Promise Me Forever (Top Shelf Romance)

by Kate Stewart

  “Now that you mention it,” he says. “I have something I believe you will like.”

  He leads the way downstairs, and he doesn’t ask his guard to follow. Again, I can feel Nikolai’s eyes on me. Something about this is not right.

  Arman is not acting suspiciously at all. He trusts himself alone in my presence. And even I am beginning to question his behavior.

  When he opens the door to the cell, I do not even glance at the slave. My hands come around his throat from behind, cutting off his air supply.

  “Keep her quiet,” I tell Nikolai.

  He moves towards the girl in the corner who looks so much like Talia when I first discovered her. I meet her terrified gaze as I choke Arman and realize that perhaps I am mistaken. This girl still feels. Talia did not. Perhaps that should have been my first sign.

  Arman struggles in my arms, but it is futile. He is stout and old and not trained to protect himself. And the anger swelling inside of me is driving my control now.

  I remove the knife from the sheath under my jacket and plunge it into his gut twice.

  He crumples to the floor, gasping for breath as I kneel beside him. I dig the tip of the knife into his forehead until it hits bone.

  “Tell me why you sent her those photos,” I demand. “Did she ask you for them?”

  He stares up at me, and the shock and confusion on his face is genuine. It produces a sinking feeling inside of me.

  But I know I am not wrong. I could not have been so wrong.

  Talia has betrayed me, and I am determined to find out why. To prove it once and for all. I will pursue this belief to hell and back until I have my answers. My proof. When Arman does not answer me, I flay open his cheek.

  He is bleeding from the gut, and it will not be long until he is dead.

  “Time is running out,” I press.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he sputters. “Please…”

  “Please?” I mock him. “Did Talia ever ask you please?”

  His eyes are answer enough. And I don’t know why it matters to me. This is not for the purpose of avenging her. I have to remind myself of that when I look at him.

  “I did not send her any pictures.”

  I sigh and retrieve my phone from my pocket. There are a number of missed calls from Viktor, which I ignore as I pull up the evidence.

  And then I show Arman, flipping through the grainy photos, watching him carefully.

  Again, his eyes register shock and disbelief, and my stomach turns.

  “You sent these to her.”

  “Those must be from her training,” he says. “Before I purchased her.”

  It sounds like a question. And I can see the question in his eyes. But I don’t want to see it. Because that means I was wrong.

  I slice open his other cheek and then dig the knife into his throat.

  “Answer me.”

  “I swear to you,” he says. “It was not me. Dmitri. You need to speak with Dmitri.”

  I grab him by the shirt and slam him down into the cement, my arms shaking from the force of my rage. “Dmitri is already dead.”

  “I swear,” he gasps. “You have my word. He and his men did the training. And then they sold them. That is all I know.”

  The gears are spinning in my brain. But none of this makes sense. Dmitri could not have sent her those photos. He was already dead. Arman can see I am doubting him. And he still believes I will be merciful. That I would allow him a chance to live.

  He is wrong.

  “He had a business relationship with some of the Vory,” Arman tells me in a last effort to save his skin. “I don’t know who. But that’s how he found Talia in the first place.”

  “I need a name,” I tell him.

  “I don’t have one,” he pleads.

  “Then you are no longer of use to me.”

  I stab him in the neck this time. Blood sputters from his mouth, and he bleeds out in a matter of seconds. And the only thing I can think of… is how much my Solynshko would have liked to see this.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Talia

  Slainte is exactly the way I remember it. Only, it feels different somehow.

  Like a lifetime ago.

  Like a different person that walked these floors.

  I keep my head down and aim straight for the back office, hoping to find Lachlan. But what I find is more. More than I am ready for. But something I can no longer avoid.

  Mack is with him. And she is pregnant.

  When she sees me, she nearly collapses from the shock.

  I can only imagine what I must look like right now. After hours of walking in the brush. My arms and legs are scratched, and I am bleeding from a cut on my leg still.

  I can’t find the words to tell them what happened yet. So I say the only thing I can.

  “Get me out of here.”

  They took me to a safe house. One of their own, which Lachlan assured me that nobody else is aware of. It is small, but safe. And lonely, even sitting here with my oldest friend.

  I am showered and dressed in fresh clothes, the cut on my leg stitched and cleaned.

  And Mack is staring at me. Waiting for an explanation.

  We are in the kitchen, sitting at the table. Things have never been so tense between us, and I can barely bring myself to look at her.

  “Have you heard anything?” I ask Lachlan.

  “I’ve spoken to Viktor,” he answers. “Alexei is fine. They are returning from Bulgaria today. He does not know anything yet, and I did not mention it.”

  “And Magda?” I ask.

  “She is fine also.”

  I tap my fingers against the wood of the kitchen table as silence descends over us. I don’t know what else to do. What else to say.

  “Viktor thinks you are dead,” Lachlan tells me. “He will tell Alexei soon.”

  My throat feels like it’s closing in on me. There are tears in my eyes when I look at Lachlan.

  “Is that what you want?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I release a shaky sob. “I don’t know what I want. I need to think.”

