by Rie Warren
“Where is Papa?” Sasha demanded.
Fury mangled my pakhan’s face as Oleg jabbed the muzzle of his gun at the underside of his chin. No one in the two rings of enemy Bratva soldiers shifted.
“Oleg has him on the terrace.”
“Is he okay?”
“He is alive and unharmed.”
Sasha huffed impatiently. “Just shoot the bastard dead already!”
“He is not in line of sight.” Oleg was too canny to just stick his head out to make the perfect target.
He stayed positioned behind Yury, and the stone wall of the house concealed half his body.
Besides, I might’ve been a crack shot, but with Jo and my niece and Baba lined up as hostages my finger was frozen on the trigger.
“The suka has to know I’m out here too. He knows my weapon, Sasha. He’s not going to let me get a clean shot off.”
She jumped to her feet with a huff. “Then let me give him what he wants.”
“Nyet!” Abandoning my position, I popped up too. “No fucking way, Sasha.”
I grabbed her upper arms, fingers clutching tight. My heart pounded so fast I thought it might just punch right out of my chest.
The scariest fucking part was the look in her eyes because she showed no fear at all as she gazed back at me with perfect calm.
“Who do you want to save more, Maksim? The man who raised you or the pain in the ass who’s been a burr in your backside all these years?”
I looked away, my throat working hard.
“Because it should be my father, not me.”
My head swiveled back to her, and I saw her clearly for possibly the first time, this passionate woman.
Yanking her to me, I kissed her. I was hard and demanding, and my tongue lunged right inside. My fingers tangled into her hair, and I held her immobile against me.
Her lips clung to mine, hands climbing to my shoulders to return the furious embrace.
I drew back to speak hoarsely, “You. I want you, Sashenka.”
In a surprise move, she wrenched free of my arms. She pushed me away and at the same time she snuck a foot behind my legs.
I went down like a tree, barely missing the rifle and bipod.
“And I want Oleg dead and you’re the only man who can do it! So I’ll draw him into range.”
The crazy woman jumped onto my Harley without a backward glance as I scrambled to my feet.
Before I could stop her, she shot off on the bike with a scream of the throttle.
“No!” The bellow ripped from my throat and tore through my heart.
19
Sasha
“YOU. I WANT YOU, Sashenka.”
Stupid idea. Obviously Maksim’s brain wasn’t working right.
Well, too bad for him, he wasn’t gonna make the decision for me.
Throttling down on the motorcycle that was so big I had a hard time handling it, I almost skidded out of control before I even got to the road.
Okay, so maybe not my brightest idea, but now Maksim couldn’t stop me even if he tried. I’d left him stranded with his sniper rifle, and I had every confidence in his ability to shoot Oleg’s head clean off his shoulders if he just got the perfect angle.
“I want you, Sashenka.”
If this failed miserably, those gruff words in his guttural voice were going to haunt me for however long I had left on this earth.
Falling tears dried on my face with the wind rushing past as I hurtled recklessly down the road.
I careened to a stop at the house, almost crashing into a car. Slamming down the kickstand, I hopped off.
My heart lurched up to my throat, but I didn’t waste time second guessing what I was about to do. Instead, I walked around the outside of the house then wanted to throw up in my mouth at the scene that unfolded in front of me.
Arkady, Kirill, Grigor, and at least another dozen Zolotov soldiers formed an inner half circle facing the terrace while Oleg’s forces surrounded them.
Guns were raised everywhere, the silence so loud it was almost deafening.
Gathering all my inner charm—not—I called across the standoff toward the piece of shit who held the barrel of his gun beneath my father’s chin. “All right, I’m here, you dickless wonder. So you can stop the scare tactics with my dad already.”
Cocked weapons from the enemies swiveled toward me, and I watched horror fall across Papa’s face.
Up on the patio where the sun glared harshly, Oleg laughed nastily. “Ah. She has finally joined us. Let Alexandra pass.”
“I prefer”—I ambled through tall bristling towers of men—“to be called Sasha. You keep calling me Alexandra like that and I might have to cut your balls off.”
I roamed closer, my Glock snug against my hip and the knife in a sheath on the opposite side.
“I see Maksim has not broken you yet.” Stepping even farther out from behind Papa, Oleg became clearer.
Just like the first and only time I’d seen him, he was tall and all male-model perfect on the surface.
But I’d never be able to forget what a sick, twisted bastard he was, especially when he said in a terrifyingly pleasant tone, “I look forward to doing my part to tear you to pieces until you beg for your death at my hands.”
“Keep on dreaming, buddy.” My bravado a mask I wore to perfection, I sauntered forward as if I didn’t have a care in the world.
Inside I quaked, nerves firing off like the rounds I wished Maksim could shoot.
I would not stand for Papa being held at gunpoint by this imposter.
I broke through the dicktool’s troops and waltzed past my father’s men too.
It was Arkady who halted me, his hand snaking out to grip my arm. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Making a good shot happen for Maksim.”
“You are going to get yourself killed,” he muttered from between clenched teeth.
“Whatever. Maksim can handle it. Just tell me Lucia isn’t here.”
He slowly shook his head.
