Chapter 11
Sasha
“Daddy!” Nina crawled out of the confining space, jumping into my arms.
“Thank God,” Mikhail whispered.
I’d never believed the panic room would be necessary, but it had been something encouraged by my father and uncle all those years ago when I’d contracted with an architect to design the perfect house.
I knew it was perhaps the only reason this was a happy reunion instead of another descent into tragedy.
“Oh, baby girl. My sweet girl.” While I tried to hide the angst from my voice, long ago becoming an expert at doing so, I’d be given a failing grade by the lovely elementary teacher turned pop star who’d risked her own life to save two little girls.
“My… God.” Mikhail wasted no time, moving halfway into the space and grabbing Emily.
Just then, Alexsey and Halle appeared in the doorway.
“My baby. My baby!” Halle was close to being frantic.
Emily wasn’t bothered in the least, her little face scrunched up as soon as Halle yanked her daughter into her arms.
“I’m fine, Mommy. We were playing a game. Tag. You’re it.”
Halle glanced into my eyes, hers narrowing with questions but thanking me silently.
Nodding, I tried to smile even as the rage continued to build. Who the hell had the audacity to do this?
“Unkie Mikhail. Will you take my little Ninja girl?” I asked as calmly as possible, already handing Nina off to him.
“Of course,” he said with a lilt in his tone. “So you were playing hide and seek, huh?”
“Yeah, Lainey is the best. Da bomb.”
My daughter was a handful, but at that moment, I was so thankful she wasn’t even the least bit flustered that I could barely think. How had Lainey managed to keep the girls from seeing the motherfucker on the floor?
Lainey appeared, peering up at us with wide eyes. There was a trickle of blood on her lip and redness under her eye. The motherfucker had hit her. “You’re safe,” she said as she locked eyes with mine. “But you’re hurt.”
Before she had a chance to object, I gathered her into my arms, pulling her to a standing position and against me. “My God, baby. I thought… The worst.”
The fear in her eyes kept my rage at the surface. “I was…”
“He hurt you.”
“Trust me. He’s not doing very well.” She gripped my arms and I could tell she was doing her best to keep it together.
“I know, little butterfly.” How had she managed to keep her shit together? As gently as possible, I pulled my thumb through the string of blood on her lip. “Fuck.”
“It’s okay.” She cupped my face; the tender way she touched where I’d been hit and the concern in her eyes while ignoring what she’d been through told me everything about her character.
She was everything good that everyone should aspire to.
“No, it is not okay, Lainey. I’m going to hunt down every single person involved in this.”
I held the back of her head and all I could think about was the possibility of losing the three beauties. Without thinking, I crushed my lips over hers, holding her so tightly it was possible she couldn’t breathe.
She rolled her arm over my shoulder, tugging on my hair, surrendering to my hold. As soon as she relaxed, I slipped my tongue inside. Just being able to taste her, to caress her shivering body was a gift. The taste of copper was a reminder of what I’d almost lost.
There was an old Russian proverb my mother had taught me a very long time before.
Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye.
Forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.
Maybe I had tried to forget the past or maybe I’d simply closed the door to it, ignoring who I was and the world that I’d had no choice being a part of.
It certainly wasn’t Lainey’s world and it had almost gotten her killed.
“Daddy. Let her breathe,” Nina said as if the voice of authority.
While the others laughed, I refused to let go, dominating her tongue in a way to tell her she was going nowhere.
Finally, Alexsey cleared his throat. “Maybe we should find a more comfortable place to hang out.”
Reluctantly, I broke the kiss, offering a smile when she pushed her hands against my shoulders.
“I’m fine. They’re fine. I would never let anything happen to them. They were so brave.” Her words were whispered, but I heard every one of them.
“I’m so sorry. I will never allow anything like this to happen to you again.”
She threw a look over her shoulder. “I tried to…”
“Shush. We’ll talk about it in a little while.”
Lainey sensed we were trying to keep the two children from realizing just how bad things had gotten.
“Baby. I’m going to ask Bristol to take you and Emily to their house to extend your birthday party.”
“Can Lainey join us?” Nina was so hopeful.
“In a little while. Okay? Don’t worry. We still have presents to open later.” I nodded to Mikhail who took the cue.
“Let me take you downstairs and find Bristol.” He had a look of relief on his face.
