out the headcounts of our soldiers. Nik nods his head, still staring at the pen stroke on the blueprint. Even Ben withholds his idiotic refutes.
But I can’t move.
All I can do is pull her tighter against my body and try to breathe through my panic.