by Bella Rose
I grasped and crawled, driving pieces of wood and gypsum beneath my nails and into my hands as I struggled to gain traction in the mess that had once been a favorite hangout of the Orlovs. The Orlovs, a good number of whom were still buried below me in the mess. It was a good chance that they were all dead. The rest of them would probably blame me, but right now I didn’t give a shit. It didn’t matter.
The walls were still burning. The spit and hiss of rain pattering down on the crackling fire told me that I was still alive. I had to get to the front door. I had to see if my plan had paid off. My intention was to blow Anya right out of the building while killing Yuri and Antonin, but I had no way of knowing if I’d been successful or not. I could not even admit the possibility that Anya had been seriously hurt by my actions.
My urgency made me struggle harder. I pulled faster and finally managed to grab hold of what had once been a barstool. I used it to lever myself to my feet. My legs were covered in muck, and there was so much wet drywall dust in my boots that I was sure my feet would never come out.
“Anya.” I whispered it over and over again. She was going to be okay. I knew it.
The front doors were still there, although most of what had surrounded them was now ash. I saw a man twisted nearly in half. What remained of his clothes told me it was Yuri. He could not possibly be alive. And if he was, he would have been begging me to end it.
Where was Antonin? He should have been right next to Yuri. And where was Anya? She should have been right here. I was standing in the place where she should have landed. In fact, she had landed here. There was a scorch mark on the pavement. I found one of her shoes. It was smoking, the sole partially melted.
“No,” I whispered hoarsely. My lungs felt seared both by the gypsum dust and the smoke. “He has her. He fucking has her!”
They could not have gone far. I sucked in a deep breath and straightened my broken body. I was going to keep looking until I was dead. That was all there was to it. I would never give up. I gazed at the scene and listened to the sirens coming closer and closer. It was time to leave. I had no time for emergency personnel. Not now.
I limped off, dragging my injured right leg just slightly behind me. My hip wasn’t working correctly. It felt like there was something sticking out of my leg. I groped down over my thigh and realized that there was a big piece of wood lodged in the muscle of my leg just below my hip joint. There was not time to pull it out now. Not when I might bleed. So I would limp and forget about it. I forced myself to think past the sharp stab of each step I took. That didn’t matter. Only Anya mattered now.
I passed two cars, one of them Antonin’s. There was a piece of the bar itself embedded in Antonin’s front windshield. Obviously he couldn’t have gone by car. He would probably need help. Could he possibly make it to an emergency room somewhere? I searched my brain for the nearest hospital and headed in that direction.
The streets were dark. The rain was coming down in sheets that froze me in my tracks as I struggled to walk. Still I kept going. This dogged pursuit was never going to end. It felt as though we had been going for hours when it had only been minutes. Then I saw a figure ahead. At first my exhaustion played tricks on my mind. It was a two-headed creature, a hunchbacked monster skulking through the streets. Then I realized that I was seeing Antonin dragging Anya along behind him. I had found them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Anya
Why wouldn’t this man die? It was inconceivable that Antonin was still moving. Yet if anything, the injuries made him just that much more dangerous. There was something unhinged about him. He clutched my arm in his right hand. He was dragging me. Or maybe I was dragging him. There was so much blood. It poured from a wound on his forehead and seeped from the raw burns on his arms and hands. My skin was sticky with his blood as it mingled with my own. I just wanted this night to be over. I just wanted it to end.
“Antonin, I can’t go any further,” I insisted.
He yanked me forward, heading toward a destination that existed only in his crazed mind. “Shut up! This is all your fault. All of it!”
I should be able to get away. He was weak. Why was I still here?
The thought hit me hard. I stopped walking. His hand jerked me forward as though he had come to the end of a tether, but I didn’t move. I planted my feet and remained still. His grip could not hold up to the blood smearing my arm. His hand slipped and he let go. I watched him stumble forward just as I turned around and bolted.
I knew he had a gun. He’d brandished it at me when we’d left the burning pile of rubble that had once been a bar. Now I heard it click. He struggled a little, the sound not as smooth as what I was used to.
My whole body cringed inward as I waited. I was running, but there was no place to hide out here in the open street. He was going to shoot me in the back. I would die. And the only thing I could think was that it would finally be over.
My lungs burned and my eyes watered as I struggled to run. My knees weren’t working right, and my side was on fire. I couldn’t see what was wrong in this darkness. I could not even see where I was running.
“Stop!” Antonin shouted. His voice was hoarse and gravelly. “I’ll shoot you, Anya! I will kill you dead right here.”
I felt like I was sprinting, and yet I’d only managed to cover a few feet of ground as I hobbled away. It was agonizing. How could I save myself when I could hardly stand on my own two feet?
Something heavy weighed against my legs and dragged me to the ground. I struggled desperately, trying to stay on my feet. I managed to look down but could only stare dumbly at Antonin as he held on tight. Had he actually flung himself at my feet?