The two girls didn’t fight him as he led them to the door, but my baby girl looked back, breaking away and running toward Lainey.
As she’d done with me, she threw her arms around a woman I would now forever call a heroine.
“Best birthday ever.”
Lainey wrapped her arms around Nina’s head cradling her tightly, but I sensed the adrenaline rush that had turned her into a warrior was beginning to fade.
Nina raced off after that, which allowed us to take a deep breath.
Halle had tears in her eyes. We all knew her to be a tough girl. She was a firefighter, racing into a fire without thinking to save the man who’d driven her crazy. Yet as with Nina, the thought of anyone hurting her child could destroy even the strongest person.
With a heavy sigh of relief, she moved directly in front of Lainey. “Thank you for what you did.”
Lainey was shaking. “I just reacted to everything my father and brothers taught me.”
I noticed the bat just inside the panic room, bending down and yanking it into my hand. The girl could be on my softball team any day.
“How about I make our… unexpected guest more comfortable?” Aleksey offered, a sly smile on his face.
“Do it. We need him eager to answer questions,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
Halle backed away, glancing from Alexsey back to me then a quick darting look toward Lainey. She was obviously uncertain what should be said in front of our singer turned heroine.
“Why don’t you allow Halle to take you downstairs.”
Lainey sighed, brushing hair from her face. “What happened?”
“Somehow a gunman managed to break through our defenses.”
“How many people were hurt? I heard gunshots.” She darted her eyes back and forth.
“From what it seems, only those involved in breaking and entering were hurt.”
“They wanted the girls,” she offered.
I jutted my head forward. “How do you know that for certain?”
“The asshole who came up the stairs. After he burst into the room, that’s what he told me. That he wouldn’t hurt me and was only here for the girls.”
My jaw was clenched so tightly my teeth grated together. As expected, both Halle and Alexsey tensed.
He turned slightly away, grabbing his phone. Whoever he’d called immediately answered. “I need a cleanup crew at the house and a safehouse operational.”
“Well, it didn’t happen thanks to you, sweet butterfly. Just listen to me. Go with Halle. I’ll be down in a little while.”
Lainey had heard every word Alexsey had said. “A cleanup crew. Safehouse. You mean for…”
I pressed my finger across her lips. “Nothing for you to worry about. You’ll need to trust me.”
“I do trust you,” she whispered. “But don’t do anything stupid, Sasha. Please. Think of Nina. She needs you.”
“I am. I’m also thinking about you. You are… amazing.”
“Come on,” Halle said. “I don’t know about you, but I need a damn drink.”
I squeezed Lainey’s arm and the connection we shared shifted, what we’d both just faced an ugly reminder that we were from two different worlds. She looked away, but I’d caught the quick look on her face. She was questioning her judgment about being with me.
So would I.
The two women left and as soon as Lainey was out of my sight, I felt a sense of sadness, but allowed the fury to continue fueling me. I moved around Alexsey and into the bedroom, waiting until the girls had moved downstairs. “I need to know how the fuck this happened.”
“Calm down,” he told me. “We need to be very careful in the decisions we make.”
“Careful? We need to develop a plan of retaliation.”
“Agreed, but we can’t do that if we don’t know who and what we’re dealing with.”
With a disgusted shake of my head, I moved to the hallway with Alexsey following just as Jaxon made his way up the stairs. There were additional voices. More of our soldiers had been called to the house.
Jaxon’s face was grim. “All six men at the front are dead. Execution style. From what I could tell, there was no fight. The news gets worse.”
“How?” I growled.
“Two of the perpetrators got away. I think they stole a car. I tried to chase after them, but they were gone, even crashing into a vehicle parked on the street.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Fucking fantastic. What about the guests?” Their quick exit meant within minutes it would be known they hadn’t succeeded.
That would keep a target on our backs with almost no time to recover.
Maybe the attack had been meant as a warning and an abduction.
Weaknesses. My father and uncle had warned us that while family was important, once we had one our lives would change.
While I’d heard of women being used as pawns, held against their will to try to gain leverage, it was widely known only the most despicable humans used children.
That was an unwritten rule of men with integrity. Whoever we were dealing with had none.
My anger was at an all-time high.
“Nothing unusual.” Jaxon shook his head. “The entire takedown was well structured and if I had to guess, planned for several weeks. Someone has been paying attention to the various family activities. They knew when to hit where they had a chance of success.”