by W Winters
“You didn’t have to stay,” I argue.
“Yes, I did.”
“Why did you stay? You could have left any time and just run.” I push the words out, containing my anger that’s dimming, and remembering all the times we’ve been together. At one time in my life, he was my everything, and yet, he held onto secrets that could have destroyed me.
It’s quiet for so long, I start to think I didn’t ask the question, until I look up at him.
He stares back at me with such pain in the depths of his haunted eyes. Pain that I don’t already know, yet somewhere deep in my soul I did know. I’ve always known.
“I could never leave you, Ria,” he tells me and then rips his gaze away to look straight ahead as his eyes gloss over.
“Then why let them take me?” I ask him and swallow the hard lump growing in my throat. “You gave me to Romano!” My voice raises and I can’t help it, but as it does, Nik grips me tighter and peers at me with a fierceness that’s undeniable.
He told me that he’s the reason I was taken. It’s Nikolai’s fault all of this started. If he loved me so much, why would he dare risk it?
“No, I didn’t. He fucked me over, and he’ll pay for that.” Nik’s jaw is hard and his eyes dark with anger. The kind of anger that I’ve seen before. Anger that comes with revenge.
“I wanted you away from this life,” he confesses to me, his shoulders relaxing as he stares out the window behind me. “Your father is getting older. Everyone knows his time is coming to an end. What do you think would have happened to you?”
I don’t answer Nik’s question.
“He promised he’d save you. I lured you out, taking your notebook, and I knew you’d try to retrieve it. I knew you’d think it was Mika. And Romano lied to me. I’m sorry, Ria. Your father doesn’t have long, and I needed to protect you. I needed you away from all of this.”
“It wasn’t your decision to make,” is all I can say to him. My notebook. It’s an odd feeling to have an object mean so much in a life where nothing is meaningful anymore.
“I can’t believe it was all you.”
“I had to save you,” he tells me and settles back into his seat, apparently done with the conversation.
It’s hard not to blame it all on him. Everything I’ve gone through. I struggle with all the emotions running through my blood.
“You love him, don’t you?” he asks me with a hint of disgust in his tone. “He’s brainwashed you.” He gives himself an explanation without waiting for my response.
“I do,” I say, staring Nikolai right in the eye. “I love Carter Cross…” I have to swallow before finishing. “But I’m not dumb enough to think we’d last... Because he doesn’t love me. Not how I need.”
My heart does this awful thing just then. It pumps, but it’s lifeless. It beats, but there’s no sound. It gives up on me in this moment, and I can feel it as it happens.
It’s a lie on my lips. I hear a whisper in the back of my head.
I have to remember why I left. I have to remember this life and what it does to people.
“I need to get out of here,” I murmur beneath my breath, not to Nikolai or Connor, but to myself.
“I can help you,” Nik is quick to tell me, pulling me close to him although I’m still in his grasp. “I’ll make it right. I’ll get you out of here, Ria. I just have to do one thing first.”
Chapter 93
Carter
“Of course he’d bring her back to him.” The words are accompanied by silence as we watch Nikolai and his crew pull up and wait for the gates of the Talvery estate to open.
She didn’t run to Nikolai – or even to her father. I fucking know she didn’t. She ran, and she had good reason with the way I treated her, but she didn’t run to him.
I saw the footage.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says from the back of the Grand Cherokee SRT. The black SUV sits in the shadows. With tinted windows and an engine that can hit sixty miles per hour in four point eight seconds, it’s our go-to vehicle, armed and equipped for anything coming our way.
We got it years ago so we could haul ass after making hits.
As we sit idle along the forest two miles away from the Talvery estate, I don’t give a fuck about speeding away from anything. Not without Aria.
“She was going to run however she could,” I mutter under my breath at the driver’s seat, excusing Sebastian.
“Still…” he mumbles, running his hand through his hair. He can barely look at me and I hate it. It’s not his fault she ran. It’s not his fault she got away. It’s mine.
The wheel is hot under my grip and everything inside of me is pushing me to get out and storm the front doors of her father’s estate.
Which would leave me dead on the polished marble front steps.
She’s so fucking close, but out of my reach as the neatly trimmed bushes that line the path to the door sway with the wind on the screen. I’ve only been closer to this property once in my life.
At the mercy of her father when I was just a boy.
I swallow down the memory as the car door opens and several men with machine guns approach Nik’s beat-up truck.
That fucking prick.
My heart slams in my chest when I see her. Her brunette locks tumble around her shoulders. Her shirt’s torn and there’s still dirt covering half of her ass all the way down her leg.
She doesn’t carry herself like the girl she used to be. Her head is held high and her shoulders are straight, but the fear is still there, dancing in her doe eyes.
As much as she can’t hide that she’s a woman meant for this life, she can’t hide the fear it brings her to be caught in the middle of a war either.
Aria doesn’t stop looking all around her as Nikolai ushers her into the front door, looking over his shoulder in the direction of the camera we’ve hacked into. As if he knows we’re here.
It’s only when the men surround her, that I realize how quiet it is in the SUV.