I stumbled. Then I fell heavily to the cement. What was probably the only noninjured bit of skin on my elbow scraped across the blacktop. The new pain brought tears to my eyes. I was done. I could not move any farther, and nobody was going to make me. I hurt so badly. Even my eyes were painfully swollen with smoke and grit. Whatever the outcome, I did not care anymore.
“Get up!” Antonin was smacking my legs, but his blows were weak and ineffectual. “Get up and keep moving!”
I didn’t bother to point out that he was on the ground himself. He was so angry. I could feel it in every word he said. I did not know what to do, but I knew what I could not do. I could not move. It was beyond my power to do so. So I stared at him in silence and waited to see what would happen.
“You want to die?”
He rolled and squirmed as he dragged his gun from underneath him. Grabbing my shirt, he yanked me closer. Then he placed the barrel of the weapon against my temple and sneered into my face. I had never hated another human being as much as I hated him in that moment.
“Do you really want to die, you stupid bitch?”
I didn’t answer. It was a stupid question. Of course I didn’t want to die. I was just too tired to fight anymore. It is shocking how quickly things go through your mind when you truly think that your life is over. It was so fast. But not like a spool of memories or a highlight reel or anything. It was more that I thought of all the people in my life. I thought of how we were connected. I thought of the missed opportunities to connect with my father. I thought of Daisy and how I’d never told her that I was so incredibly grateful for her friendship. And mostly I thought about Vasily.
I thought about how insignificant lies were when the truth involved death. Lies could be confessed and unraveled. They could be forgiven. He had not been forthright with me, but I already knew he’d been asked to keep his identity secret. Perhaps I hadn’t been giving him enough credit. Going against my father’s edicts was no small feat. He was a good man. I think I knew that. Or maybe it was the brush with death that was making me melancholy. But whatever the reason, I could not stop thinking that I should have told him that I loved him. Although maybe I should have started by admitting it to myself.
Antonin was beating on my chest. I think he was trying to get a response. Maybe he thought I was already dea
d. I felt him drop the gun. I felt it cool and deadly against my side. I moved my hand just a fraction of an inch, far enough to grasp the butt of the weapon. The dull thud of his hands hitting my body resonated throughout my head until he had drowned out my heartbeat. I was going to die if I didn’t do something right now.
Vasily
Antonin was going to kill her! I shambled forward as quickly as I could. What was he doing? He was beating her chest as though he thought he could force a response from her broken body. She was in such bad shape! Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he had killed her. The blood. God! The blood was everywhere. It coated her arms and legs. Her clothing was burned away in places, and her skin was puckered and discolored with burns and lacerations. My gamble had been too much! I had lost and I was going to hate myself forever for what I had done.
“Stop!” I shouted at Antonin, but my voice only came out as a husky sound barely louder than a stage whisper.
I staggered closer, finally giving up and flinging myself at Antonin. My body connected with his, and the resulting pain was breathtaking. I shoved that aside. It didn’t matter. I rolled him off Anya and let my entire body weight rest on top of his.
“Leave her alone!” I ordered him. “You’ve done enough. Don’t you fucking think you’ve done enough?”
“It was mine!” Antonin shoved at me but didn’t have the strength to push me away. “It should have all been mine. Why did you have to get in the way?”
“Why was it yours? Why?” I didn’t understand. It made no sense. “You’re just an Avtoritet! You’re no better than five different men in the Bratva! You’re no better than me!”
“Boris is my father!”
The words stunned me. I could not speak. I could not move. How?
He must have seen the words on my face. “His name was on my birth records in Russia. My mother named him as my father!”
“Does he know?” But even as I managed to spit the words through my cracked lips, I knew the answer. Boris would have to know. He had brought Antonin over to the US. He had all the original records. But it made no sense. The man had no son. Why would he not claim Antonin as his own so that he could have an heir?
Antonin smirked. “He told me once that I should be more like you.”
Antonin suddenly shoved his hips upward. The move knocked me off-balance. I was barely hanging on to my position on top of him anyway. I rolled to the side and he rolled with me. I saw the knife but couldn’t deflect it in time. The weapon sank into my shoulder. The scrape of metal against my bone was excruciating. I groaned and wrenched away. The move pulled the blade free but gave Antonin another chance to pounce. He raised his hand and tried to stab me again. This time the blade never made it.
A gunshot shattered the night. It echoed off the surrounding buildings and made my ears ring. I saw Antonin crumple and then fall over. He collapsed to the pavement by my side and was still. I knew he was dead even before I laid my fingers over his neck to check his pulse.
“I’m sorry,” Anya sobbed. “I had to. I had to.”
I struggled toward her, leaving Antonin behind. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. We were rolling about in the wet street, but I didn’t care. None of that mattered. She was alive. I had been so afraid that she was dead, but she wasn’t. Anything else I could deal with.
“Was he telling the truth?” she whispered.
Her lips were so close to my cheek. I felt their softness and reveled in the knowledge that I would have another day, and another after that, all for my second chances with Anya. But for now, she was desperately trying to understand what had happened. So was I.
