There was no saving himself. There was no saving her. But he’d said what he’d needed to say, and he’d done what he’d needed to do—perhaps in death, he’d find respite. Whatever waited for him beyond the grave had to be happier than this.
18
Elena
Death was nothing like Elena had imagined it might be. It was terrifying, yes, but not the kind of terrifying that made her want to shriek or run or cower. It was made of a low dread that crawled through her stomach like insects through mulch. It lurked beneath her tongue and in the back of her throat. It crept silently and undid the stitches that held her together one by one until there was nothing left to keep her whole.
It was stealing Roman from her, and as it did, it was stripping her world away.
“Stop!” Elena begged him, sobbing beneath him. She was pinned under Roman’s body, and she felt the very moment when he started to sag. The tension that held the bulk of his weight off her body disappeared, and he crushed into her as nothing more than a collection of bones bound by skin and muscle. The blood that ran through his wound had long soaked into her clothes, and she knew it was of her doing. “Roman! Roman, I love you. Don’t leave me. Don’t die. Please, don’t die,” she sobbed, choking.
Bargaining with death never made a difference, though. It took what it wanted indiscriminately… and if she didn’t do something, it would take Roman, too. Elena didn’t know much about anatomy, but she knew by the blood alone that if Roman didn’t receive medical attention, he would die. She was pinned and couldn’t turn to see the extent of the damage, but she felt it. And with Viktor looming over both of them, trying desperately to tug Roman off of her so that he could end her life, Roman’s situation was only deteriorating.
“Viktor, please, have mercy! Stop! Help him!” All Elena could do was beg. Roman’s weight, even with him unconscious, kept her pinned. Her words were her only weapons, and she used them as best she could. “He’s not guilty in any of this! He’s loyal to you!”
“Says the one who has told nothing but lies,” Viktor snarled. He wrested Roman from off of her and threw him aside. In the few seconds it took, Elena scrambled back and rolled over, but it was too late. Roman hit the floor soundlessly, and Viktor descended upon her. He was naked, but somehow, he was even more ferocious than she’d ever seen him before. The fire that burned in his eyes was hateful, and Elena understood it well. She imagined how she would have felt if Alexandra had come into her bedroom to attack Roman. The low-creeping dread squirmed inside of her. It felt similar to seeing Roman hurt, and knowing that there was almost nothing she could do to save him.
“Did you think that you could win his heart and slip your way into my family so easily?” he demanded of her. “Did you think Roman would not be loyal to me? Even though you’ve twisted his heart and corrupted his mind, he lives to serve me. He understands pride. He is no dirty, low-life Popov drone—he is a man of his own will, and he has given his fealty to me,” Viktor growled, holding her still so that she had no choice but to listen, her eyes occasionally slipping over to Roman’s still form.
“Elena, this can’t be right.” Alexandra had come down from the bed now. She clutched a sheet to her chest, crying as she watched Viktor hold Elena down. “You… you can’t be involved in this. I know that you were close to your father, but you saw what he did! You knew about his crimes, and you had a change of heart…”
“She had nothing,” Viktor replied cruelly, not sparing his wife a glance. “Everything we know of her, past and present, is a lie. She is nothing more than a shill for a man not worth our time, and as his servant, she will die.”
“I deserve it,” Elena whispered. Tears beaded in the corners of her eyes. “I deserve to die. But… but please, please, don’t let Roman suffer because of me. He’s loyal to you, he is,” she gasped out, swallowing back tears. “If he was loyal to me, he wouldn’t have stopped me—he would have let me go through with the assassination. He deserves to live. He protected you, and I hurt him. If you will kill me, then grant me that as my dying wish, please, Viktor. Roman doesn’t deserve this. I dragged him into it, and still, his heart stayed true. Don’t let him die. Please don’t let him die.”
Viktor’s eyes narrowed and his face twisted with rage. Elena was sure he was about to strike her, but instead, he pushed her harder down onto the ground and planted his bare foot on her chest. The wind was knocked from Elena’s lungs, and for a second, her vision speckled white. Would this be the end?
