by Zaires, Anna
“No,” he replies softly. “I can never hate you. No matter what.”
“How did you know it was a setup?”
He releases me. “Kiss.”
“Anton found him?”
“Yes.” He scoffs. “We found out a lot more than what we bargained for.”
“Such as?”
“That Gergo had a meeting with Dimitrov the day before the mission and told him about our plan.”
Hurt slices through my heart. “Why would he do that to me? What can justify that kind of betrayal? Money?”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
He’s stalling. “If you’re trying to spare me, you’re wasting your time. I can handle the truth.”
His gaze is doubtful. But it’s the sympathy that scares me.
“Yan? What’s going on?”
He takes my hand again in the gentle way people do when they’re about to share bad news. “Gergo paid the men who beat you.” He gives a moment for the information to sink in. “He staged the assault.”
“What?” I jerk my fingers from his. “That’s not true.”
“You didn’t want to quit the military and freelance with him. He found a convincing way of changing your mind.”
I start shaking. “He’s my friend.”
“He pretended to save you,” Yan carries on relentlessly, “knowing you’d pledge not only your loyalty but also your life to him.”
“But why?” I ask raggedly. “Whatever could he gain from making me leave the team?”
“Why do men do the cruel things they do?”
“Money?”
“He got kickbacks from the jobs he referred to you.”
I don’t want to admit it, but my mind is already racing toward the logical conclusions. My reason is already embracing the truth, even if my heart is having a hard time. “Gergo knew I had feelings for you. I told him as much that day in the boutique. He was worried I’d tell you the truth.”
“Namely, that he was the one who framed us as terrorists.”
“And because I was falling for you, I became a liability.”
Yan’s mouth tightens. “He thought setting us up against Dimitrov would kill two birds with one stone, getting rid of both you and my team.”
More insights hit me. “He killed my attackers. He killed them to make sure they couldn’t talk when your hired team went after them.”
Yan nods. “Kiss knew about Gergo’s scheme. He confessed everything before Anton killed him.”
Tangled emotions sprout from my trampled trust and broken heart. It’s the anger I hold on to. The disappointment is too hurtful, too powerful. If I let it, it will destroy me.
When I speak again, my voice is level, my feelings pushed under the surface. “Is he dead?”
“Not yet. But I’ll find him. I promise you.”
A knock falls on the door. Before either of us can reply, it opens to Ilya peering around the frame. A huge grin stretches his cheeks. “There you are,” he says as if he’s been looking for me for years.
His genuine happiness at seeing me wipes away the ugliness that has infiltrated my heart. The devastating truth almost seems inconsequential as he bustles into the room and extends his arms to take me into a hug. God knows, I can do with one of his bear hugs right now.
Yan catches him before he can put his arms around me. “Careful. She’s still hurting.” For once, jealousy isn’t his motivation. There’s no animosity in Yan’s comportment when Ilya presses a kiss on my forehead instead.
“You deserve a spanking,” Ilya declares solemnly, crossing his bulging arms.
“Delivered by me,” Yan clarifies quickly. His eyes say, and only me.
“You had us worried to death,” Ilya says.
I look him over. “Are you all right?”
“Not a scratch,” he says proudly. “The question is, how are you holding up?”
It’s impossible not to smile. “It seems Lena did a good job.”
“If you need anything,” Ilya says, “you only have to ask. Anything at all.”
“She’s sorted,” Yan says a tad forcefully.
Inwardly, my smile grows even broader. I guess Ilya shouldn’t push Yan’s newfound tolerance too far.
Ilya turns to Yan. “I came to tell you I just got a call from our connection. All’s handled. They’ve cleaned up. The shootout was staged as the last bloody battle of the drug war. They’ve identified the man who shot Mina.”
“Who was that creep?” I ask.
“Stjepan Filipović, Dimitrov’s second-in-command. Rumor has it, they’d been clashing horns over territory and money for the last couple of years. Filipović wanted bigger cuts and a say in how the business was managed. His connection to Dimitrov could never be proven until his corpse happened to be found in the same room as Dimitrov’s. The feds got a search warrant for his house and questioned his staff. One of them talked in exchange for immunity.” Ilya looks between us. “Guess what? He was plotting against Dimitrov, turning their drug suppliers against him with bribes. The idea was to force Dimitrov’s early retirement with a bullet in his brain. The meeting at the Hotel Paris came as a golden opportunity. It was Filipović’s chance to get rid of Dimitrov. Three of the five guards had been bought. The minute we were dead, they were to kill Dimitrov and the remaining two guards. The informant didn’t say anything about the painting being fake; he only knew Filipović wanted to blame the killings on a deal gone wrong. Mina was a bonus. Filipović was hoping to cash in on the five mill on her head.”
“What?” I gasp.
Yan smacks Ilya upside the head. “She doesn’t know about that part yet.”
“Oh.” Ilya offers me an apologetic smile.
“Five million?” I utter. “Someone put five million on my head?”
“Gergo. Don’t worry,” Yan says with menace. “I’ve doubled it on his head.”
Oh, my God. I’m a walking target. “I’m putting you in danger. Hanna, Lena, all of you.”
