“Your mind is going, Father,” Vladimir sneers. “You only have one son left to make sure the Romanov name remains feared. Strong. Secure.”
“If that were true, then why have you accused Nikolai of trying to usurp your place?” Grandfather takes a sip of his tea. “I quite like the honey, Adam. Do be sure to find out what kind the hotel uses and then buy a case of it.”
Adam nods.
“Can we go now?” Everly asks.
Grandfather looks up at her, his stern expression changing into a soft smile. “Of course, my dear. You, Nikolai, and Benjamin go play. Be young. Vladimir and I still have much to discuss, don’t we, son?”
Vladimir’s expression is sullen as he agrees.
Everly grabs my arm and tugs. “Let’s go. We can get another hotel room.”
Following her, I ask, “Why is that?”
She smiles as Benjamin punches the button for the elevator. “Because I feel like kissing you all night long and making babies.”
“My kingdom for separate elevators,” he groans.
It takes us no time at all to exit the hotel. The night is warm. The streets busy with young couples and tourists going from hot nightclub to hot nightclub.
Ben whistles at a group of women. They smile and wave him over.
“Later, cuz. Everly.” He kisses her cheek, and then jogs over to the women.
“That boy,” she says with obvious affection.
We walk along the streets of Barcelona, arm in arm. “I can’t believe it’s over.”
I spy the building I’ve been dreading yet hoping to find. “Neither can I. But you are safe.” And even if you’re not, I’ll spend the rest of my life watching over you. “Were you shocked to learn that my grandfather was behind it all?”
“Oh yeah. It was like a soap opera in there. A big scary as hell soap opera that I never want to watch again.”
I crowd her against a wall, placing my hand on either side of her and dip my head. It’s now or never. “You were so brave tonight.”
She grabs my tux, pulling me closer. “That’s because you gave me the tools.”
Our lips meet, barely touching at first, then the kiss gets deeper as time passes. Removing one hand from the wall, I grab her waist and pull her to me, fitting her curvy body against mine.
Running my hand down her back, I inch her dress higher and higher until I find what I’m looking for. She gasps. “Roman.”
I’m going to miss the sound of her voice.
The gates of the embassy begin to open. A car eases out. I grab her, whirling her around with the small gun in my hand. “What in the world?”
I march her to the gate. “I’m sorry, Everly. It’s not safe for you. Even if I left, even if I started over, there are no guarantees you’d be safe.”
“Don’t do this,” she cries, tears running down her cheeks. She pushes at me, tries to make me let her go, but I cannot be moved. I cannot be deterred. I refuse to be deterred, even while my heart is being slashed with every cry, every tear, and every plea. “I’m willing to take the chance with you. Please, don’t send me away.”
“I’m sorry, love. Know that I only do this for your own good.” Pressing one last kiss to her temple, I shove her inside the gates and onto American soil. Immediately, men in uniform surround her. They ask questions while she screams my name and the gates close.
“Have you been hurt, Miss?”
“Did someone strike you?”
“Roman, please...”
They lead her inside the building. I stand there on the opposite side of the gate, only yards away from the woman I love, my blood freezing in my veins, bringing on a numbness I welcome. I turn cold. I become the man I used to be, before he ever met Everly Andrews.
It’s the only way I can survive without her.
My phone buzzes, and I answer it. “She’s inside and safe. They’ve already determined her identity. She’ll be on a plane home by morning,” Ben says.
“Thank you.” I hang up the phone, and then I do what I do best.
I disappear into the shadows.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CONFESSION
Ben finds me sitting on a bench overlooking the beach. He hands me a cup of coffee and joins me.
“We’ve been ordered to Morocco. Our flight leaves within the hour.”
I glance at him. “On whose orders?”
“Grandfather’s.” He stands, clearly waiting for me to move. “The car is waiting.”
Slowly rising to my feet, I trudge to the car and climb inside. “What’s in Morocco?”
“Besides beautiful women, gambling, and a new Comic-Con—nothing special.”
I barely pay attention as we ride through the streets. I barely notice when we arrive at the airport and climb the stairs to board one of Grandfather’s planes.
My mind is focused on Everly. On every memory of her. Every kiss. Every conversation. Of the look on her face when she realized I’d betrayed her.
I’m on autopilot as we fly, then disembark to meet Grandfather at his villa. A maid shows us up to the roof.
“Ah, you’re just in time for the show,” he says, gesturing for Ben and I to sit down with him. “Eat, eat.”
Mercifully, he doesn’t ask about Everly. I go through the motions of eating, but everything tastes the same. I have no idea if I’m eating a banana or caviar on smoked salmon.
A flash of movement catches my eye. “Is that who I think it is?”
“The one and only,” Ben say.
Vladimir, climbs aboard his yacht and speaks to a man—the captain of the vessel—before disappearing from sight. Suddenly the yacht explodes, flames shooting to the sky. The villa rocks slightly.
Adrenalin runs through my body and I jump to my feet, heading straight for Ben. “Get down,” I shout at him.
“Sit, Kolya,” my grandfather says.
Only the command in his voice could get me to obey at that moment. My gaze flies to his. “I—I am not responsible for that.”