“We need a hospital,” I told her softly. “You need help.”
“I need help?” she snorted. “Have you looked at yourself in a mirror?”
“Shall we try to get up?” I wondered if that was even possible. Then it started raining again.
She was shivering. “We have to get moving.”
“Help me stand up.”
The two of us pushed, pulled, and yanked on each other as we struggled to our feet. Both of us wobbled. I was weaving as though drunk, and she had to help me hobble back down the street the way we came. We needed a car and then perhaps a doctor.
“I thought mafiya men didn’t go to hospital?” she teased.
I flashed her what I hoped was my charming smile. “When they’ve been blown up and stabbed, they sometimes do go to hospitals.”
“So basically as long as they haven’t been shot, since that would require a police report.”
“Exactly.” I loved the way her mind worked. “You’re certainly very quick.”
“What do you think my father will do about him?” She gestured behind us to the lifeless shape of Antonin. “If he’s my brother, doesn’t he deserve a funeral or something?”
I didn’t remind her that he had been insane. That was probably something she would never forget. “He doesn’t deserve your pity, sweetheart. But I’ll dispatch a couple of the men to collect the body if you’d like.”
“I would, thanks.”
We shuffled along amicably—slowly. I don’t know. It was all so damn jumbled in my head. Everything was surreal. I needed to make this right, and there was only one way to do it.
“Stop. Just stop right here.” I halted in the center of the street. “I need to tell you something.”
“You do?”
“I love you, Anya.” The words came out in a rush, all shoved together and difficult to understand. “What I meant was…”
“I love you too.”
It took me a moment to process what she’d said. “Love me. Wait. You? Love me?”
“Yes. I could never bear to go through that again without you knowing how I feel.” She touched my cheek. I didn’t even care that the contact burned my already charred skin.
“You’re mine and I’m yours,” she whispered. “The rest of it I think we can work out. Don’t you think?”
“Damn right I do.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Anya
If the doctors at the emergency room of St. Elizabeth’s thought we were idiots for checking ourselves out of there, they were smart enough not to say anything. Vasily had given them some bullshit about a small kitchen fire. Nobody believed him, but at least they didn’t call the cops. That would have been awkward. And considering how antsy we both were to get back to my father’s house, I don’t think that situation would have ended well. In fact, I’m pretty sure there would have been more gunfire and maybe more bodies. Of course shooting cops is tricky business, but I have faith in Vasily’s skills as an assassin and a negotiator.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
He gazed down at me. His face looked even more dramatic with the blood removed and only the bleak array of cuts and bruises decorating his strong jaw and elegant cheekbones. His nose had been broken, but he refused the bandages when they reset it, saying he’d broken it so many times now it no longer mattered.
I answered him readily. “I’m ready.”
I couldn’t have looked much better. I felt like my face was raw meat that had been beaten until tenderized. My eyes felt swollen, and it hurt to move my lips. Kissing the gorgeous man standing beside me was probably going to have to wait. That just made me mad at Antonin all over again.
One of my father’s lower-ranking soldiers answered the door. It was so late that the place had been locked down for the night. I don’t think Vasily or I particularly cared. Judging from the relief on the young man’s face, nobody else would either.
“Come in.” He gestured as he spoke in Russian. “The Pekhan has been waiting for you. He is in his office.”
Vasily very gently put my hand in the crook of his elbow and walked slowly and painfully toward the stairs. For some reason the same stairs I had climbed so many times now looked mammoth in size. I gripped Vasily tightly and struggled not to make a noise as we climbed each step one by one.
I think it took forever. Or at least it felt as thou
gh it took forever. Each agonizing lift of my knees made the burn marks across my thighs stretch painfully. Most of Vasily’s injuries were above the waist, but the piece of wood they had removed from his thigh no doubt made this trek almost unbearable.
We didn’t say anything though. I would never admit to weakness like that in my father’s house. We were both under scrutiny here. I had no idea what the future held. I didn’t want to be the mistress of this house or the wife of the new Pekhan, but at the end of the day that was not entirely my decision. Vasily had a right to be recognized for his worth. And my father had much to answer for.
Vasily banged on the office door. The noise seemed abrupt and loud in the still upstairs hallway. There were no other men hanging about. That wasn’t normal. At least not from what I could remember. There should have been guards. They should have been standing right here at the door, keeping anyone from bothering my father whether he was working or just dozing in his chair.
“What’s wrong?” Vasily whispered.
I couldn’t name my fear. “Something feels off.”
“Not long now.” He gently lifted my fingers to his lips. The gesture warmed my heart.
“Come in!” my father called through the door.
I shoved the door open and stepped into my father’s office. He was sitting behind his desk, and he looked awful. There were two bottles of vodka on the desk. One was empty and one was half-full. Obviously he’d been drinking to solve his problems.
“We came to see you, Papa,” I began lamely. “We wanted you to know that we’re okay.”
“I knew that,” he blustered. “You’re my daughter. You’re too stubborn to die.”