The shame and regret hardly register anymore. Shame from the way I’ve treated her. And regret for it all.
“I’ll do better by her,” I tell them and still not a damn man speaks up. I see Sebastian nod in my periphery and I have to close my eyes and take in a steadying breath before opening them to see Nikolai’s hand on the small of Aria’s back. And then the large front door closes.
“It’ll be different when the war is over,” Jase offers and Sebastian agrees. As if any of it is because of the war.
“It’ll be less complicated.” Daniel chimes in.
“Less need to fight,” Declan adds.
It was never the war though. It’s my fault.
Knowing Nik’s with her eases some of the strain coursing through me. The jealousy is present as always, but I don’t have time for that. He’ll protect her, and that’s the only saving grace I have right now. Nikolai won’t let a damn thing happen to her, and I owe him for that. I know more about Nikolai than any other Talvery man for one reason. He’s the one who was always with Aria. He’s the one I wanted every detail on. And he does love her, I know he does. I owe him more than I’ll ever let him know.
He can be her hero for the moment. He can protect her.
I don’t give a fuck if I’m nothing but the villain who captures her.
The villain who holds her against her will until her will changes.
The villain who will put an end to this war and to the empire her last name gives power to.
The villain who will stop at nothing to have her completely.
And the rest of me, whatever is left, the rest of me will belong to her. Always.
I don’t have a choice; that is all I’ll accept.
And she’ll learn to accept it too.
“We already know the place, and we have the count on the men.” Jase is the first to get to business. Tonight, Talvery will finally fall.
There are eight men at the front entrance. Another four towers along the tall brick walls that sur
round the property. Each of them with a handful of men armed and ready.
There will be even more men inside. They’ll have to die as well.
“Wherever we hit will be a distraction,” Declan says as if he’s thinking out loud, “but they’ll also send Talvery into the safe room.”
“We need to contain him and Aria too if we can,” Jase responds to Declan’s statement, leaning forward in his seat to stare at the blueprints on the tablet.
“The safe room is large, but if we get rid of it as an option, they’ll have nowhere to go, they’re outnumbered… it’s just the matter of the safe room and if there’s anything at all that we don’t see.”
“Hit the safe room first then,” I answer without thinking twice, but then add, turning to face Jase, “Unless they take Aria there.”
Her locked away in a room, refusing to let me in even though she knows I’ll be waiting for her and only time is keeping her away from me, is exactly what our relationship has been. I can see it reversed though just as easily.
Tonight I take that option away. Tonight I change the course of our fate. I choose us. Forever. No more fighting; I’ve fought enough in this life already. I only want to love her.
“Is everyone in place?” I ask Jase and he nods solemnly. We left our home and every piece of property we own unguarded. Every single man is here. Every man ready for blood. The only exception is a small crew guarding Addison right now, far away from all of this.
“I’ve got the security feeds.” As Declan speaks, my eyes open and I wait for the screen to flick to a new video stream, one that shows the hacked footage inside each and every one of Talvery’s rooms until it lands on a picture of Aria.
The images flick by on the screen, moving as she moves, and focused on her expression.
My poor Aria. Fuck, I’ve never known pain like this before.
“You’re good for something, Declan,” Daniel tells him, with his hand on the loaded gun in his lap.
“Fuck you too,” Declan replies with a smirk.
“Feels like old times,” Jase says and I turn to look at him, looking at each of my brothers and Sebastian. It does.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” I tell him, feeling each pulse in my veins. The tension, the buildup. But something else too.
“Since it’s felt like everything is riding on this one moment?”
“Yeah,” I answer him.
“Too long,” Sebastian says lowly, checking his gun and then slamming the magazine into place with the butt of his hand.
“It used to be thrilling, though,” Jase says quietly, glancing at the screen showing the men outside the door to where Aria’s been taken. A few men wait outside, but Nikolai goes in with her. “This is different.”
“There’s too much riding on this one,” I tell them all and their nods are instant.
“We’ll get her and bring her home,” Jase tells me and Sebastian looks between the two of us.
“When this is over,” Sebastian says, “I’m not leaving. I’ll bring Chloe home; she’ll come with me.” I don’t have time to answer him.
“First Talvery, then Romano. Your ass isn’t going anywhere.” Jase’s answer pulls Sebastian’s lips into an asymmetric smirk.
It’s hard to let the words go, but I tell my brothers something I often don’t. “Thank you.” I swallow thickly and then turn to each of them, the leather seats groaning as I do. “Thank you for being here. For helping me and for helping her.”
“Of course,” Jase says, his eyes searching mine and the sad smile showing. “We survived together. Fought together... Loved together.”
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else. You need me,” Sebastian tells me and looks me in the eyes. “Mostly because I fucked up, but still, you need me.”
His joke lightens the mood a touch, enough to let the other emotions in just slightly. The emotions that remind me she left me. The ones that prove to me it’s because of me.
With his hand gripping my shoulder, Sebastian tells me, “We’ll get her back.”
“And I’ll keep her,” I tell them, meaning every word. I’ll keep all of her every way I know how.