Benjamin leans back in his chair. “But I am.”
Shocked, I try to make sense of everything, but I can’t.
“Keep watching. There’s more,” Grandfather says and hands me a pair of binoculars. “In five minutes, twenty degrees west.”
“Vladimir thinks I helped him,” Ben says, digging into his eggs. “He wired a ton of money into my account to secure my cooperation.”
“But I thought he wanted to take over.”
Grandfather butters a piece of toast. “I convinced him otherwise.”
Pressing my face against the high-powered binoculars, I wait for the more that Grandfather wants me to see.
Out of nowhere, my mother appears. I nearly drop the binoculars. Then Vladimir appears, looking very alive. Furtively, they look around the marina, and then walk to the last pier, as if waiting for someone. “What the bloody hell is happening?” I growl.
“You’re not the only one in love with someone you shouldn’t be,” my grandfather says. He elbows Ben. “Eh, boy?”
“I wish our parents well,” Benjamin says. “But I also wish them to hell.”
“What?” I bark.
Ben shrugs. “What else can I do? I have no love for either of them.”
“Explain.”
Grandfather and Ben share a look. “Tell him,” my grandfather says.
“We’re brothers.”
“I’m not obtuse.”
Ben rolls his eyes. “Yet, you are completely unaware of what’s staring you in the face.”
I rake my gaze over my cousin. The similarities are there with our dark hair and blue eye. We are of the same height and build, so we could pass for brothers. I shrug. “All Romanov’s look alike.” This is true. With the exception of Vladimir and his twin sons, who are all blond.
My grandfather grunts, smacking me in the back of the head. I wince. “He’s your brother. Accept it. Rejoice in the fact that you are not alone in this world.”
The news is supposed to ma
ke me happy, but all I can think of is the wasted years. Years... years I’d spent with my little brother chasing after me. Time I’d spent teaching how to ride his bike, tie his shoelaces properly, and shave.
Suddenly, it dawns on me. I hadn’t been denied anything. Except an explanation.
“Why?”
“Because the two of you were safer with me.” Grandfather cants his head. “Katerina’s judgment couldn’t be trusted when it came to her husband or her side of the family.”
Husband? “But my mother and father—” Ben clears his throat—loudly. This time I roll my eyes. “ Sorry, our mother and father never married.”
White teeth flash in the sun as my grandfather smiles. “They were married. Against my wishes.”
“And his English wife?”
“Not legal.”
Vladimir is a bigamist. If that were to ever get out, then his “legitimate” sons would lose everything. “Katerina didn’t care about his betrayal?”
My grandfather leans back in his chair and lights a cigarette. “I suspect she did, but who knows what he said or promised her.” He blows out a ring of smoke, and then motions to Ben. “Obviously, she forgave him at least once.”
He laughs at his own joke, while Ben and I sit there in total silence.
I have a brother. A brother I can spend time with and actually acknowledge in public. A brother who has taken care of me after I got shot, watched over the woman I love when I couldn’t, and remained on my side, never betraying me.
My grandfather rises to his impressive height. He towers over us when we are standing, much less sitting. A bodyguard hands him a rifle. Slowly but surely, Grandfather steps to the edge of the roof and takes aim at the lovers climbing into a skiff that will surely take them to a much larger boat. “Though it pains this old man to punish his son this way, it has to be done. Just this morning, he tried to turn our allies against me.” He exhales. “Thank you, Ben for agreeing to help me.”
Ben lifts his glass, toasting him. “Happy to be of service.”
A shot rings out. Vladimir goes down, falling headfirst into the water. Katerina screams. I look away, fighting the urge to go to her.
“Make sure he is dead. He’ll deserve a properly burial in London.” Grandfather tosses the weapon back to the bodyguard. “The two of you are good boys. Go have some fun. Live your life how you see fit.”
“But what about...” I cannot finish my sentence. Between the shock of my father surviving an explosion and then being murdered in front of me, my grandfather’s offer seems too surreal. This entire morning has been surreal.
“You must promise that no one will bother us, or who we choose to be with,” Ben says suddenly. “Nikolai and I would like to attempt to live in the sunlight.”
Grandfather nods. “I swear it.” He hugs each of us, then says, “I must go. Much work has to be done, now that Vladimir is dead, and the two of you are leaving the... how did Everly put it—ah, yes, the family business. I quite like her, Kolya. Please bring her to visit me.”
He walks away, his bodyguards flanking him. Ben and I don’t say goodbye. We know it won’t be the last time we see him, or the last time he spies on us, like the crafty old spider he is.
Once he disappears, I glance at Ben. “How long have you known?”
“Not very long,” he says, his gaze shifting to stare at the debris infused marina. Most of the fire has been extinguished by local firefighters. A few boats are scorched on the sides, with melted paint and railings. “But at some level, I think I knew the entire time.”
“Katerina did not raise you?”
“Nyet. I lived with her sister’s family until grandfather came to get me.”
Her sister’s family. Not my aunt and her family. That is very telling. “They did not treat you well?”
“They treated me like a dog,” he says, his eyes clouding over. “A dog that was only good for kicking and throwing scraps at... among other things.”
