by SR Jones
I don’t know what’s going on. Everything is a blur. I got stabbed in the museum. I remember the ambulance, Konstantin’s face. God, his face. He looked wrecked. I could believe I mattered to him, really mattered, but it was probably only shock. Even Bohdan looked shocked. It must be bad.
It does hurt.
My mouth is dry.
I’ve got a headache. Not sure why being stabbed has given me a headache.
I don’t understand what’s happening now. I’ve had people all around me, doctors and nurses, and now they’re all gone. I’m alone in this hospital bay. Scared. Hurting.
I want Konstantin. I want my grandpa. I want Suze. Hell, I’d take Bohdan’s surly self right now. I don’t want to be alone.
The ceiling is stark white tiles, and the walls are gray. Cold, gray, and empty. Like my life. Konstantin warned me, didn’t he? He said his life wasn’t safe, and he was right. This is the second time being with him has put me in serious danger.
I love him, but he’s a health hazard.
I love him, but I can’t go through this again.
I can’t be in this life. It will be the death of me. How many times does it take to learn the lesson?
How do I walk away though from the man I love?
I’m in pain, miserable, and alone.
The curtain swishes open, and I’m shocked to see Maya.
“Cassie, you’re awake.”
She runs to me and feels my forehead like I’m a child with a temperature. Something tells me Maya hasn’t done much nursing in her time.
“My throat is so dry,” I croak.
“You were out of it. Blood loss. You’ve had some scans, a ton of tests. The good news is they think the surgery will be really small.”
“Surgery?” I panic.
“No, babe, it’s good. It’s going to be small. They said erm, … damn my English is good but medical terms, not so much. How did they put it? You must be cleaned? Irrigated, that is it. They need to irrigate the wound, clean it, and then stitches, yes? But no organ damage, Cassie. This is the main thing.”
No organ damage is the main thing.
I hear voices outside. Men. Angry sounding men.
She sighs and looks at me. “The men are furious this happened. It’s my fault. I was the one to tell him to take you.” She shakes her head. “I love it there, and I wanted you to have a lovely memory of Paris.”
Oh, I do. A few lovely memories, and then some truly awful ones too. Life with Konstantin is a constant rollercoaster of ups and downs.
“It’s not your fault,” I say.
There’s movement beyond the curtain, and it’s pulled back again as Konstantin steps into the room with Andrius. When did he get to Paris? How long have I been asleep?
“Why didn’t you shout at me when she woke up?” Konstantin demands angrily of Maya.
“She literally just opened her eyes,” Maya retorts.
“How are you feeling?” Konstantin comes to my side and takes my hand.
I shrug, out of words right now.
“You need surgery,” he says. “But you’re lucky. The knife didn’t get any vital organs. The surgery is more precaution than anything, they say, to clean the wound and prevent infection. Sew it up nice and neat.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Can you give us a moment?” he asks Andrius and Maya.
Andrius nods, and Maya gives me a smile before leaving too.
Konstantin sighs and sits heavily on the small plastic chair by the bed. He opens his mouth, closes it, scrubs a hand over his jaw, and then looks at the wall.
He’s going to end this.
I know it’s the right thing. This knife incident has shown me he’s right. I can’t live in his world. It’s too violent. Too dangerous. This is still going to hurt, though. I brace myself. If I can take being stabbed in the guts, I can take being stabbed in the heart.
“Cassie, I don’t know where to begin.”
Here we go.
“I’ve let you down, but more, I’ve let myself down.”
“It’s okay,” I say. My voice sounds like a dehydrated frog.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. And you’re right. I can’t stay with you in this world once this is sorted. It won’t be safe. There’ll be another enemy sooner or later, and more trouble. Once you’ve dealt with the Armenians, I’ll go back to my normal life, and you can be the big bad K again.” My heart is tearing apart, but I push on. “It’s for the best.”
“What?” He stares at me. “No,” he says. “I can’t believe we’re here all over again.”
