I shook my head and tightened my grip on the steering wheel. I didn’t want to think about what he would do to Sadie. I kept my eyes on the road, driving as fast as I possibly could through the dark night and rushed towards the woman who had changed everything for me.
This wasn’t about revenge anymore. It wasn’t about Nathan Blanchet, or what he’d done to my parents.
This was about Sadie.
She didn’t deserve any of this. She just wanted to live a good, quiet life. She was good. She was pure. She was innocent.
Right now, I didn’t give a fuck what happened to Nathan Blanchet. If Ivanov put a gun to his head, I wouldn’t stop him, but the need to be the one who pulled the trigger was gone. I didn’t need revenge.
Senator Blanchet’s life was already ruined.
Then, it felt like the sun was coming up over the horizon and I was seeing things clearly for the first time. Dawn was breaking on my life after fifteen years of deep, dark night. In this moment of crisis, I finally understood that I’d been wrong.
My parents didn’t need to be avenged. They were pacifists. They left Iraq to flee the violence, and they lived peacefully. They wouldn’t want me to kill for them.
They’d want me to love for them. They would want me to forgive and move on, and live the peaceful, quiet life that they so wanted. Living my life in bitterness and in anger would disappoint them more than anything else.
I’d wasted so many years on Nathan Blanchet. Wasted years thinking about him, obsessing over him, hating him. What I should have done was lived a life that my parents would be proud of. Avenging their death would have made them miserable, not proud. If they saw me now, they wouldn’t recognize me.
Tears smarted my eyes as I turned the last corner and came to a stop behind Chris’s surveillance van. I took a deep breath, killing the engine and turning to Balmoral.
“Come on,” I said. “We’re going.”
This would end tonight. All of it—Blanchet, Balmoral, Ivanov. The operation would be blown open tonight, and my only goal was walking away with Sadie by my side.
20
Sadie
The smell of boiled cabbage and stale onions that emanated from the big Russian was nauseating. He dragged me along the side of the house, and I saw one of my parents’ security guards unconscious near the front door. I hoped he wasn’t dead. My eyes pricked with tears as panic started to set in.
The smell didn’t help.
When the Russian stuffed me in the car, I wanted to throw up. The huge, lumbering man locked me in the back seat and slipped into the driver’s seat as his partner went to the passenger’s side. Their guns glinted in the streetlight, strapped to their belts like trophies.
I watched the driver draw his unibrow even closer together as he drove off down the street. Glancing out the back windscreen, I felt a sob choke me as my childhood home slipped further and further away.
The two men muttered to each other in Russian.
“Where are you taking me?” I interrupted.
They ignored me.
The driver turned a corner and I watched his huge, meaty paws grip the steering wheel. It looked like he’d be able to crush it between his fingers, and I sank back down in the seat, hugging my arms to my chest.
I was so stupid!
I’d gone back for my dog! Idiot! My dog was fine. Dart was happy with my mom, safe and warm and well-fed. Me, on the other hand? I was far from fine.
If I didn’t suffocate from the stink, I’m sure this Neanderthal wouldn’t hesitate to suffocate me between his ham hock fists.
“Who are you? Where are we going?”
“Quiet.” The passenger didn’t even look at me when he said it. His accent was thick, and he continued speaking in Russian to the driver. He pointed his thumb at me, and the driver snorted.
“What’s going on! Where are you taking me?” My voice got higher and higher with every question, until tears started rolling down my cheeks. Fear started to chill my blood as the two men ignored me, staring straight ahead. The man in the passenger’s seat glanced over his shoulder.
“I said quiet, little girl.”
I stared at his cold, empty eyes, and the last of my hope evaporated. These men were killers. They wouldn’t help me or let me go. They would take me wherever they were supposed to take me, with no remorse or thought or pity for me.
If they were told to kill me, or if they wanted to do it for their own amusement, they would.
The reality of what Zane had been waning me about finally set in. This was danger unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
I blinked back the tears, suddenly angry with myself. I wouldn’t let myself break down. Not here, in the backseat of a car on my way to an unknown destination. Not when I was in danger. Not when Zane had done everything he could to help me.
No, I wouldn’t break down. I sat up straighter, folding my hands on my lap and taking a deep breath.
I was strong. I was smart. I was capable.
I could survive.
I would get out of this, and I would find Zane, and then I would be safe. I still had my burner phone, and I still had money.
I am strong. I am smart. I am capable.
I repeated the words over and over and over as we wound through the streets. When the car slowed to a stop outside a big, stately house, I said my mantra one last time to quiet the trembling of my heart.
The big Russian driver got out and opened the back door. I half-expected it to come off its hinges in his hand, but surprisingly, the door stayed attached to the car. He put his hand on my bicep and I shook him off.
“I’m coming,” I spat.
I am strong. I am smart. I am capable.