“Nobody save for us, Lena, and Hanna knows you’re here,” Yan says. “We’re safe.”
“Anton is using the storeroom as a base to monitor our surroundings,” Ilya says. “You don’t have to worry about anything except getting better. Speaking of which, I’m going to help Anton carry some of the heavier stuff.” He winks at me. “I’ll catch you later, malyshka.”
“All the loose ends are tied up,” I say when Ilya is gone, “with the exception of Gergo.” I never thought betrayal could feel like a physical burn in your stomach.
“Not for long,” Yan says darkly. He turns sideways to the window, staring at the gardens with tense shoulders and a clenched jaw.
“What’s wrong?”
A heartbeat passes before he speaks. “Lena told me.”
“Told you what?”
He looks back at me. The pain splayed over his face is so raw it rips my chest open. “That you have cancer.”
Shit. No. This isn’t how I wanted him to find out.
“That you’d been in remission for sixteen months,” he continues. “You didn’t cut off your hair when you left the military. It fell out after your chemo treatment. You must’ve barely recovered the night I abducted you in Budapest. And now it’s back.”
“Yan,” I say achingly. I should’ve told him the minute I came to, but I desperately wanted to pretend we were just another regular couple, at least for a short while.
“That’s why you got the hummingbird tattoo—a symbol of life, survival.”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you came here when you ran away? For Lena to run tests?”
I avert my gaze. “I suspected when the nose bleeds and the bruising started.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I dare to meet his eyes again. “Things were… different between us.”
“You were my prisoner.” His tone is thick with self-loathing. “How could you trust me?”
I know what his uncharacteristic bout of guilt is about.
It’s about grief. It’s about losing someone when you’ve only just discovered you love that person. “It’s not your fault.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Why didn’t you tell me when things were different?”
“I wanted to finish the Dimitrov job. I needed the money for Hanna, and I didn’t think you’d let me if you knew the truth.”
“Damn right,” he says savagely. “Still, you should’ve confided in me. I took care of it.”
“Took care of what?”
“I made a donation in Hanna’s name, enough to secure her stay and cover the bills for the rest of her life.”
My chest squeezes tight with a mixture of joy and relief. “Yan. Why would you do that?”
“Why do you think?”
Because he loves me. Despite the ordeal of the last twenty-four hours and what’s yet to come, my heart soars with the knowledge. This is the purest portion of my entire life.
“You should’ve told me, Mina. Fuck, how could you keep this from me?”
“You’ve kept things from me, too,” I point out gently. “You didn’t tell me you’d made a donation.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “There’ve been too many fucking secrets between us. No more, do you hear me?”
“I can live with that.”
He walks to the bed and grabs my hand between both of his. “I never knew what I was looking for until I found you. You’re everything I never had and will never have again. Please, Mina, I beg you, fight for us.”
My stomach knots. “It’s not that simple.” I try to pull away, but he holds fast.
“I know, Minochka, I know. Hanna told me. She told me how sick you were, how you lost all your hair and vomited until you were so weak you couldn’t even make it to the bathroom.” He inhales sharply, as if the mental image is torture. “I know it’s been tougher than I can ever imagine, but this time, I’ll be here for you.”
I cup his cheek, trying to soften the blow. “The survival rate is low. Treatment may only prolong the suffering.”
His eyes take on a feverish light. “I’ve done my homework. There’s a new treatment. It’s still experimental, but the results are extremely promising.”
“The previous treatment was experimental. I paid a small mountain of gold for it, and here I am.”
“This is different. It’s more than stem cell transplants and blood transfusions and alternative healing and Reiki and whatever else you’ve tried. It’s revolutionary. Yes, it will involve some chemotherapy, but not as much as you’ve had before. The researcher who’s developing it is a genius. He’s not just doing research and clinical trials. He’s using volunteers. That’s why he’s making such big progress so fast. Please do it, Mina. I beg you. Do it for us. Fight for us.”
Tears blur my vision. “Yan, please… I don’t want you to go through the disappointment if it doesn’t work. When I told you not to fall in love with me, it was to protect you. Please don’t fall any deeper than you already have.”
He grips my shoulders. “Fuck that. I’m already going through it, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. I can never love you more than I already do. Nobody can.” His fierce gaze is bright with his own unshed tears, his hold almost too tight. “No matter how much distance you try to force between us, I’m going to hurt. I am hurting. I’ll take whatever I can get. A month. A day. A few minutes. I’ll give my life for just a moment with you.”
His hands fall away as if that speech has taken every last bit of his energy. The man facing me is crestfallen, crushed, lost. It’s as much as I can take.
Drawing in a breath, I hold out my arms like an invitation. When he bends down within my reach, I fold my arms around him and hold him close to my chest, my heart splitting open as I feel the tremors wracking his big, hard body. And as his tears wet my neck, I caress his stubble-roughened face, giving him comfort and reassurance the only way I can.
“Shh.” I kiss the top of his head, inhaling his strong, virile male scent. “Even if I’m not here, I’ll still be with you. That’s my promise. Always remember it.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he says in a thick voice.
“No more secrets, remember? We have to be honest. We have to accept death is a possibility, a very strong one.”