“If you want him to live so badly, then you’ll prove it,” Viktor said. His voice was hard, but it was not necessarily cruel. When Elena’s vision returned, she saw that Alexandra had come to stand behind him. She’d set a gentle hand on Viktor’s back, and the gesture seemed to have diminished some of his anger. “Tell me what you know about Anatoly’s whereabouts and motives.”
Elena squeezed her eyes shut. “Will you believe me if I tell you? I swear, I only did what I did because he would have killed me if I hadn’t gone through with it. I felt I had no choice. I’m not proud, and I don’t serve him anymore, I swear—my loyalty is with you, but I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Alexandra asked. Her tone was softer and more sympathetic than Viktor’s.
Tears beaded behind Elena’s eyelids and slid down her cheeks. “I’m afraid that he’ll do to me what he did to my mother—ship me away and imprison me somewhere out of the way while everyone I love believes that I’m dead. Roman found her, or I never would have known, and now he’s…” she choked her tears back yet again. “I’m afraid that he’ll force me to rot in some cell until my mind turns to mush and I lose who I am. I… I know that he’s waiting for me to slip up. I know that if I don’t find protection, that he’ll take me, and then I’ll be dead no matter what I do. I made a mistake… a big mistake. But I don’t want Roman to pay for it. He’s dying. You need to help him!”
“Then tell me where Anatoly is,” Viktor snarled. He held his foot over her chest, keeping her pinned. “Tell me what you know. If I find out you’re telling the truth, then maybe I’ll believe what you’ve told me. And if you lie, then you know what will happen.”
It was the best deal Elena was going to get. Even if Roman’s life not been on the line, she would have taken it. Her father was a vile man who deserved to be punished for his crimes. He’d driven her to this, to giving up her future and hurting her only true friends, Alexandra and Roman. She wouldn’t hold Viktor back from getting his vengeance.
“The last I heard, he was hiding in the loft of an old warehouse. I can give you the address if I can get to my phone. The information is old, and he might have moved on, but it’s all I know. I swear.” Elena couldn’t find the courage to open her eyes again—she didn’t want to know if Viktor was looking down on her with contempt or not, or see how still Roman lay. “Since I was in Russia, we haven’t been in close contact. All I know is that he wanted me to pretend to defect so that I could come in and kill you… but I don’t want that. Not anymore. Roman showed me how much of a fool I was being, and you need to save him. Please, save him.”
“I think she’s telling the truth, Viktor,” Alexandra said softly. “I… I’ve known Elena for most of my life, and I know that it was me who believed that she never could have been loyal to her father, but I really think she’s telling the truth. I’ve never seen her act like this around a man before—and I’ve seen her go home with enough of them.”
Elena opened her eyes, if only so she could look at her friend. Alexandra’s face was burdened with worry.
“Alexandra, call for help,” Viktor said. He didn’t take his gaze off Elena. “While Roman is given medical assistance, we’ll take the steps necessary to make sure our Popov agent lacks the ammunition she needs to do any more harm while we investigate her claims.”
A whoosh of air left Elena’s lungs all at once. “Thank you. Thank you, Viktor. If nothing else, please, save him. He doesn’t deserve any of this.”
“And neither do we.” Vikt
or’s eyes had lost their cruelty, but his voice was as hard as ever. “If you are telling the truth, and if you do survive this, there will still be consequences for your actions. You will not be treated with the grace we have previously shown you.”
“I understand.”
Elena glanced toward the door. Alexandra was hunched by Roman’s side, her phone held to her ear. She spoke quietly, but Elena was sure that she was calling the Sokolov family doctor. There was still hope. With him on call, able to respond to in-house calls within moments, perhaps Roman could be saved.
