34. Chapter 30
Chapter 30
Nikolai
S even Years Ago
I blink into the darkness.
One eye won’t open, it’s too swollen.
Blood drips from my heaving chest. Every breath rattles with pain.
The room is pitch black, and it has been since they left me here.
I’m naked, bleeding. My hands are bound. My body won’t stop shivering.
A bloody hammer lies across from me in a pile of shattered glass.
The door opens. The light stings my eyes, but I’m too weak to move.
Aleksander walks in.
I pray for a bullet.
In silence, he comes to me. He kneels and releases me from my bondage. A blanket is wrapped around my shoulders. He helps me into a sitting position and sits next to me, soaking blood into his suit.
My blood.
Anton’s blood.
“Nikolai.” He calls to me. I find his face, but I don’t have the strength to speak.
Perhaps this isn’t Aleksander. Perhaps it’s Death.
“Ivan is dead.”
….
I shake my head with the last of my energy.
“I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. But it’s over now.”
Three days before Aleksander’s celebration.
Three days before the Opera.
“He’s awake.” Viktor’s voice finds me. It pulls me back to life.
I open my eyes, squinting against the bright light. Adrienne, Greyson, Aleksander, and Viktor look over at me with worried faces. Adrienne holds my hand, stroking it with her thumb as I drag myself back into the waking world.
“Am I dead?” I whisper in a hoarse voice.
“Very much alive.” Says Greyson with a grim look on his face.
Adrienne pushes water to my lips. “Drink! You need hydration.” She doesn’t take no for an answer, despite me being almost at death’s door.
They lean back, watching me like I’m a newborn.
“What happened?”
“You were shot.” Growls Viktor. “Your downstairs neighbour got worried when they heard the gunshot and called an ambulance. They saved your life.”
Memories float in and out in a haze, reality mixing with flashes of white.
Alek watches me from the back of the room. He’s silent and his sharp features are gaunt, like a mournful statue.
Adrienne snaps her eyes to Greyson. “He needs food! Come with me.”
Greyson follows along, the two of them disappearing from my bedside. Aleksander and Viktor share a dark gaze.
The tap of my memory drips, filling me up. Boris flashes through my mind, his words following his face. My phone, covered in my own blood. Isabella leaving me for dead.
My eyes meet Aleksander’s, then Viktor’s. They don’t look away.
“What happened?” I growl, propping myself up with a groan of pain.
“Boris betrayed us.”
Ice crawls through my veins. That’s a lie. It’s always a fucking lie in this life. We lie until the truth is so suffocated you can’t find it anymore.
“Why?”
Alek’s jaw tenses as he observes my reactions. I lay back, fragile, barely clinging to life, in front of him. The wrong expression could be my last.
“Money. Power. Fear of Damon’s return. Who knows?”
“He told me you ordered him to burn the bar.”
Viktor stays silent, propping his elbows on his knees and leaning into a brooding stare.
“I have no reason to burn a bar. He told everyone I’d ordered it. He wanted to turn you against me. Fracture the Bratva, start a war so Don Leonardo could swoop in and sweep up the pieces. Then, he’d take a huge pay day and run.”
I hold Aleksander’s cold eyes. I don’t believe him. When I search for Viktor’s eyes, he won’t look at me.
“Where is he now?” I ask.
“Boris has fled. When we find him, there’s only one fitting punishment for traitors.”
“Death.” I agree.