Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Eva
Yaro’s SUV
The SUV’s engine hums low, vibrating beneath me as I shift against the hard uneven floorboard. My wrists burn where the zip ties cut into my skin, plastic biting at bone.
Every bump in the road slams my hip against the seat frame, but I barely register the pain anymore.
I can’t see much—just flashes of dim lights and blurred shadows through the cracks between the seats.
Bracing my spine against the center console I suck in a breath, and slam my heel against the side window as hard as I can.
His reaction is instant.
“Enough.”
The metallic click of a safety disengaging cuts through the air like a blade and I freeze, slowly turning my eyes toward the front seat. A pistol angles downward—black, sleek, and merciless—and lands cold and heavy against the side of my head.
“You should behave,” Yaro says. Calm. Almost amused.
My breath catching in my throat, I slowly pull my feet back down to the floorboard. Satisfied, he withdraws the gun and shifts his focus back to the road ahead. One hand on the wheel, the other with the pistol resting casually in his lap like he hadn’t just threatened to blow my brains out.
We drive in silence for a long stretch. My heart pounds hard inside my chest, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of asking questions or begging for my life.
I know him well enough to know he would get amused satisfaction out of either.
I can feel him watching me in the rearview mirror.
Waiting. Enjoying the moment of power over me.
Finally, he breaks the silence, speaking up when I don’t give him the satisfaction he is craving.
“I bet you’re wondering why I’m doing this.” His voice is low, conversational. Almost friendly. “If it’s some bullshit about protecting Tolya, or keeping him focused, or eliminating a suspected Italian sleeper spy.”
He chuckles darkly. “But I’ll tell you that it’s nothing quite so noble.”
I inch my face toward the bottom of the window, trying to catch any hint of where we are. It’s no use. The angle’s wrong, the floor too low for me to see anything without my movements being blatantly obvious.
Yaro continues, his voice darkening. “You think I care that you’re fucking up his judgment? That you’re softening him? That you’re in the way?”
He snorts, then glances down at me and I freeze again. His smile cold.
“No, Eva. This is personal.”
When he turns back to the road the SUV slows, gliding onto a more uneven road. I can hear gravel crunches under the tires.
“You want to know the real reason?” His tone turns venomous, and his grip tightens on the wheel. “Because he took something from me.”
My stomach coils.
“My father,” he mutters. “He was the Pakhan’s personal bodyguard. Loyal to the end. He died protecting Tolya during a botched deal at the beginning of his reign years ago. Took two bullets to the chest so Tolya could crawl away. And of course as the faithful son I got to take up his mantle.”
He grips the steering wheel like he wants to strangle it. “You know how hard it’s been watching his six all these years when all I want to do is put a bullet between his eyes?”
The SUV jerks slightly as he pulls off the road.
“All we got afterward was money. A neatly packaged apology with a wad of blood money inside. Like it could make up for the fact that the only man who gave a damn about us was dead. My mother cried for a week straight. Then she stopped crying. She stopped everything.”
He swallows hard.
“She died six months later. The doctors said her heart gave out from heart disease, but I know better. She died of a broken heart. Forty-three years they’d been together. Forty-three long years. She just couldn’t go on without him.”
The sky outside was growing darker, shadows stretching into the cab of the SUV.
“Tolya tried to buy his way out of what he owed. Out of guilt. Out of shame. Out of responsibility. He thought money would cover the cost of losing my family. We are raised to be hard, unfeeling. But the truth is we are just like everyone else.”
He finally looks at me again—really looks. His eyes are flat, glinting with triumph.
“But now it’s my turn. For years I’ve bided my time. Waiting for the moment I could take something that mattered. And then you happened.” His smile returns, slower, more cruel. “I see how he looks at you. The way his voice softens. The way he touches you.”
The SUV pulls into what feels like another turn, swaying slightly. Gravel still kicking up on the undercarriage.
“He loves you,” Yaro says matter-of-factly. “He probably doesn’t even know it yet. But I do, I’ve seen it.”
“And now I get to kill what he loves. Just like he did to me. I was going to wait, you know.” He doesn’t look at me this time, just keeps his eyes on the dark road ahead. “I told myself I’d wait until you had a child. His child. Then I’d kill it.”
I recoil, breath catching.
“That would’ve been the sweetest revenge, don’t you think?” His tone is maddeningly casual. “To make him watch the thing he loved most in the world die slowly. To know he created it… only to lose it.”
He glances at me in the rearview mirror, something unhinged lurking behind his dark eyes. “But then I saw the two of you these past few days.”
A bitter smirk curls at the edge of his mouth.
“Saw the way he softens around you. Saw through the mask that he puts on, saw the truth of what you are to him.” He chuckles, the sound hollow. “And I realized… it doesn’t have to be his child at all. You’d do.”
A sick chill rolls through me.
“Killing you will be enough,” he says, calm, final. “It’ll shatter him. Rip out whatever humanity he’s found. And then, maybe… maybe I’ll let him live long enough to let it really settle in. Let it really hurt.”
I’m silent. Frozen. But my eyes are locked on his reflection, watching the tick of his jaw.
“I want him to understand exactly what he cost me,” he murmurs, quieter now. “The devastation that his survival brought to my family.”
He reaches across to the glovebox, taps it once, and then returns his hand to the wheel. “That’s why I’m taking you to the place where it all happened. This warehouse. You probably don’t know it, but he will.”
My stomach lurches.
“It’s where my father bled out, where he died,” Yaro continues, voice as sharp as a blade. “Protecting a boy who would grow into a man who thinks loyalty can be bought. Who thinks love is weak and useless. I’ll tell you something Eva, I don’t believe that. I think that love is what keeps us alive.”
He lets out a breath, slow and ragged. Almost with relief, like he finally has gotten something off his chest that he has been holding onto for years.
“And when Tolya finds what’s left of you there he’ll know this wasn’t random. This was intentional and that it was personal.”
He looks at me again as he pulls the SUV to a stop and throws it into park, smiling venomously.
“Tell me, Eva. When he held you last night… Did he say he loved you?”
I don’t answer, just stare at him with unfeeling eyes. I won’t give him that. I won’t give him the satisfaction of fear or recognition. But the way his smile widens tells me he already knows.