“Where? In a hospital because your way of life has impacted on me again.”
He flinches. “Well, you’ve made your feelings perfectly clear. I’m feeling pretty stupid since I came in here to tell you I fucking love you. Something I’ve never said to any other woman; other than Yulia, and that was in an entirely different way.”
My breathing becomes erratic at his words, but I shake my head.
“You don’t love me, Konstantin. You’ve spent enough time telling me you don’t love me. You only think you do because you thought I was going to die, and you had a guilty moment.”
“Oh no, sunshine. My come to Jesus moment came before your attack.”
It did? “When?”
“When I saw you looking at the sculptures with such awe, it hit me how much I wanted to show you the world. How much I wanted you with me when I went to Rome or to Moscow. I was thinking all those things and watching you, and it hit me. I’ve been a fucking coward.” He spits the words out. “I knew in that moment, I loved you. And then…” His voice breaks, and he clears his throat and swallows hard. He looks away and when he looks back, I’m shocked to see tears in his eyes.
“Then you bent over, and I saw the blood, and I knew I couldn’t bear to lose you. If you’d have died, I swear Cassie, I’d have ended myself.”
I can’t speak. I don’t know what to say.
“I love you, sunshine-jailbait. I’ll let you go if that’s what you want, and I’ll do that because I love you. It’s not what I want, though.”
He watches me, and his face is vulnerable. It’s an expression I’ve never seen on him before. God, I want to fall into his words and say yes, yes, yes. I can’t, though. I can’t live like this. Always terrified someone is after us, could harm us. I’m terrified that someone might come after my grandparents. Or kill Konstantin, leaving me bereft.
“I love you,” I say.
He laughs darkly. “I’m sensing a but.”
“I can’t live like this.”
“Where’s my wild Cassie?” he asks.
“Your wild Cassie wants to dance in the rain and have sex on a moonlit beach. She wants to be with you, which is more than enough wildness for any woman. She doesn’t want her wildness to result in being kidnapped, stabbed, or shot at.”
“No one has shot at you,” he says. Then grumpily amends. “Technically, they weren’t shooting at you.”
“Give it time,” I reply.
We stare at one another.
“Do you really love me?”
“Fuck, yes.”
“Then get out of the game.”
His face hardens. “There is no out.”
“There’s always an out, Konstantin. One just has to find it.”
The curtains part, and Konstantin whirls around. “Leave us,” he snaps.
The doctor stares at him, shock on her face for a moment before she composes her features. “Sorry, Mr. Silvanov. I need to check Miss Evans.”
He nods, but watches the doctor, glowering as if she’s going to hurt me.
“In private,” she says more forcefully.
“Fine. I’ll be back.” He kisses me on the forehead and leaves.
I sink into the raised pillows and sigh.
“We’re scheduling surgery now. It’s a relatively speedy procedure, and I hope you’ll have a quick recovery. You’ll be kept in for a day or so after and
given painkillers and antibiotics to ensure the wound is healing properly, and then you should be free to go home. An armed police guard will be placed outside your room. You will have a private room, and there will be an alarm by your bed. Use it if you need to.”
It hits me so hard. I’m still in danger. I’ve got to have armed police outside my room, and Konstantin thinks I’m a bad person for not wanting this life?
She takes my blood pressure, listens to my heart, takes my pulse and oxygen levels and smiles when she’s done. “All good.”
Then she leaves, and a moment later, a dark head pokes around the curtain, and ghostly wolf eyes regard me.
“Don’t lurk,” I snap. “Come in.”
A mere few days ago this man filled me with fear. Now, I’m so tired and drained from the violence aimed at me, I can’t summon up any healthy regard for the predator in front of me at all.
Andrius comes to the bed and sits more elegantly than Konstantin did, in the chair by me.
“You’re going to have the best security we can buy. Marcus, the British Intelligence guy is on it, and we have a plan to deal with the Armenians. No one from their fucking seedy little group will terrorize you again.”
