by Bethany-Kris
“I swear to fucking—”
“Thirteen seconds.”
“Fuck.”
He couldn’t think.
He couldn’t think.
He couldn’t fucking think.
“Five seconds …”
“Rus!”
Even as the guilt of that settled over him, Kaz couldn’t think about that now, not when he watched as Alberto pulled out his phone and dialed a number, putting the phone on speaker.
“Boss?” came a gravelly voice from the other end.
“Kill the Russian.”
“Yes, boss.”
The last thing Kaz had heard before the line went dead was the sharp clap of bullets firing and a woman’s screams.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, Kazimir. I guarantee it,” Alberto called after him with a triumphant laugh.
But Kaz was already running for the door.
Rus picked another chiffon and silk dress off the wall, adding it to the other three in his hand. Violet laughed when he shrugged at her questioning stare. Her brother-in-law was not the type of man to show many emotions—unless it was anger—and he never showed softness in Violet’s presence.
There was only one exception to that rule.
Little Anastasya.
Violet swore her daughter was any man’s kryptonite. She had yet to find a single man in their life that didn’t lay eyes on the baby girl and melt like a fucking sap. It was both sweet and amusing to see men like her husband or brother-in-law turn into teddy bears with a baby in their arms.
The girl was a princess.
Her uncle made sure to treat her as such, too.
Bending down to look in the stroller, Rus smiled at the sight of his wide-eyed, cooing niece. He reached in and fixed the fluffy white hat with the large bow attached to the side that he’d just pulled off the rack and put on the baby. He’d taken the tag off first, of course, adding it to the hugely growing pile of things he was buying.
“Pretty girl,” Rus told the baby, laughing when she tried to suck on the tips of his fingers.
“You know, she already has a bigger wardrobe than I do,” Violet mused, “and she’s a newborn.”
“She needs to be wearing things as pretty as she is,” Rus replied absently, his attention fully on the baby. “Yes, you do, little milaya.”
Anastasya had been sleeping for most of the trip away from the mansion. Only after her father had called and they arrived at the boutique did the baby wake up when Rus moved her from her car seat to her stroller.
“Rus, that hat was fifty dollars alone.”
It was a cute hat, as far as that went. Thick, fluffy wool and a large silk bow made it a sweet sight on her tiny head with her dark tufts of hair poking out and her big gray eyes so wide and expressive. But at the same time, Anastasya had thirty hats and at least another fifteen headbands with bows or flowers of some sort. She had so many that the little girl could literally wear a different one every day of the month.
Ruslan straightened to his full height, staring at Violet with a blank expression. “And?”
“She’s a baby. It just seems like a bit much for a baby.”
“My niece—my first niece. That gives me every right to spoil her as I see fit, no?”
Violet smiled, knowing damn well that she wasn’t going to get anywhere by arguing with Ruslan. She wasn’t uncomfortable with wealth; she’d grown up extremely wealthy. She simply didn’t want to see history repeating where material things became a focus for her child.
Still … she knew it wasn’t the same thing.
Ruslan enjoyed buying things for the baby and so did Kaz, really. It was all done with the best of intentions and good hearts that were usually a little black and encrusted with ice.
At the sight of Ruslan’s grin when he glanced down at the baby girl once more, Violet decided to drop the topic and not bring it up again.
Violet checked the counter, noting the customers that had been keeping them from checking out of the boutique were finally done with their purchases and having them packaged. “We should hurry up, though, because she’s going to want to feed soon.”
She’d brought a bottle along for Anastasya but had left it in the SUV with the baby’s diaper bag.
The trip inside the boutique had lasted longer than she thought.
“Have them charge it to my card and get it all packaged, yes?” Rus said, reaching for the stroller. “I’ll get the baby and the stroller so you’re not carrying heavy things.”
Violet sighed. “Rus, I can carry the baby. I gave birth—I didn’t fall off a roof or something and break my arms or back.”
He didn’t bother to grace her with a response, simply made his way toward the door after having handed the dresses and other items over to Violet.
She watched through the window as Rus easily managed to get Anastasya out of her stroller. She rested in his arms, her small head placed on his shoulder while he folded the stroller up and put it in the back.
The lady behind the counter was just passing Violet the dresses and matching accessories, wrapped in tissues and packaged in specialty boxes with satin bows as Rus started around to his side of the SUV to put the baby in the back.
Violet considered calling Kaz back as she stepped outside of the boutique. He worried so much lately, constantly checking in to make sure she was going to and from where she had promised without any deviation from the plan. She understood his concerns because her anxiety was still at dangerous levels ever since the baby’s welcoming party.
She’d just pulled the phone out and stepped around to the rear of the SUV to put the boxes in the back as Rus buckled Anastasya into her car seat. He chatted along to the baby, uncaring that she probably didn’t understand his words.
“I’m going to call Kaz and let him know we’re on our way—”
Violet’s words cut off when Ruslan shouted, “Vniz!”
Ruslan had made it clear from the moment that he started shadowing her that should he give her that order in Russian, she was to get down, stay there, and not question why.
