Chapter 28
Artem
If I could have done it sooner, I would have, just so she wouldn’t have to go through something like this. I was supposed to wait few more minutes, but I couldn’t be patient anymore. I gave in to the voices that lost control when they heard her love declaration and... I gave my men the signal.
The next second, a symphony of bullets explodes around us.
Cormac shoots Serioja, and his partner starts eliminating the others, then I hear Oliver screaming in pain.
I was clear when I told them I wanted those two alive, but I didn’t specify in what condition.
As for my former subordinate, I don’t think I was too precise about the state of his pulse either, but I did specify that Oliver is mine.
Ours .
I’m going to have so much fun with him, but for now I’m too focused on the woman I rush toward the second the first bullet is fired.
And I don’t mean the one from the gun between her fingers. The man infiltrated by the Irish made sure the revolver was loaded with a blind bullet, which is why I allowed myself to be so calm and tried so hard to make Ekaterina understand that she had to trust me.
Of course she didn’t, and she forgot the words I told her not even a week ago.
I wrap my arms around her and lift her from the chair, carrying her out of the room like a bride.
“Extraction, now!” I yell at the two men whose mission is to get anyone still alive out.
Meaning Oliver or Serioja. The ones I’ll become very good friends with as soon as my queen is safe.
Her fingers are still locked around the gun now trembling against her chest. She’s in shock, and I try to get her out of this nightmare as fast as possible, so I can calm her down.
“You’re with me, dusha moya. You’re safe. It’s over.”
But aside from these words, I can’t help her with anything more, because we still haven’t escaped this hell. On the stairs leading to the floor above, where loud gunfire can be heard, we run into my two brothers, along with Dimitri.
One has a focused, solemn expression, while the other smiles brightly when he sees me, smearing even more blood across his face as he wipes it with the back of his leather-gloved hand.
“I thought we were supposed to wait a little longer! Did you find out who’s behind them?” Yar asks me.
“He gave me a few details, but he isn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to tell me more. They were in a hurry to finish us, and I lost my patience.”
In my arms, Katya is still trembling, and every shiver of hers is like a knife to my heart.
“I need to get her out of here right now,” I tell them, climbing the stone steps while they flank me.
“Wait for the boys to clear the way, then we leave.”
I give Yaroslav a flat look. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
He presses his lips together and immediately speaks into his earpiece. “Grenades and everything you’ve got. Wipe it all out. In thirty seconds, we want to be at the cars.”
I look at him, still displeased. “Ten seconds.”
He exhales like a frustrated bull, furious that I’m forcing him to accept the almost impossible situation.
“I’m sure they’ll cover us until we reach the cars if you insist on not waiting.”
“I insist,” I add, just as harshly.
Everyone around me feels the coldness of my voice. Because any trace of warmth inside me is directed toward the fragile being in my arms, whom I hold as gently as I can, but also tightly enough to shield her from any other danger.
I rush toward the exit, focused mostly on her, but also on everything around me, even though they make sure we aren’t hit by the bullets still whistling through the air.
I pull her closer, her face pressing against my throat, and keep walking without stopping. In all this chaos, where Death swishes her black dress among the bodies she leaves breathless, my words of endearment never leave the angel I carry toward somewhere quieter.
“I’m here, my soul. I will never allow you to be hurt again. Forgive me. You should never have been here.”
We reach the car one of my men brings right in front for us, and after he gets out, Yar gets behind the wheel, Sasha beside him, while I get in the back with Ekaterina in my arms.
I look at Dima when he closes my door on my side.
I don’t like leaving him behind, but through the window I see Cormac appear beside him at once, and I know the man provided by the Irish is as good as my right hand.
The Irish assured me of that from the day I was told they had already infiltrated someone in Oliver’ group, who would help me when things spiraled out of control.
I knew it would come to this, and that was exactly the plan: to get caught and placed in front of the man who betrayed me, hoping to find out more about our new enemies.
I had a suspicion about who was feeding information to the Prescott family, but I had no proof.
And time was not on my side, because Ekaterina no longer had the patience to stay hidden in an apartment I hadn’t known Serioja had discovered.