“No, but someone else will come along who will,” I say to him.
“Not if K gets out,” Andrius replies.
“He says there is no out.”
Andrius smiles. “It’s not easy, but I’ve been talking to Reece and Marcus, and I might have figured something out.”
“What, kill all the baddies,” I say sarcastically.
I’m being a bitch, but I’m exhausted, in pain, and frankly terrified of a future that seems bleak, whatever I do. Either it will be filled with a broken heart, or filled with terror, violence, and mayhem.
Broken hearts heal, but some people we never get over.
Konstantin entered my life a whirlwind of magnetism and power, and he upended everything. Once he’s gone, nothing will settle in the same place.
Andrius shifts in his seat.
“One of the issues is that Konstantin is a warrior. I understand what that’s like. I am too. I thought I could walk away and play house, but the war still came to me.”
“This is what he says. There’s no leaving.”
“No… But there is a way to fight a different war. A much less deadly one. Konstantin can no more sit at home all day doing watercolors than you could fly to the moon, but he doesn’t have to keep fighting this war.”
“You’ve lost me,” I say.
“I need to talk to K, but I might have a way he gets to keep being who he is but without as much danger.”
“You think he’ll go for it, whatever it is?”
“I have to work the details out, but yeah, he might.”
“Are you going to be involved?”
He nods. “Yes, I am.” He shifts again in the seat, and I expect it’s uncomfortable for a man as big as him, that small plastic chair. “You see, I tried to walk away, but the war found me. It’s always there, in the distance, rumbling away. I think the reason it happened is my enemies of old saw me happy, living with Violet, to all intents and purposes retired, and they thought I’d gone soft. Weak. They used that to strike.”
I nod because I understand what he’s saying.
“I might have found a way to stay out of the war, but still be a soldier.”
“I hope it works out for you, Andrius, and if it’s a good opportunity, I hope you can persuade Konstantin.”
He shrugs. “K is a stubborn man, but now I think he has something worth being flexible for. Yes?”
He leaves, almost silent, as he walks out of the room, and I watch him go. He’s not a friend. I can’t call him that, but he is someone I am fond of, despite his scary demeanor.
A nurse comes into my bay. “We will be taking you up to the operating room in ten minutes. You’ll be given a sedative, and then a few moments later the general anesthetic. After the procedure, we will move you to recovery where your vitals will be monitored for an hour or so. Then back to your room. Do you have any allergies?”
I answer his questions, and he asks if I have any of my own. I don’t. I’d like to ask what’s the chance of dying, but daren’t. If it’s high, I’d rather not know.
As he leaves, he turns to me and says. “Don’t worry. Modern anesthetics are very safe.”
It’s as if he read my mind.
A little less nervous about the operation, I lie back and think about what Andrius said.
Hope fills me and I pray it’s not a false hope.
I pray that Andrius might have found a way out of this life, and that Konstantin will take it.
Chapter Seventeen
Konstantin
Cassie is recovering from her surgery. She has guards outside her room, thanks to Marcus. I’ve also got three of my men stationed in the stairwell, just in case. Told them to keep out of sight of the guards the authorities have put there as it doesn’t do to tread on too many toes. Not when they’re helping keep Cassie safe.
I’m exhausted, beat down, and worn out. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a bone-deep tiredness.
Michael is safe. I talked to that up-himself shit Bianchi again, told him the threat level had been raised. I swear that bastard is enjoying this. Soon we’ll be family, and fuck me but not throttling him with my bare hands will take an act of supreme self-control.
I slump in a chair by the window, staring out of the orangery at dark nothingness. This is my favorite room in this house. In any house. It’s soothing in the day; now at night, with all the lights out so no one can see me and take a pot-shot, not so fucking much. The lights outside are blazing, bright and white.
Every now and again, an armed man passes by the window as they walk around the perimeter of the house. We called in everyone we could, and now this expensive home in the Parisian suburbs is more like a fortress under siege.