“All right, enough with this shit,” Declan says, and Daniel huffs a short laugh. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a conversation like this one. One that’s real, and touches a piece of me that remains dormant. A piece Aria holds hostage.
“I’ve got it all covered now,” Declan speaks up from the back of the SUV. “The safe room is empty, but it’s not close enough to the outside rooms to be hit easily.”
“Does Aden have vision anywhere near the safe room?”
“He can hit the west side through the hall window, send in the smoke bombs and ambush that side of the house. We’ll be in and out with the bombs within a few minutes, but they’ll react. The odds of coming out are not the best.” Jase answers for Declan, and I can see the plan already formulating in his head.
Aden is already waiting on the other side. They’re waiting for Jase’s cue.
“We need to hit them all at once,” I tell Jase. The adrenaline in my blood is nearly suffocating me. Only because I’m sitting here. I need to move, to get this shit over with and have her back. “Tell them all to hit on my command.”
As I say the words, the vision on the screen changes and it turns back to Aria. Her arms are crossed tight, and she stands by herself awkwardly in the center room. Facing Nikolai, neither of them moving, but both of them the picture of regret.
There’s no fucking way I won’t do everything I can to hold on to her.
“Hit the towers, the front entrance, and the safe room all at once. We have more men than they do.” The words leave me the second the screen changes again.
“What about Romano?” Declan asks.
“What about him?” The anger and hate in Daniel’s tone reflects the same in every single one of us.
“He could try to make a move on us while our backs are turned,” Declan says and then cuts to a feed showing his men lining the territory. They’re ready to strike, waiting for Talvery to weaken. If we bring them down first, Romano will have us surrounded and if he desired, he could strike.
“He doesn’t know we know, not yet,” Jase answers him and then Sebastian states, “We’ll keep the north side the strongest for Talvery, pushing his men toward the heaviest side Romano has armed. We don’t have to kill them all, just enough to outnumber them. Enough to make them realize Talvery, the name, the empire, is no more.”
“It’s just like before, no one willingly dies for a dead man.” Jase’s eyes shine with the memories of all the challengers we’ve taken down in the past. The name Talvery may be old, it may hold power, but when the man is dead, the name will mean nothing.
“What’s the plan?” Jase asks me and then adds, “Step by step.”
“We need to get in close first,” I tell him. “She’s in the east wing, so we can cut the feeds, take out the east tower discreetly with no bombs, make our approach through that way and once we’re in, hit the other towers and the safe room.”
“They’ll be looking everywhere but at us,” Jase responds, nodding his head and breathing in deep. “You go in and get her, Bastian and I will come with and take out whoever comes running.”
“Kill the feeds as soon as we get close to the east tower. We’ll walk along the tree line,” I tell Declan and he’s quick to answer, “The cameras rotate every ninety seconds. You’re going to need the feeds handled before you get past this road. Or else they’ll see you coming.”
“There are men on the ground,” Jase pipes up. “Cut the feeds, we’ll get in there, kill those two fuckers outside the east tower and use them to get in.”
Sebastian looks at Declan and asks, “It’s fingerprints right?” With a nod from Declan, Jase adds, “Dead fuckers still have prints. It’ll work.”
With my brother and my friend behind me, my men surrounding the enemy and ready to wage war, it’s time. My heart pounds as I run through the forest and raise
my gun, hearing the startled shouts from the towers regarding the security feeds going down. I can hear their fear; I can fucking feel it as I raise my gun in the shadows. The three of us shoot, the bullets muffled with the silencers, before the two men, men just like me, even see us. The first two men to die tonight. Their bodies are still warm, heavy and limp as we drag them to the security pad, wipe the blood from their fingers on our pants to gain entrance, and begin to end this war.
Chapter 94
Aria
“I can’t see you with him.” Nikolai’s voice is calm, somehow sounding forgiving as he watches me pace in my father’s office.
I stare past him at the pictures on my father’s wall. There’s a picture of my mother and father, with my uncle between them. I never met him. In the photo he’s holding them close, his arms wrapped around their shoulders. It’s a black-and-white snapshot, taken just before my uncle was murdered. It’s only one of nearly a dozen pictures on the wall to the right of my father’s desk. But only that photo, and one other hold any of my attention.
I breathe in and out slowly as I stare at the second picture, trying to stand upright and not let on that anything’s wrong.
It’s Carter’s house. The Cross brothers’ home. The same photograph that’s in Carter’s foyer. An icy prick spreads over my skin and all I can hear are my shallow breaths.
I swear it’s the same. I knew when I first saw it that the picture was familiar. I thought maybe I’d been there before, but this is why it was so familiar.
My father has a picture of Carter’s old house, the house he destroyed, hung up in his office. Is it a fucking trophy? A reminder of something? My stomach roils as I cross my arms tighter, feeling more and more like a trapped animal. I wish my father were here so I could ask him. So I could face him after everything that’s happened. If he were though… I can’t even imagine where we’d begin. A lifetime has come and gone. I’m not the same person I was when I last stepped foot in this home.