It seems he followed me on one of the days when I wasn’t hiding anymore either, and managed to hack the entrance.
After the wedding, I was forced to release that rat Oliver, just enough to see who he would turn to afterward, and then to expose myself so I could be captured.
I suspected that, aside from a few superficial wounds, nothing else would happen to me, because I already had too many people among the mercenaries hired by Oliver Prescott and his father.
Two idiots.
They behaved like novices who were one step away from announcing on the news that they were hiring people for professional killing. Every mercenary knew how to get under their umbrella, and getting someone inside their teams was almost laughably easy.
They paid extremely well, and that was this family’s greatest advantage. Using their money and the political power they had recently gained, they had bought themselves an army designed to take down any mafia organization.
Or at least, that’s how it seems at first.
They tried it with us.
We proved they don’t stand a chance.
The problem is that I still don’t know who the fuck is the man behind all of it. Because something tells me Oliver is only a puppet controlled by someone else.
After we escape the old manor – one of the almost abandoned estates belonging to the Prescott family – the car disappears along England’s green roads.
According to my brothers, we’re almost an hour and a half from London, somewhere up North.
Enough time for me to feel the woman of my heart sink into a fragile sleep, one scattered with sobs and occasional small spasms, as if she’s dreaming of things that frighten her.
It’s only my fault, and that thought tears through me like nothing else ever has.
When Cormac told me Oliver had found my secret place and had brought Ekaterina at the manor, I asked him to intervene at once and stop the whole charade. But he tried to convince me that nothing would happen to her and that he would personally step in if anyone got close to her.
Of course, he didn’t manage to change my mind. I was sure this whole experience would be traumatic for her, and she would suffer simply by being there.
But the man had orders from his own boss too, to carry on with the plan.
He knew about the Russian roulette and had already told me he’d replaced the bullet. The others’ weapons had been secretly emptied of real ammunition too, just like Serioja’s, who kept waving his guns so confidently in front of me.
I knew that, but I couldn’t tell Katya, otherwise the whole plan would have been destroyed far too early.
A plan I didn’t want to continue anyway, even though I was supposed to keep buying time and try to get more details about their mysterious leader.
I didn’t care anymore. I only wanted to get her out of there as fast as possible.
Just like now, when all I want is to take her home, this time somewhere I’ve never been before either, another safe house Yar handled.
I don’t let go of her. I kiss the crown of her head and her forehead slowly, caressing her nonstop, in a silence that begins from inside my mind.
Not even the voices are whispering anymore.
The car slowly stops in the underground parking lot of a skyscraper in central London. The Shard.
Looking at my brother questioningly, he just raises the corner of his mouth.
“Didn’t you say that the safest place is right under their eyes?” he whispers before getting out and opening my door.
Katya startles, frightened, no matter how slowly I try to get out, and her body tenses, visibly scared.
My lips immediately press to her temple, and I would do anything to see her calm again.
“Shh, dusha moya. I’m here. You’re safe.”
She doesn’t even look around, as if she’s afraid of what she might see, but she looks into my eyes.
“Everything is alright now,” I say as calmly as I can, though I’m frustrated that she had to go through something like this.
In the next moment, four soldiers from our organization appear, protecting us on all sides until we reach the large elevator, where two of them fit inside with us. Two remain downstairs, guarding the access door.
“The whole floor is ours,” he tells me quietly as we go up to the fifty-fifth floor.
I nod, still preserving a calm atmosphere, even though Katya isn’t asleep.
She seems so small and fragile that my arms would be capable of carrying her like this, like a bride, for the rest of my life. Especially since my embrace seems to soothe her with every second that passes.
When we enter the apartment, I don’t pay any attention to the space.
To me, no house feels like home if she isn’t beside me.
It doesn’t matter how much it costs or what expensive decorations exist.
It could be a ruined house with cracked walls and, as long as she is with me, I know I will turn it into a castle for my queen.
Sasha lingers behind, to admire the city visible through the panoramic windows, while Yar leads me toward one of the bedrooms. He shows me the door to the en-suite bathroom and whispers that he’ll bring me some clothes to change into.