“I’ll win your trust back, if you give me the chance,” Elena murmured. She didn’t struggle, nor did she make a move to get up. If Viktor was generous enough to give her a second chance, she wouldn’t ruin it. She would be placid. “I’ll show you who I really am when the strings are cut. From here on out, I have no ulterior motives—I’m me, and my loyalty lies with Roman and the Sokolovs. I’d already decided as much until… until this morning, I was reminded of the cruelty of my father, and felt that I had no choice but to do this. But you’ve shown me more kindness than my blood family ever has. I won’t betray you again.”
“Pretty words, but will they be true?” Viktor removed his foot from her chest, but she stayed still. There were footsteps down the hall and the sound of raised voices in the distance. Help was on its way. “This is your only chance, Elena. I will not favor you again.”
One chance was all she needed. Whatever it took, she would stick by Roman.
She would put her father in the ground if she needed to. He was already dead to her, anyway. Blood or not, she’d found her real family. She would never stray again.
19
Roman
For a while, there was weightless, blissful nothing. Roman floated. The world passed around him, of that he was certain, but there were no markers of passed time, and no shapes or sensations he could cling to. For some time, he wondered if this was what death was—a vast, impersonal nothing in which he could be forever, and yet never be. He was only vaguely aware of his body—a warm, nebulous thing with blurry boarders—but it no longer bothered him. It was an afterthought rather than an immediate consideration.
Then, the dream-world came to a sudden end, and Roman opened his eyes to light.
To silence. He blinked a few times in an attempt to clear the sleep from his eyes and focus his vision. Above him was the same ceiling he was used to waking up to every day. There was a mattress beneath his back, familiar, and warm blankets over his body with the same fresh laundry smell he’d become used to. It was his bedroom in the Sokolov mansion, he realized.
He was alive.
Slowly, he turned his head to the side. The furniture in the room was the same. The sparse belongings on his dresser and the few decorative items he owned were just as they always were. His bedroom had been undisturbed. The only difference was the woman in the tiny dress standing at the window, looking out over the front lawn.
“Elena,” Roman murmured. He tried to sit up, but there was a shooting pain in his side that prevented him from doing so. He clenched his teeth and sank back down into bed. Memories of what had happened before his weightless sleep flooded back to him—the assault, the take-down, and the injury. The details were at first hazy, but slowly, the fog parted. Elena had tried to kill Viktor… and now here she was, standing in his bedroom. Had she succeeded, or had he passed through purgatory and found his way to heaven?
“Roman?” Elena turned. Her eyes were wide, but there was a gentle smile on her face. There was no fear. She came calmly to his bedside and took his hand in hers. A strange, sprawling peace spread through his chest. “Are you feeling okay?”
“About as well as a man who was stabbed in the side can be,” he said. He tried to shift his weight, but gave up when the pain returned. It wasn’t worth the effort. “What… what happened? Why are you still here? Why are we both still alive?”
“Viktor took pity on us,” Elena replied. She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. “I asked him to save you, and he complied.”
“He wouldn’t have done that without reason. I betrayed him.”
“I showed him that I was serious when I said that I was no longer working for my father.” Elena’s thumb traced slow circles. The contact relaxed Roman from hand to shoulder, and he closed his eyes again and allowed that sensation to spread through him, as he lay listening to her speak. “I gave him the information he wanted, and he… he decided to give me a second chance. I told him the truth, and his investigations showed it. I’ve been cooperating with him since. We’re not on the best of terms, but I’m not going to die. Not for now, at least… and I think, in time, maybe he’ll come to trust me again. That’s my hope. But for now, all I want is for you to be okay. I was so worried.”
“You saved me.” Roman tried to laugh, but his injury made doing so too painful. He gave up, choking off the end of the laugh to rest his sides. “You stabbed me… but you saved me, too.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Elena’s cheeks turned pink, and she dropped her chin. “I didn’t know who it was who’d tackled me, and I freaked out. I was really strung out. My father’s enforcer stopped by and threatened me… and, well… I didn’t make the best choices. I panicked. I’m sorry for that. I understand if you can’t forgive me, but… but I want you to know that, despite what I did, despite whether you’ll forgive me, I love you. And I’m sorry for what I did—so sorry, Roman. Now that the truth is out in the open, and now that I’ve proven where my loyalties lie, I know it will never happen again.”