  Lachlan sighs and looks to Mack. Who is still staring at me like she doesn’t know me. And she’s right. I’m a completely different person than I was before. And I can see that even though she knows better than to say anything right now, the betrayal is there in her eyes.

  She keeps glancing at my pregnant belly, silently judging me.

  I hate this. I hate how stilted everything is between us. But I can’t deal with that right now. I can only focus on the seconds. The minutes. Think of what I need to do. Of what’s best for me and my baby. I don’t want to leave Alexei.

  I love him. I love him so much.

  But I can’t return to that house. Be a prisoner on the third floor. I can’t live like that. With his coldness. His distance. He made me feel just so that he could destroy me all over again. He promised to protect me. But there is no protecting me from himself. From the fears that rule his life and his beliefs. He doesn’t trust me.

  He doesn’t love me.

  “Alexei is a mate and an ally,” Lachlan informs me. “And he has been good to me. But you are Mack’s mate. And Mack is my wife. So I’m telling you now. This is your chance to get out of this situation if you want it. Probably the only chance you are ever going to get.”

  I nod, because I know he’s right. But I can’t stop crying. It’s freaking Mack out. Because I never cried before. But now, I’m a mess.

  Just as she always said I was. And I always tried to prove so hard that I wasn’t.

  I don’t care anymore. I don’t care if she thinks me weak. My heart is broken. Destroyed. And I have to make a life altering decision. One that will hurt us both, no matter what I decide. I don’t want Alexei to think I’m dead, but I know Lachlan is right. He won’t let me go any other way.

  This isn’t what I wanted.

  At all.

  But this is my reality. And I need to think of wha
t’s best for me. For once in my life. And for the baby. Which deserves to have his father in his life. Alexei would be a good father.

  But if he knew, then that would mean sacrificing myself. The rest of my life living with a man who hates me.

  “I can’t win,” I tell them both. “No matter what I decide, I can’t win.”

  “Then you never should have married him,” Mack replies.

  I look up at her, and so does Lachlan. Her voice is cold. Angry. Bitter.

  “You should have come to me.”

  “You wouldn’t have understood,” I tell her. “And you can’t fix everything for me, Mack. You can’t fix me.”

  “Those are just the same old excuses, Tal. Complete bullshit.”

  “Mack,” Lachlan’s voice is warm and soft when he speaks with her. Filled with real love. It chokes me up even more. “Now is not the time.”

  “I know it’s not the frigging time,” Mack replies. “But Jesus, Talia. What the hell are you thinking right now? Of course you can’t go back there. Look at you. You’re a goddamn mess. For once in your life, think. Fucking think about this baby that you’re bringing into the world. About what’s best for him.”

  And I don’t know why, but I laugh. Because maybe this is what I need. My anger. Maybe Mack is doing me a favor by picking a fight with me right now.

  “So let me get this straight,” I reply. “You can marry into the mob, but I can’t? How does that work exactly?”

  “My husband isn’t an abusive asshole,” she states. “Look at you. Look at what he did to you. You can barely hold it together.”

  “You don’t know him,” I snap. “So why don’t you… for once in your life… quit judging everyone else around you, huh? I was like this long before Alexei ever came into my life. If anything, he put me back together.”

  I don’t mention that he broke me too. Because they can both see it. But Mack is determined to argue.

  “I’m not judging you, I’m stating a fact. You always assumed the worst of me, Tal. But all I’ve ever done was try to protect you.”

  “No, all you’ve ever done is try to get me to be exactly like you,” I yell at her. “To think like you. Act like you. Do as Mack would do with all her high morals and bullshit. You are such a fucking hypocrite.”

  She blinks at me, stunned, but I’m not finished. It’s time we got this out, once and for all.

  “You pride yourself on your loyalty to your friends, but you don’t even know them.”

  “I know you better than anyone,” she snaps.

  “No, you don’t. You refused to listen to me. When I tried to tell you the dark things about myself. You just didn’t want to accept them as a part of me. But that isn’t the way life works, Mack. You have to accept the bad in people too. Like Scarlett. Like me.”

  “What does Scarlett have to do with this?”

  “You don’t even know what she does!” I shout. “When she’s out at night.”

  “She sells her body,” she replies. “Everybody fucking knows it.”

  “Except she doesn’t.” I look at her and shake my head. “Not at all.”

  Mack is stunned, and Lachlan seems uncomfortable with this conversation, but keeps his mouth shut. I’ve always appreciated that about him. That he lets someone speak their piece. And that for once, someone isn’t looking at me like I’m completely crazy.

  “She’s a trick roller,” I tell Mack. “She doesn’t fuck men. She robs them. Because it gives her some of the power back that she lost. But you couldn’t ever understand that.”

  “I could…” Mack sputters, but the words die off.

  “No you couldn’t,” I tell her. “Because you aren’t like us, Mack. I’m sorry, but you’re not. You’re stronger. And you haven’t walked our path. But you judge us for it. You do.”

  “I don’t judge,” she whispers.

  And then tears spring to her eyes, and I feel guilty for saying it. But it needed to be said.

  “You do.”

