Chapter 30
ALEXEI
It’s like something out of a movie. The minute the gun goes off, everything just stops. There’s no sound. There’s nothing. I’m stuck in a freeze frame where I’m staring at the ugly, twisted version of my father’s face.
The heat of the gun’s discharge burns my chest. My first thought is to Isabella. How poetic it is that my wife watches me die in the same way I watched Kira. This may be worse, in a way. She didn’t have to fight her father over a gun.
And then, everything starts moving again and I see the scowl on my father’s face start to leave with the light in his eyes. His grip on the gun loosens and it falls between us. I look down as he pulls away from me, stumbling backward toward his desk.
There’s a black hole in the center of his shirt. Tendrils of smoke are rising from it. The light blue of his dress shirt is suddenly changing to red as a circle of blood spreads from the hole and moves outward across his chest.
As he turns to try and hold himself up, his face flushes. All the strength in his tree trunk arms is gone. His knees buckle and he falls to the floor, rolling on his back. I walk over to him, looking down into his face as the last bits of life drain away from him and onto the floor beneath him.
The king is dead. Long live…
My mind stops. I am the logical choice. Father even admitted that himself.
If I decide to take over, no one will question it.
I probably won’t even receive any retribution for killing my father.
I look over my shoulder at Pavel, who’s lying in a pool of his own saliva and blood, his face smashed to shit. He’s fucked up, but he’ll live.
It’s over. My father’s reign, even this war if I want it. The mantle is mine for the taking and not even Pavel can challenge me. It’s something I’ve wanted since I was a boy.
No, that’s not quite true. It’s something that I’ve always expected. That’s a different thing. And the one thing that my father said that was correct was that absolutely nothing was promised. Not even my place in line.
Just the same. Everything I have ever worked for in my entire life is right at my fingertips, if I want it.
“Alexei?”
I look over to see Isabella standing near Pavel, her crystal blue eyes filling with tears. We don’t have to leave the life now. I can make this the kind of life that she wants. I could…
My thoughts are washed away as she rushes into my arms, hugging me warmly.
I think about the way she looked as those thugs carried her away, the terror and anger in her face.
I think about how she looked while my father had his gun on me, the uncertainty in her eyes.
I can’t imagine what kind of horror it must be to have to fight so hard for a life that we should have.
And in this moment, holding her in my arms, smelling her sweet hair, I realize that there is more to life than this. The Bratva life isn’t for me. Not anymore. Wherever she is, that’s where I want to be.
I break the hug long enough to touch her stomach. “Are you okay? Is the baby…?”
“I’m okay,” she says. “We’re okay.”
I pull her in and kiss her deeply. I have the option to choose. I always have, despite whatever was beaten into me. And I’m making the right choice today.
She pulls away from me gently, looking at the bruises on my face. She touches my jaw and I flinch from its sting. “It’s nothing,” I tell her. “I’ve had worse hangnails.”
“I’m just glad you’re alive. I thought… well, you don’t want to know what I thought.”
“Takes more than this to put me down,” I say to her.
She smiles, and it’s like a ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds after a rainstorm. “So, what now?”
I take a deep breath. It won’t take long for all this to be discovered. Once Pavel wakes up, he’ll send the hounds after me. The hunt will officially be on. I flirt with the idea of staying and taking my rightful place as Pakhan, but one look into Isabella’s eyes and those thoughts are dashed.
“We leave it all behind. Starting right now.”
She blinks. “Really? Just… just like that?”
“Just like that. I don’t know how much time we have, but we need to be on a plane out of the country as soon as humanly possible. My father’s men will be all over Fortune looking for me in hours. There’s no time to waste.”
I take her hand and we rush out of the office, then out of the mansion, bound for a new life…
With one stop along the way.
A timer is going off in my head as we head for the penthouse. Isabella’s sitting next to me in my father’s car, her hands wringing with worry. “Are we headed back home?”
“Yes, but only to grab what we need and then we’re leaving Fortune for good.”
She nods and goes quiet. After a few minutes, she asks, “What about your brother? Should… should we really leave everything to him? I mean—”
“Would you rather stay?”