My fists tighten. Ben was so young when he first came to grandfather’s. There was no way he could have defended himself.
He laughs, but there is no mirth in it. “Calm yourself. They’ve been taken care of.”
“How?”
The look he gives me chills my soul. “Computers aren’t the only thing I know how to hack into.”
There’s no need to tell him to stay away from the path I’ve been traveling. He’s a man on his own road. The only way he’ll veer to the right or left is by his choice alone. “This is good to hear.”
“No lecture?” he asks lightly.
I cock a brow. “Only if you left evidence.”
His mouth thins. “I left nothing.”
I adjust my cuff links. “Everly is safe. And home. No one will bother her ever again.”
“So.” He shrugs.
“So?”
“You don’t care about her, not beyond this guilt-driven need to keep her safe, because if you did—”
Incensed, I jump to my feet and lean over, planting my hands on the table. “You know nothing. Nothing of what I feel for her. You’re nothing but a nineteen year old zhopa who knows exactly shit.”
That familiar grin of his kicks up the corners of his mouth. “Go to her, bratan.” Brother. “Tell her how you feel, that you were wrong for sending her away.”
I straighten, unable to accept his very rational suggestion. “Blyad. I have no reason to go to Asheville.”
There’s still the part of me that does not want to face the betrayal that will surely be in her eyes when we meet again. Even more so, there’s a part of me that still believes I do not deserve her and will have to live a thousand lifetimes as a very good man to make up for my past.
A past Everly seemed to accept, darkness and all.
I’m willing to take a chance with you. Please, don’t send me away.
But what excuse do I have to go to her? Would she turn me away? After all these years, the thought of being rejected by one, small woman terrifies me more than the entire Bratva ever had.
“Not even to personally deliver her last book order?” he asks innocently.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE CONFESSION
Everly
One month later
“I miss Roman,” I inform Miss Fancy. Despite everything, his betrayal of sending me home, I miss him. I love him.
Not that it does me any good. Apparently, I have a penchant for loving the wrong man. At least the last one wasn’t an assassin with family ties to the mob. Forget ties. They are the mob.
But had my ex-boyfriend, Jared, ever made me feel like Roman? Had Jared ever risked everything to keep me safe?
The cat looks at me for a moment, before hissing and swatting at me. I jump back, wagging my finger at her. “Behave, else I’ll take you right back to Mrs. Tatum, and you’ll have to live with all the other cats.”
Miss Fancy twitches her tail and marches out of the room, calling my bluff.
“Stupid cat,” I mutter. “Should’ve left you there.” I never should have gone back to Raleigh, but I had to give my notice to my landlord and pack up my things. There was no way I could continue to live there, not when he was never coming back.
My momma walks into the living room. “Want to ride with me and take your daddy lunch?”
I jump at the chance at getting out of the house. “Sure.” Grabbing my purse, I follow her to the car. “What time does he get off?”
“About the time I have to go in.”
My parents have worked at The Grove Park Inn for over twenty years—my mother as an events manager and my father as head of valet services. They love the place—the history, the décor, the people, the way the hotel is decorated for Christmas... everything.
“I’ll make him supper, Momma. Don’t worry.”
She gives me a smile as we get in the car and back out of the driveway, then head for the Inn. “That’s sweet of you, honey. But your daddy can make his own supper. Maybe you can find something else to do.”
/>
If that isn’t southern for you need to get a life, I don’t know what is.
“Have you found a place, yet?”
Except for that. Silently laughing at her not-so-subtle hints that I need to move out soon, I nod. “Next week, I’m signing a contract on the cutest house off Page Avenue. If they accepted my offer this time. Some idiot keeps counter-offering, or I would have signed two weeks ago.”
“Is that where the new brewery’s going?”
A new brewery springs up about every five seconds in this town. “The one from out west—yes.”
“Hmm.” Her lips thin. “I just don’t know about that area, Everly.”
I sigh. She wants me out of the house, yet she doesn’t approve of where I want to live. Typical mother. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“It’s lacking in social activities.”
Trust my momma to think of that. “There’s always downtown.”
Instead of answering me, she turns up the radio and we listen to Bluegrass the rest of the way.
After parking in the employee section, we head inside and find my dad at his office, speaking with a guest over the phone. “White, Ford F-150. Yes, ma’am. Give us five minutes.” He hangs up the phone, radios one of the valets with the ticket number and then grins.
“My two favorite girls in the world.”
“We brought you lunch.”
He stands, giving my mother a kiss on the cheek. “You do spoil me.”
My momma blushes and waves him off. “You do the same to me.”
“Guys, I’m still here.”
My dad snorts. “How do you think you got here, young lady?”
Now I know how Ben felt when Roman and I got all kissy-faced. “Stork?”
Momma touches my arm. “I have a surprise for you.”
“You do?”
“I arranged for you to have a massage in the spa. It’s in about twenty minutes, so why don’t you go on down there and relax in the sauna.”
For no reason at all, other than the fact that her gesture is sweet, I tear up. I hug her. “Thank you.”
She pats my back and then smooths down my hair. “Your Dad and I have been talking about how stressed you’ve been. So, we wanted to help.”
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