He grunted in response, but he didn’t reach for me again. I clambered out of the car and walked with the two men towards the house. As soon as the house swallowed us inside, my heart started to race. It bounced around my ribcage, sending shockwaves of pain to my fingertips and toes.
An older man, with silvery-grey hair and a mottled red and brown nose stepped out from the room beside us.
“Sadie Blanchet,” he said, opening his arms towards me. “How nice of you to join us.”
“It’s not like I had a choice.” I clenched my fists, willing myself not to cry. The man looked me up and down as a grin stretched across his face. He gestured towards the living room beside him. The Russians flanking me didn’t follow when I stepped through.
My heart dropped when I saw my father. He sat in a chair on the far side of the room, his chin against his chest. He looked defeated.
“Dad?”
I hated how small I sounded. How weak I sounded. I hated the fact that I didn’t understand what was going on, or why I was here. I hated feeling like a fool.
I wanted Zane. I wanted his arms, and his voice, and his scent. I wanted the calming presence of his huge, muscular body. I needed him.
But as the Russian walked over to the bar and fixed himself a drink, I knew I was alone. My father’s head rolled up and he looked at me with dark, sunken eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
“You tell me, Dad,” I spat.
“Tsk-tsk-tsk.” The Russian looked at the two of us, shaking his head. “Not such a happy family now, are you?”
“Who are you?” I hurled at him.
“Please, sit,” he said, gesturing to a rich leather sofa. His accent was thick and graceful, as if every letter was rounded and rolling over his tongue. He said something in Russian to the two men in the hallway, and I heard them retreat outside the front door.
“We’re alone now,” he said. “No need to be afraid.”
“Oh, right. So two guys abduct me outside my own home, drag me kicking and screaming past an unconscious security guard and bring me here against my will. But they’re standing outside the door now, so everything is fine.” I flopped down on the couch and shook my head.
The Russian chuckled. “You’re livelier than your father.”
“I
take after my mother, thank goodness.” My eyes narrowed. “Who are you, anyway?”
“My name is Mikhail Ivanov. I’m a business associate of your father’s. I’d like to apologize for how my men treated you. It wasn’t my intention to scare you.”
“Right, but it was your intention to bring me here against my will?”
He opened his palms towards me and shrugged, as if to say, what can I say?
I snorted.
My father coughed. “Ivanov, she shouldn’t be here. She has nothing to do with this. If you just let me speak to Thomas, I can—”
“Shut up.” Ivanov’s voice was like hard steel, sharp and dangerous. His eyes flashed as he looked at my father, and then he rearranged his angry features into a calm mask. He took a slow drink and his eyes came to rest on me.
“Now, Sadie—may I call you Sadie?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Your father has tried to back out of an arrangement that we had made a long time ago. I am merely trying to make him understand what’s at stake.”
What’s at stake, as in: me.
I stayed quiet, watching them. My eyes flicked from my father to Ivanov and back. I let them run over the windows, which had thick bars across the bottom, to the opening in the hallway beyond which the two big mountains of Russian muscle stood guard.
I was trapped.
I gulped. Perspiration started to gather under my arms and I forced myself to look back at Ivanov. He smiled, showing a row of straight, pearly teeth.
“You’re smarter than your father.”
I said nothing.
He chuckled. “Now, Nathan, be reasonable. You tried to go behind my back to cut me out of this deal. That didn’t work. Call Balmoral and tell him the original agreement stands, or else you’ll publicly expose his weapons manufacturing business.”
“I didn’t try to cut you out, Mr. Ivanov.”
“Nathan,” Mikhail said icily. “Why do you think I brought your daughter here?” He nodded to the man who had brought the phone. The big man promptly came to stand beside me. He unholstered a weapon and held it in front of him, a clear threat against me. I gulped.
My eyes widened as my father lifted his head. He looked completely defeated, and he just nodded wearily. Mikhail chuckled. He clicked his fingers, and another man appeared from the hallway with a phone. They seemed to be everywhere.
My heart thumped as I watched my father take the phone. This wasn’t the man I thought I knew. I thought my father was an upstanding American. A patriot. A Senator.
This man was weak, and corrupt. He’d had Zane’s parents deported and torn apart that family. How many other lives had he ruined? He had done that just to keep his image clean.
And now, he was brokering weapons deals with Russian agents while his image was squeaky-fucking-clean.
No, I didn’t know this man at all. He wasn’t my father.
Ivanov put the phone on speaker, and it rang three times before I heard Thomas’s voice on the line. My heart squeezed. I’d thought I loved that man, too.
It wasn’t until Zane had come along that I realized they didn’t care about me. Zane had shown me what it meant to be protected, to be cared about, to be safe. He’d listened to my dreams without judgement, and accepted me for who I was, not for who he wanted me to be.
Even after what my father had done to him, he was serving his country.
Zane was a real man. He was a hero.
Not my father, and definitely not Thomas. They didn’t deserve their status and money and power. They deserved prison.