Her gaze flew to the side, seeing someone appear from a darkened alleyway across the street with a gun already aimed in their direction. She dropped to the ground fast, her heart in her throat as the pretty boxes spilled open and the baby’s new dresses fell over the wet pavement.
Violet swore she could taste the bile on the back of her tongue when the gunshots rang out. She covered her head with her arms, tucking in under the back of the SUV as much as she could.
Oh, God.
Her baby.
Anastasya!
Rus and the baby.
Violet didn't even realize she was screaming until her throat protested from the strain.
Even still, over the sounds of her own screams, she counted the shots.
One.
Two.
Three.
Each one was following by a hard grunt of pain to Violet’s left.
Violet’s voice gave out, and all she could do was sob, fear swallowing her whole. Had Rus even gotten the door to the SUV closed before the shots began? Would it save the baby if it had?
Was he okay?
Tires screeched, and Violet finally lifted her head, seeing a black car roar out of the alleyway and fly down the street. It cut off another vehicle, causing that car to slam into a parked one in an effort to avoid hitting the first car.
People started to filter out onto the street, screaming and crying. She heard someone make a nine-one-one call as she scrambled out of her spot, stumbling as she rounded the SUV.
Violet’s heart stopped at the sight she found.
The SUV’s door had not gotten closed in time.
But that didn’t matter—Rus must have leaned into the SUV and covered little Anastasya with his own body because Violet watched him slide down and hit the ground, sprawling there as blood began to leak from his back.
She’d seen the blood blooming on the back of his navy blazer—three spots.
Three shots.
Three bullets.
She’d heard them.
They’d all hit their target.
The baby began to wail loudly, but Violet was already on her knees, leaning over Ruslan and trying to ignore the way his life source stained straight through the knees of her jeans.
Violet went numb all over.
There was a recognition in Ruslan’s gaze as his eyes flicked back and forth between Violet and then up at the bright, clear sky.
“S’okay,” he mumbled.
Blood coated his lips, and then he coughed hard, making more red-tinged spit dot his lips.
And when he moved from the cough …
Violet’s stomach twisted hard, her hands shaking as she grabbed Ruslan’s face to make him look at her.
When he moved, more blood began to run across the pavement in little lines.
She didn’t want to see where the blood was going, but she followed the tiny rivers to see them soaking into her daughter’s pink, white, and pastel yellow dresses.
“Ma’am, an ambulance is on the way,” someone said behind Violet.
She ignored them.
No one stepped forward to say they could help.
Someone tried to move over them to get to the baby in the SUV, and Violet’s control snapped.
“Don't touch my fucking child!” she screamed at the man.
The guy backed up, hands flying wide.
Ruslan was watching her in that way again, his face devoid of color and his lips slacker than before. “It’s okay, Violet.”
She was too focused on the blood gathering at the corner of his mouth.
Violet wiped it away with the pad of her thumb. “Sorry—I’m so sorry, Rus.”
“Shitty side of the business,” Rus told her softly. “Casualty of the job, yes?”
Violet shook her head.
She wasn’t a job—her baby wasn’t his job.
“Family isn’t business,” Violet whispered.
Rus chuckled but flinched at the action. “Still did my job.”
He looked away from her and back at the sky like he was somewhere else entirely. Maybe that was what helped to keep her calm, the fact that he seemed so relaxed even though he was bleeding out on a wet road and close to death.
“I love them,” Rus said, his voice lower and faint.
She thought he was talking to himself.
Still, Violet asked, “What?”
Ruslan’s gaze snapped back to her, clarity clearing his gray eyes. “I haven’t told them yet.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but she’d indulge him.
Whatever he wanted.
“You will,” she replied.
Ruslan’s exhale rattled, bubbles of red fluid staining his lips again. “Should have done it already. I told you once—it’s complicated.”
Violet understood then what he was talking about.
The man she’d seen in the hospital all those months ago. The woman Ruslan occasionally brought to events and parties as his date.
Violet’s attention was only diverted by the sounds of sirens screaming close by. “Almost here, Rus.”
Tires screeched loudly from the other end of the street, the opposite way from where the sirens were coming.
Kaz’s shout echoed down the road. “Rus! Violet!”
She couldn’t call back to her husband. Her focus was taken by Rus once more.
His eyes were still open, but the recognition and clarity was gone.
His chest had stopped moving.
She’d only looked away for a second.
Just one single second!
In the background of Violet’s shock as she fell back to her ass on the pavement, her hands stained red and her jeans soaked with blood, she could hear her baby wailing and her husband apologizing.
Violet cried.
So hard.
“I’ll have someone take you home,” Kaz told Violet. “You can change out of those clothes and relax for a bit. There’s nothing you can do here, yes?”
She heard him, of course, but her mind was not cooperating enough for her to give him a response.
“Let me through! I need to see my son! Please!”
Kaz stood fully, spinning fast on his heel at the sight of his mother forcing her way past two large men who had been standing in the family waiting room of the OR.