  “Okay, maybe a little, but only because I want what’s best for my friends.”

  “But you can’t shame them into it, Mack. You can’t force people to change. To cope with everything the way that you do. People are different. They all deal with things differently. You need to understand that.”

  “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Tears spill down her cheeks when she looks at me. “I pushed you into it. That trip with Dmitri. Because the last time I saw you… we argued.”

  “You didn’t push me into it.” I shake my head. “I would have gone regardless.”

  “But if I hadn’t been so pushy. So… judgy. And then I asked Alexei to save you.”

  “Mack.”

  I’m crying too, so it’s the only word I can get out. We both stand up and close the distance between us. Healing all of the hurt and anger with a single hug.

  I cry in her arms, and she holds me. And I don’t know how long we stand there like that, but I only know that a piece of my heart feels like it isn’t dead anymore. Like this is exactly where I need to be right now.

  It takes me over an hour to say the words. To accept what it is that I need to do.

  That I will need to hurt Alexei to protect myself.

  And that I will hate myself for it.

  But I don’t see any other choice.

  “I want to stay here,” I tell Lachlan with a shaky voice. “I’m going to stay here.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Alexei

  “Viktor keeps calling,” Nikolai tells me from the passenger seat of the car.

  “Ignore it. I will deal with him later.”

  “I don’t think it’s about Arman,” he tells me.

  He keeps scrolling through his phone, checking through messages and missed calls. And when he tenses beside me, I know something is wrong.

  I pull over to the side of the road and give him my full attention. We are an hour from home. I just want to get back to the house. To figure out this mess. To ask Talia who sent her the photos again.

  I’m clinging to that, because it’s all I can do to continue down this path I have set out for myself. She has betrayed me. I could not have been so wrong about that. That is the only acceptable thing for me to believe.

  But then Nikolai turns to me, and his face is pale. Worried. He’s holding up his phone, and Viktor is already on the line, through a video chat.

  I’m not prepared for what he is about to say, so I delay the inevitable. My mind is turning, my hands clenched at my sides.

  “I will come to speak with you this evening,” I tell Viktor. “To explain my actions. And to retrieve Talia.”

  “Lyoshenka.”

  His face is full of emotion. Something that Viktor rarely ever shows. But it’s there now. And it’s triggering the emotion inside of me too. Something I do not like. Something I try to avoid at all costs.

  He isn’t angry. And he should be angry with me. He knows I have gone against his orders. Killing Arman was an unsanctioned act. He should be discussing his punishment with me. Instead, he is showing clear pity for me.

  “What is it?”

  My stomach drops out and I die inside before I even read his words.

  “Talia is dead.”

  The basement floor is coated in blood.

  Corpses, stacked in the corner.

  My hands, itching for more.

  For all out war.

  But Viktor is beside me, talking of nonsense. Telling me to keep a rational head.

  “Those trucks were delivered from your house,” I remind him. “Someone has betrayed us.”

  “Yes,” he agrees. “But you have killed the men responsible for delivering them. Now we must wait. Be patient.”

  “I have no patience left,” is my reply. “My wife is dead. My unborn son, dead. Franco, dead. And you ask me for patience?”

  “We will right these wrongs,” he assures me. “In time. When we have discovered the traitor. There will be no mercy for him, Lyoshenka. None. But you must b
e patient.”

  “I have waited too long already,” I answer. “There isn’t even a body for me to bury…”

  The words die off, and I take a breath. I cannot think about that right now. Think about my Solnyshko that way. In my mind, she is still up on the third floor. Where I left her. Where she is beautiful and perfect and mine, even when I break her heart. When I destroy her as I always knew I would.

  There is only one way for me to go on. The only way that I know. And it’s written in blood.

  I turn to Nikolai, who is watching the conversation, but remains carefully quiet.

  “What of Dmitri’s men? The trainers?” I ask him.

  He does not look to Viktor for permission to speak. He simply nods. “I have their location.”

  I move towards the door, gesturing for him to follow. Viktor tries to halt me with a hand on my shoulder.

  “Lyoshenka, you must stop this.”

  “I will,” I assure him. “When I have killed them all.”

  A hand on my arm shakes me from my blackness, and when I blink up, Magda is there. My head is pounding, and I feel the urge to retch from the amount of liquor inside of my system.

  I want her to go away. I want everything to fucking go away.

  “Alyoshka,” she says. “You need to eat something. It has been two days.”

  No. It has been a month. A month since I died. Since everything just… stopped. I have spilled more blood in this time than in my entire career as a Vor. And I will continue to do so.

  To honor her memory in the only way I can.

  “Nikolai is here to see you,” Magda tells me.

  “Send him away.”

  “Too late.” He steps into view. “And I have something I believe you will want to see.”

  My eyes move to the disk in his hand. And it is the only thing that fires a spark inside of me. Vengeance. It is the only thing that keeps me living from one day to the next. The kill. The destruction. The war I have waged on the animals who touched her. Who ever even thought of hurting her.

  Magda leaves us to our privacy and I rouse the computer from its slumber, bringing up screen after screen on the wall. They are all filled with images of her. Of us.