She regards me for a moment. “Do you… do you want to stay? You could be the boss. Run everything. Stop the war. Maybe make some real changes—”
“Nothing ever changes,” I say with a little sadness. “You know that to be true. Even for your father, but especially for mine. This life turns as it has for hundreds of years, Isabella.” I take her hand in mine and squeeze it. “I want something more for myself, for you, and for our baby.”
Her face broadens into a smile. Yes, I want to say to her, I’m choosing you.
“One change of clothes and only what you need,” I say as we walk into the penthouse. “I want to be on the road in ten minutes or less.”
“Got it,” Isabella says as she rushes past me to the bedroom. I go into my study first.
Somewhere along the line, I learned that there comes an inevitable moment in time when running is the best and only option.
I think that we all learn it, regardless of the criminal enterprise.
If you’re smart, you prepare for the day when you have to leave town immediately, even if you’re fortunate enough for it to never come.
I can’t say that I know anyone who’s ever had to do this.
I don’t think Father ever thought to. When Pavel and I were boys, we would search the house for hidden caches of fake IDs and cash after watching old gangster movies.
We never found them. That’s not to say that Maxim Mechnikov wasn’t smart enough to have something stashed away, but rather that I think he was too arrogant to make such a preparation.
He’d have preferred to end his reign the way that it inevitably did—with a bullet. I think wherever he is in Hell right now, he’s smiling up at me, proud that I was the one who had the stones to do it.
In my bookshelf there are three stashes disguised as books.
I find those quickly and stuff the stacks of cash into a duffel bag.
Then I locate the hidden compartment I built in the wall near my writing desk and retrieve my stash of passports and other important papers, fake and otherwise.
On the way here, I called in some favors to get a plane chartered and ready for us when we get there.
With any luck, we’ll be in the air within the next hour or two.
With my duffel bag filled, I go to the bedroom. Isabella is zipping up her suitcase and moving on to mine. She’s in the closet, looking through my suits skeptically.
“Get my shaving kit and everything in the bathroom,” I tell her. “I’ll take care of my clothes.”
“Okay.” She turns and goes into the bathroom.
I grab one comfortable pair of slacks and a casual shirt. No suits. I may never wear one again, I think. Well… perhaps one more, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
One change of clothes down and now I’m looking for my shoes. My most comfortable loafers are around here somewhere. I get down on my knees and look under the bed and I freeze.
The shoebox that I’ve held onto all these years. I reach for it and pull it out, then I sit down on the floor and set it in my lap.
I have kept this for so long, memories that I treasured more than the active life I was living. I open the box and look at the piles of polaroids and letters and dried flowers.
The first photo on top is the one with me and Kira and Dmitri and Anya.
Standing with our arms around one another, me with a beer in my hand.
We were all teenagers. All with the future in our eyes.
I look at Dmitri’s face. He was younger than me, but he always seemed to know more than anyone else in the room.
In fact, he used to say to always be the smartest guy in any room you’re in.
I start to think about that last moment he was alive, right after I told him that I was in love with Isabella. What would he have said to me about that if he’d had one more second or five more minutes? I was robbed of wisdom that he was constantly trying to give me, even when I didn’t ask for it.
“Honey?”
I look up to see Isabella standing in the bathroom door. Her eyebrows are lifted and her eyes are rounded as she looks down at me. Shit. I don’t want to go into this box or explain it to her. I put the photo back in and put the top back on.
“Sorry. It’s just something I’ve kept for years.” I stand up. “I should probably throw it out.”
She walks up to me and puts her hands over mine so that we’re both holding the shoebox. “We should take this with us,” she says softly. “Your memories are in here and… and I know that some of them might be painful, but they’re yours. You’re entitled to have them.”
She smiles up at me in a way that reminds me of Kira, innocence and wisdom in her eyes. It wasn’t meant to be for Kira and me, but this… this is my second chance. I think she’d want that for me in the end.
I turn and put the box in the duffel bag and zip it up. I find my shoes and a few other things and pack them. Time to leave Fortune City for parts unknown. Time to start over and take advantage of the chance I’ve been given.