But then he exchanged a look with Kirill who stood shoulder to shoulder with him.
“Okay. What Am I not clueing into here?” I questioned the brothers, getting pretty damn itchy to get this over with.
I glanced at Kirill, and his nearly black eyes looked like the depths of hell in that moment.
Both men held their silence until Arkady uttered in a tortured whisper, “Maksim will never forgive us if you do something foolish.”
“Welp. Better hope that doesn’t happen,” I snarked with more swagger that I wasn’t feeling. “Just keep swinging your big guns around like your no-doubt big dicks if Maksim’s anything to go by, and let’s end this already.”
Moving past the last line of defense, I’d nearly made it to the terrace.
Life sharpened, and I saw Oleg with utter clarity.
I hadn’t drawn him out into Maksim’s range yet, but I would.
The thing that stopped me from moving any farther forward was the deadness in the eyes of the man who had used my father to bait me into showing myself.
And that deadness was positively frightening.
The wide grin that pulled his lips off his bright teeth made cold tentacles reach around my vitals.
“Where is Baba? Jo?” I forced my voice into composed steadiness, purposefully not looking at Papa.
“The old witch and the redheaded bitch?”
Kirill snarled wildly behind me.
Papa bulked out in front of Oleg again, painting a big old target on himself when that was my job. “Get off this property right now, Sasha.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t. Not with his life in the balance.
“I have not touched those two females. Or the infant. But unless you come to me . . .” Oleg made a big show of glancing behind him toward the French doors.
Several of his men stepped out of the way, and the bottom fell out of my heart.
Oh god.
Baba and Jo stood pressed against the other side
of the glass, hostages at gunpoint. That wasn’t even the worst of it. True terror took my breath away when I saw one-week old Saoirse screaming in Jo’s arms, and a weapon was aimed at her too.
No wonder no shots had been fired, and Maksim hadn’t risked anything up there on the hill.
The despicable creature threatened not just the women but a baby too?
Hysteria started rising inside of me, but I couldn’t afford to let panic take root.
Oleg cocked his head at my father. “I am certain Alexandra is not leaving this property alive unless it’s with me.”
With a bear-like growl, Papa broke out of Oleg’s grip. He knocked the pistol aside and it went skittering across the flagstones. Then he cold-cocked the douchebag hard enough to scramble brain matter.
Oleg’s head snapped back, but he chuckled after the initial shock.
Several of his men incapacitated Papa again, his arms bulged and tensed, fists tight.
After wiping a smear of blood from his mouth, Oleg strode back to Papa. “You remember Jimmy, don’t you, Alexandra? He taught me a new phrase before your mutt Maksim Krasnov killed him, want to hear it?”
“I really couldn’t care less.” Arms folded over my torso, I pretended I still had the upper hand, which so wasn’t true.
“Fuckin’ A,” Oleg pronounced slowly, rubbing the welt that already appeared on his chin. “That was a hell of a hit from your papa. You might want to tell him to stand down, though, unless he wants me to start playing target practice with the females inside.”
“I don’t give my father orders, and neither do you,” I called up to him, taking one step closer.
Arkady and Kirill became looming shadows behind me as I ranged ever closer to the terrace.
I wouldn’t have them hurt either, so I spun one last time and pointed at them. “Please stay. You have to let me do what I need to,” I pleaded quietly.
It wasn’t just about Papa anymore. They had to know I’d do anything in order to save Jo and Baba and the baby.
When they relented and stepped back, I could only say a silent prayer of thanks that Maksim was too far away to stop me.
“You are wiser than I usually give women credit for, Alexandra.” Oleg’s disturbing grin was back in place.
Every time he said my birth name my flesh grew cold and clammy from the inside out.
“Why are you really doing this?” I asked the sociopath even though I knew there would be no reasoning with him.
“That is simple. Yury killed my father and my brother.”
“Your father killed my mother! I was barely even out of the womb!” Angry shout aside, I took another step in his direction.
From out of nowhere, a bullet whistled across the air to bite into the lawn right in front of my raised foot.
And, as I continued forward, more rounds fired again and again in precise formation around me.
These weren’t shots meant to wound me.
They were warnings.
From Maksim.
He wanted me out of there.
He wasn’t gonna get what he wanted this time either.
My silent man with his silent weapon. The one I possibly loved.
Oleg beckoned me closer, saying, “Ah. So he is here somewhere. Your husband.” He sneered. “Too cowardly to show his face?”
I wasn’t about to let him goad me anymore.
“Perhaps I should take you and kill Yury to see if I can bring him out of hiding.” Oleg hadn’t retrieved his gun so now he plucked a large blade from a sheath.
He dug the honed edged against Papa’s neck.
“Do it.” Brisk as ever, Papa dared the maniac who was considering doing a slice and dice on him.
Several terrifying moments later, Oleg withdrew the blade. “I want blood for blood. And yours is not useful to me.”
“Then take me.” I finally stepped onto the terrace, taking the stairs and offering myself up. “Take my blood. I’ll go with you. But know this, you will never conquer me.”
Papa was too important. So many people relied on him. This was his empire, his Bratva.
I had no role, no job. Nothing much would change after I was gone.