“You look like shit,” Andrius says as he comes to me, glass in hand.
I take the proffered drink gratefully and sip it. The burn is heaven.
“It’s dark; you can’t see me,” I reply.
“Can see enough from the light outside to see you look like shit.”
I sigh. “Feel like it, friend, to be honest.”
“Nothing like almost losing someone you love to do that for you.” He sits with a sigh and takes a sip of his own drink.
“I never said I love her,” I reply automatically.
He laughs. “Cut the shit, K. This is me. You might fool everyone else, hell you might even fool yourself, but you don’t fool me.”
“It can’t work,” I say. “Cassie won’t be with me if I stay in this life, and as you now know, leaving isn’t a reality”
“I think leaving is possible. I went about it the wrong way.”
God, sometimes he talks in riddles. “Andrius, as much as I enjoy your conversational style, I’m fucking shattered, so cut to the chase.”
He chuckles. “Okay. I left, and in doing so, in trying to be normal and live my fucking best life, I gave the impression I’d gone soft.”
“Where did you get the saying living your best life from?” I laugh as I sip more brandy. The drink and the presence of my friend soothes my jangled nerves a little.
“Violet.” He shrugs.
“You want to be careful you don’t end up having some sort of midlife crisis. Old man like you, with a young girl like that.”
He gives me a dark look. “My friend, our whole lives have been crises. You’re one to fucking talk, and those girls? They might be the things that save us from ourselves. The point I am trying to make is this. I left, but I sat around doing nothing. I’ll be honest, K. I loved it. Never thought I would, but I did. My place is stunning. Nothing but olive groves and sea and sky. Fuck me, but it’s peaceful, K.”
He sips again, and I let myself imagine that. Peace.
What must it feel like?
“Thing is, we’re soldiers, you and I.” Andrius gestu
res between us with two fingers. “When I retired to do nothing, it obviously gave some of my enemies a green light. They thought I’d gone soft in the head because I had settled. I’ve never gone soft. But I do want out of this life. You and me, we got into this for different reasons, and I respect that. But we can get out for the same reason.”
“The reason being?”
“So the people we love don’t end up dead.” He puts it out there, blunt and true.
“Okay. I’m not getting the bit where we leave without anyone thinking we’ve both lost our shit. Plus, I make a lot of money. Why the hell would I walk away from that?”
He shakes his head. “K, you’ve got money to last ten lifetimes. You can still run all your legit businesses, if you want. The other shit, though. We take out the Armenians, in spectacular fashion, as a warning to all and sundry, and we walk away. Totally. No more Allyov fucking pulling me back in. I’m going to do such depraved things to those Armenians, Allyov will shit a brick; as the Brits say, when he hears about them. I want out. I think I’ve got a way, and I’m offering you in on it.”
“I’m listening.”
I sip at the drink and listen to a bird outside. Why is it singing at night? Maybe the bright lights around the house have it confused, I think idly. Then, for some reason, I think of Cassie, laid in a hospital bed because of me, and I focus on Andrius.
“When I left the first time, I played house, which seemed to say to all and sundry, he’s gone soft. And, if I’m being honest, at some point, it would have gotten old. Maybe next year, maybe the one after. Violet will never become boring to me, ever. Doing nothing. It will get old. I know this about myself. I’ve been thinking and thinking about this. Seeing if there’s a way to resolve it.”
“And?”
“How about we stay soldiers, but on the right side of the fight. It sends a message to all around us not to fuck with us because we’re still sharp. It also gives us powerful allies.”
He’s lost me now.
“You know what Liam does?”
“Yes, he runs the protection company with Reece and the rest.”
“Yes, he does.”
He sips at his drink again, and I want to tell him to stop dragging this out. Instead, I get up, head into the living room and open the dresser, taking out a cigar box. I grab us both a Ghurka cigar and head back to Andrius. We light up and for a moment sit in silence, appreciating the rich cocoa and coffee flavors.