“Mama,” Kaz said, a thickness coloring his words.
He’d been so carefully managing his emotions, Violet noticed. From the moment he’d arrived on the scene to the point when Rus had been shoved into the back of an ambulance, Kaz barely gave away a thing. Schooling his features, he had shouted for someone to call his lawyer when the cops had shown up on the scene only seconds after the ambulance left.
Irina was let through, the twins following right behind their mother with red, watery eyes and with matching expressions of fear. At Violet’s right, Vera stood from the seat she’d been seated in, baby Anastasya in her arms.
Alfie, a man Violet rarely spent time around, put a hand on Vera’s shoulder, and pushed her back into her seat with a quiet, “Sit, dovie, you’ll do no good for her like you are. Let your brother handle it, yeah?”
“But—”
“Arguing is fucking pointless today, innit?” Alfie asked, seemingly emotionless despite the affection implied in his words toward Vera. “Not the best time, luv.”
Violet took her daughter from Vera. The two stepped off to the side, and the harsh whispering began as they settled in a set of seats in the far corner. She was too focused on her husband approaching his stunned, heartbroken mother.
“Ma,” Kaz said, his arms outstretched toward Irina, “he’s in surgery, we’ll know more—”
“You have one job that matters,” Irina interrupted softly.
Kaz’s back tensed, his next words hesitant. “You don’t understand what happened, Ma.”
Violet doubted he was about to explain it to his mother.
He hadn’t even explained it to her yet.
“One job, Kazimir,” Irina repeated, “and that is to protect your family—all of them.”
Kaz said nothing, but Violet could see the pain reflecting in his profile as he glanced away.
The twins began to ask questions, shooting one after the other.
“What happened?” Dina asked.
Nika’s question came at the same time. “Will Rus be okay?”
“How long before we know something?”
“Can we see him as soon as he’s out of surgery?”
Dina peered over at Violet. “Why is she all bloody?”
“Was she there too?” Nika asked.
The questions kept coming.
One after the other.
Violet could see Kaz’s control beginning to wane with each one.
Finally, he said, “That’s enough.”
His words came out quiet but forceful.
It was a tone she rarely heard Kaz take with his younger sisters.
Still, it did the job, and the girls quieted.
Irina pushed the girls toward a line of chairs, ordering them to sit and be quiet for a while. Once the twins settled, phones in hand, she turned her attention back to her son.
“What will you tell me?” Irina asked.
Kaz’s gaze traveled over the people around them. Many watched the exchange, but they were too far away to get the full conversation.
“Things happened,” Kaz offered blandly.
“Your brother was nearly kill—”
“I know, Ma.” Letting out a harsh sigh, Kaz scrubbed a hand down his face. “I just … mind the girls, I have calls to make.”
His cold, sterile response gave away nothing.
Irina only stared at her son, sadness dawning her gaze. “I’m so tired of doing this, Kazimir. I have been doing this—getting these calls and spending nights in these same rooms—for years. You have one job that truly matters, do it well.”
Kaz hadn’t even allowed his mother to f
inish talking completely before he was walking away, leaving the waiting room entirely without so much as a look over his shoulder.
But Violet had seen something his mother probably hadn’t noticed in her spiel.
His fist, shaking, had been shoved in his pocket.
His jaw, tight with stress, clenched.
Kaz was hitting his limit.
Violet didn’t know why exactly, but she knew that look on her husband.
He was losing his control.
Entirely.
Violet was on her feet, passing her daughter off to Irina before she followed behind her husband. She only saw his back a second before he disappeared behind locked doors that lead out of the OR floor.
“Kaz, wait!”
He didn’t stop.
Violet jogged to catch up, pushing through the doors in time to see Kaz take another corner, one she knew led to a line of elevators. She only caught up with her husband once she was in front of the elevators, the door just closing as she slipped in, making sure to put her hand up to keep a woman from entering the elevator as well.
“Take another one,” she told the scowling lady.
The doors closed, and Violet turned to face Kaz. His back was to her, and his whole body was tense, as though he were readying for a battle and fit to kill.
“Kaz.”
“Let me think.”
Violet flinched at the venom in his tone.
She wasn’t accustomed to this Kaz.
“I want to help,” Violet stressed.
Kaz barked out a laugh, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes as he turned around and leaned against the elevator wall. “You can’t help. You, like my mother, have no idea—”
“Because you’re not explaining it, Kaz! I don’t know what’s wrong beyond Ruslan, but something is, and you can’t blame us for not understanding when you’re not giving us the ability to. Don’t you get that?”
He dropped his hands, that flashing darkness back in his eyes as he waved toward the elevator door. “I can see it on her face, you know? It’s all there, even if she’s not saying it. I can fucking see it.”
Violet’s brow furrowed as she took a hesitant step closer. “What do you mean?”
“My mother—she’s thinking if this was Vasily, if this had been him today, this wouldn’t have happened. Rus wouldn’t be nearly dead in an OR. And the worst fucking part is she would be right. She would be entirely right, Violet.”