Roman considered her words, and knew in his heart that they were true. There was no way that Elena would be here in his room if Viktor thought she was lying.
Elena dropped his hand. She sank one knee into the mattress, then climbed up over him and carefully settled on his lap. Her weight was near negligible—she supported it on her thighs. His injury didn’t flare up, and he found himself able to tolerate the change in position.
“I… I’m sorry for what I’ve done, Roman.” Elena traced her fingers along his shoulder, and he let out a slow, pleased sigh. “I want to make it up to you. I was so worried that you wouldn’t pull through. Viktor’s doctor did the best he could, but there was still fear that you wouldn’t make it. You lost a lot of blood, and there was internal damage…”
Roman blinked. Her touch was distracting him from the severity of what had happened, but there were still questions that had to be asked. “How long was I out?”
“A few days,” she admitted. “The doctor kept you drugged to make sure that you rested. He tapered you off today, and he said that you’d be waking up at some time today, but… there was no clear timeline as to when that would be. I decided I’d wait here for you to come to.”
He smiled. Slowly, careful not to aggravate his injury, he lifted his hand and ran his fingertips down her arm. She leaned forward carefully and kissed him gently, then tried to pull back, but Roman didn’t want her to leave. He lifted his hand and wove his fingers through her hair, keeping her close. He renewed the kiss, and she hummed against his lips in pleasure.
It didn’t matter that he’d been hurt. It didn’t matter what she had or hadn’t done. The past was the past, and his heart had spoken as true as Viktor’s judgment had. Heart pounding, he deepened the kiss. He knew that he was in no physical state to make love to her, but he craved her touch—the thrill of being alive was too great to resist, and he wanted to revel in it as best he could.
But Elena didn’t need to be guided. She pulled away only slightly from Roman’s lips and looked him in the eyes, her gaze docile. One knee at a time, she lifted herself from the bed and his body, guiding the covers down until she was seated on his lap. Roman was naked, but it wasn’t until she sat that he realized there was nothing beneath her skirt. The warm embrace of her skin caressed his shaft, and Roman held back a moan.
“Elena,” he murmured, in total awe of what was happening, but also apprehensive of what he knew would come to pass. H
e wanted her, but he was too weak to sit up, let alone treat her as she deserved to be treated. “I can’t…”
“You don’t have to,” she whispered. With calculated movements, she rubbed herself along his shaft. He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, his heart skipping a beat. Even though his body was injured, it wanted her, and it hardened for her without issue. She was already wet for him—he felt it, and it made him want to plunge into her and make her his, just as she’d been before.
Elena lifted up just a little, and when she came down again, she was angled just right, so that he slipped inside of her. The sudden warmth of her body flooded him, and the moan that he’d been trying to hold back before finally escaped his lips. Elena replied in kind, and the sound of her pleasure drove him to want more… only, he couldn’t engage. Whatever happened next was up to her, and he let her take control, if only for a little while.
He let it all go, and he was glad that he did.
With a gentle swing of her hips, Elena teased him. She kept herself tight for him, squeezing every now and then to increase his pleasure. It seemed like every thrust of her hips and ripple of her walls was designed for his pleasure, not hers, and in his state, all Roman could do was accept it.
She was devoting herself to him not only through the words she said, but by the way she acted, as well. He recalled the spoiled, snobby, brattish girl he’d met on the flight back to Boston and couldn’t believe how far she’d come.
Or how far they’d come together.
“This is all about you,” Elena whispered. Her voice hitched with pleasure as she sank down onto him, ever careful of his wound, then rose up again and let him feel her all over again. Roman moaned anew, and he lifted his arms to support her by the hips. “All of this is for you. I love you, Roman. I hope you know it.”
Falling for the Mob Soldier: Sokolov Brothers Book Two Page 10