In my mind, I wasn’t trading myself so Oleg could avenge his brother and father. I was giving my life to save my grandmother and my best friend and the sweet baby girl I’d delivered.
Those were worthy reasons.
They were worthy of my sacrifice.
Surely Maksim would understand that. Maybe, one day when I was long gone, he’d respect me for my choice.
As soon as I stood in front of Oleg, his eerie eyes lit with maniacal glee. “Very smart decision.”
“Let Papa go first,” I ordered, fear pushed way, way down in the back of my mind. “And you do not harm the women or the baby.”
He regarded me, sliding his index finger back and forth above his upper lip.
Then his hand snapped out and he grasped me against his front like a human bulletproof vest, and how fitting was that?
“Deal,” he said, his breath hitting my ear and sending unpleasant shivers all the way down my body.
“You promise?” I kept a hard edge to my voice when every instinct inside of me clawed at me to get away, to make a run for it while I still could.
“Da.”
Several of his soldiers let Papa go, and he surged forward like an enraged beast.
I shook my head sadly, and Oleg started dragging me along with him. “Don’t, Papa. Please don’t. Think of Saoirse.”
Think of everyone else.
With an inhuman sound of pain ripping from his throat, he halted.
He was so tense it looked like he’d locked his muscles up so he wouldn’t move.
Oleg used me as his shield, moving down and off the terrace.
All of the Zolotov soldiers turned their bodies in unison, following us without taking a single step.
Arkady and Kirill snarled in tandem, reminding me so much of Maksim I thought I might burst into tears, but what a useless female thing to do at that point.
Even Grigor looked as if he struggled to remain still instead of attacking.
To let a woman be taken—the Zolotov printsessa no less—went against everything in their bones.
As Oleg hauled me toward the driveway, I warded off Papa, Kirill, Arkady, and the rest with my hands raised.
Oleg’s parting words helped keep them immobile. “I might kill her. I might find another use for her. But if you follow now, I will butcher Alexandra by nightfall.”
Wonderful.
We’d just made it to the convoy of foreign vehicles when a rainfall of bullets hosed across Oleg’s forces. Except none of Papa’s Bratva had moved.
The shots came from Maksim, up on that hill.
He dropped man after man with each unerringly accurate shot, sending bodies to the ground in quick succession with silent whumps.
Clearly he hadn’t gotten the memo.
Didn’t matter.
By now, Baba and Jo and our niece had to be safe. So I watched the awesome show of mastery and skill, almost smiling.
Which definitely pissed my captor off. “Maksim is asking for payback. I think I will send your dismembered body parts back to him one by one.”
Something to look forward to. Not.
I kept up the plucky act all the way to an unmarked black van, and Oleg popped open the back doors.
He boosted me inside, closing us in.
“Well, nothing says kidnapper cliché like a Dodge van, am I right?” I smirked.
Oleg backhanded me so hard my head bounced against the corrugated sides of the interior, and my brain fuzzed out. “How is that for clichéd?”
Ouch.
20
Maksim
SASHA, THAT FUCKING BRAT!
I had told her I’d rather have her than save my pakhan.
But my words were pointless to her, and she’d pulled a sucker move by tripping me after the kiss that had rattled my brain.
; Barely holding it together, I dropped back down to my rifle. I would never get to the mansion in time to stop the coming catastrophe, and the gun was all I had as a means of protecting her.
The few minutes waiting for her to reappear through my scope took several years off my life.
It was almost a relief when I saw her walking out around the structure of the house to the lawn where opposing factions convened. I hadn’t known if she was capable of handling my Harley. She could’ve wiped out on the way there. Hell, she hadn’t even put on her damn helmet before careening away from me.
She wound her way through both forces, each step she took closer to that motherfucking terrace making my breath fall faster and harder. Blyad. Not even Kirill or Arkady had any luck stopping her. Words I could not hear were exchanged between the three then Sasha moved on, past my brothers.
I had to bend my head and shut my eyes for a couple of seconds or I’d lose it completely and never get a clean shot.
When I refocused, I checked the wind again. I regained Sasha in my sights.
I had half a mind to shoot the damn female myself, just a flesh wound to halt her. To end the fucking deadlock. But the risk was too goddamn great, and this was an utter shitshow of gigantic proportions.
I knew the moment she became aware of how absolutely treacherous the situation was when her steps faltered and stilled just like the rest of the Zolotov Bratva.
She’d seen poor Baba and Jo’s screaming faces and crying Saoirse in the glass panes.
Fuck, Sasha’s face turned as white as bleached bone, and more horror heaped down on me. Her sole purpose for putting herself in this dangerous situation was to draw Oleg into my crosshairs. Dread squeezed my heart when I realized she’d never do anything to endanger those three females.
As if willing herself on, she moved again toward the terrace and Oleg.
Finger poised on my trigger, I panted through my mouth.
When she got too fucking close for my liking, I squeezed off a round. Not to kill. But to warn her away.
She knew that too, I was certain, when her head shifted a little bit in my direction.
My shot didn’t stop her either. So I fired again, an array of bullets that landed around her as if I could form a fence to cage her in.