Yan pulls away to look at me, his handsome features desolate. “Marry me.”
“What?”
“Marry me,” he says with heated certainty. “Tomorrow. Here.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I’m touched, but…”
“But what?”
“I don’t want to make you a widower.”
“Maybe you won’t. I could die long before you. I could get killed on a job.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Don’t you see? What matters is now. I want you in every way. I want you to carry my name for however long we have. Time isn’t what matters. A year or fifty isn’t what counts.” He takes my palm and places it over his heart. “It’s what’s in here. It’s not how long. It’s how much.”
I try to blink my own tears away as more pureness and unequalled beauty, much more than I deserve, fill my heart, my soul, and all the hours left of my life.
“We’ll always belong to each other,” he says. “Now. Tomorrow. Until we’re both gone.”
My tears flow so fast I can’t control them any longer. I can only look at him as my heart bursts with love. The numbness I carried for decades is gone, washed away in the tsunami of emotions assailing my mind. With one touch, he made my body come alive. With his words, he did the same to my soul. Instead of being cold and empty, I feel.
He makes me feel so much.
“What do you say?” he asks, hope breaking through the darkness in his eyes to shine like a light on our bleak situation.
“Yes.” I smile through my tears. “Yes, I want to be Mina Ivanova.”
Forgetting about my injury, he takes me into his arms and squeezes until it hurts, but I don’t mind the pain, because he’s cut the string that tied down my heart, letting it float up like a red balloon in a bleak sky. But not all of it is bleak.
Mortality makes it bleak.
Love makes it miraculous.
37
Yan
Thanks to Dr. Adami’s thoughtfulness, a bed was brought to Mina’s room for me. Mina naps frequently due to her pain medication. It’s also her body’s natural way of recovering. She needs her rest. I like that I’m able to sleep next to her, even if our twin beds put a small distance between us. I can’t bear not to be at her side, not even for a second, but there’s much to do. When she falls asleep after breakfast, I make my way to the basement where Anton and Ilya are working. They’re not only keeping an eye on our surroundings, but also taking care of something else. Something extremely important.
“Any news?” I ask as I push open the door.
The room, one of the bigger storage spaces, is fitted with metal shelves stacked with linens and cleaning products. Despite the bare concrete floor and walls, it’s warm, courtesy of the electrical heater Adami provided.
Anton is sitting behind the desk he’s dragged inside, studying his laptop monitor. Ilya is poised on the edge of the desk with a packet of potato chips clutched in his hand.
“Nothing yet,” Anton says. “Our virus is piggybacking on Interpol software. If Nagy shows up at an airport or train station, we’ll know about it.” He scratches his head. “The problem, of course, is that he’s a disguise genius. He may be right in front of us, and we won’t know it.”
A problem that irks me to no end.
“He’ll come for us eventually.” Ilya stuffs a handful of chips into his mouth. “We just have to be ready.”
Not a chance I like to take. By now, Nagy knows that Kiss, as well as Dimitrov and his team, is dead. He knows we know the extent of his deceit. He knows he’ll never be safe again. No man wants to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life. He may run until the dust settles, but Ilya is right. At some point, he’ll come f
or us. That’s what any assassin would do, especially one who knows we have a score to settle—and whose life is worth ten million. The only way he can cancel that price on his head is by killing us.
“What about friends and family?” I ask.
Anton leans back in his chair and stretches out his legs. “He’s pretty much a loner.” He regards me thoughtfully. “We could draw him out.”
“How?”
His grin is all cream. “How do you catch a mouse?”
“No.” Absolutely fucking not. “We’re not setting a trap. I’m not risking Mina.”
“What if it’s far away from Mina?” Ilya asks.
“I’m not leaving her on her own. It’s too dangerous.”
“No,” Anton says, “we shouldn’t leave Mina, at least not all of us—and especially not now. But we can make him believe she’s somewhere else.”
I rub the back of my neck. I don’t like using Mina as bait, whether she’s actually there or not, but it could take years before we nail Nagy and I’m not prepared to wait that long. Every day is another twenty-four hours too long, another twenty-four hours Mina’s life hangs in the balance. “Explain.”
Anton interlaces his fingers over his stomach. “We get our connection to issue death certificates for us and put Mina up in a safe house.”
“Let me get this straight,” Ilya says with a full mouth. “We pretend to be dead and let Nagy believe Mina made a deal in exchange for immunity.”
“Exactly,” Anton says. “We put the safe house address in the system where Nagy will be able to hack it. Not too easily, mind you; otherwise, he’ll smell a rat.”
“So,” I clarify, “we lead him to a safe house and ambush him there.”
“You stay to protect Mina.” Anton’s eyes glitter with cruel excitement. “Ilya and I catch the rat in our trap and bring him back here.”
“For Mina to finish the bastard off,” Ilya adds with heated enthusiasm.
“No.” We can’t bring trouble to Adami’s doorstep. “You catch the fucker, and I bring Mina there.”
“Done.” Anton sits up and pulls his laptop closer. “I’ll get to work.”
“Keep me updated. I want to be informed of everything to the tiniest detail.” I turn to my brother. “I need you to go into town.”