Bitterness and bile rose in my throat as I watched my father’s hands tremble. His face was drawn and pale. Utter disgust filled my heart as I listened to his thin, groveling voice.
“Thomas, it’s Nathan. I need to speak with you. You need to come to my associate’s house.”
“Whose house is that?” My heart squeezed when I heard his voice. Just a couple weeks ago, I thought I had a life with him.
“Mikhail Ivanov,” my father said, glancing at Ivanov. “The Russian.”
Ivanov tensed at the sound of his own name. My father glanced at him.
“Okay,” Thomas said after a pause.
“Okay.”
“And you’re still willing to broker the deal?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way. Send me the address.”
My father’s shoulders caved in, and he dropped his head down. Ivanov took the phone from his hands and clicked it off.
“There,” Ivanov said triumphantly. “Was that so hard?”
My father didn’t answer. I stared at him for a few moments and my eyes widened when he started to weep. My father’s shoulders shook and he looked at me imploringly.
“Sadie, I’m sorry,” he said, opening his palms towards me. “I’m so sorry.”
Ivanov snorted, and I didn’t know what to say. The man standing beside me with the gun shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
This was completely surreal.
I didn’t know my father at all. I didn’t know Thomas, and we were all in way over our heads.
Where was Zane?
I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the sounds of my father’s sobs. They pierced my heart like daggers, threatening to make me weak and vulnerable to Ivanov.
I set my face to stone and folded my hands in my lap.
All I could do was wait.
I jumped when the doorbell rang. Ivanov’s eyebrow arched, and he turned to look at the living room entrance. Thomas appeared, flanked by the big Russian who smelled like onions.
“Thank you, Grigory,” Ivanov said with a smirk. “You can go.”
The big Russian nodded and headed back to the front door. As soon as it closed, I heard a loud thump, and then nothing. I frowned.
Thomas looked pale. He rubbed his wrists, fidgeting in a way I’d never seen before. He cleared his throat.
“Nathan, what’s this all about? Why is Sadie here?”
“Yes, why am I here?’ I spat.
“Insurance,” the Russian replied without looking at me. Fear gnawed at my stomach and the man beside me put his hand on my shoulder.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Now that Thomas was here, that was yet another man that didn’t care about me in this room. Tears prickled at my eyelids as despair grew inside me. This was all going to be over soon. I could feel it. There was so much tension in the air that something had to break.
And like Ivanov said, I was insurance. I would be the first to go. I wrung my hands together on my lap and took slow, deep breaths as the three men started talking. Their words flew over me, around me, through me, and I didn’t hear any of them.
I couldn’t escape, I couldn’t run, I couldn’t fight four grown men and come away with my life. All I could do was sit here and wait for an opportunity.
And that opportunity came when Zane stepped through the living room archway. With zero hesitation, he pointed a gun at the Russian beside me and pulled the trigger. The big man fell with a loud thud as I screamed. I scrambled away from the growing pool of blood, and then dove towards the man’s gun.
I picked it up in trembling hands and pointed it straight at Mikhail Ivanov.
Ivanov arched his eyebrow, looking between me and Zane, who had his barrel pointed at my father. Thomas stood with his head hanging down, not making eye contact with anyone.
“Deniska,” Ivanov said slowly. “What a surprise.”
My hand shook as I held the gun. I’d never held a gun in my life. I didn’t know if the safety was on, or if it was loaded, or anything. If I pulled the trigger, I might bury a bullet straight in the Russian’s chest.
I was terrified.
I wasn’t a killer. This went against everything I stood for, but pure adrenaline was coursing through my veins. This wasn’t about me anymore, it was bigger.
I had to survive.
When I looked at Zane, my heart broke. I didn’t want him to shoot my father. As much as I despised him, as much as I felt like I didn’t
know him, I didn’t want him to die. I wanted to cry out, to tell him to stop, but my voice stayed lodged in my throat.
Zane swung the gun to Ivanov. “If I shot you, I would probably be a national hero.” Ivanov’s stare was cool, and calm. This wasn’t the first time he had a gun pointed at him. My hand shook.
Zane moved to point it at my father again. His jaw ticked and his brow darkened. Anger flooded through him and I saw the depth of his pain. For the first time, I understood what my father had done to him. I mean, really understood.
And if he pulled that trigger, he’d be doing the same thing to me. He’d be tearing my family apart, killing my father. He would be the source of my trauma and my pain.
He’d be no better than my father.
“Zane,” I whispered. “Please.”
His grip tightened, his eyes staying steady on my father.
“Zane, don’t let him destroy you.”
His jaw clenched. I could see the battle inside him. My father finally understood. His jaw dropped, and he started laughing.
“Zane Wolfe,” my father crooned. “Of course. I should have known.”
21
Zane
Hearing that fucker utter my name almost made me pull the trigger. He didn’t deserve to live. I’d incapacitated the two men outside and killed the man that had been guarding Sadie.
But she didn’t want me to kill her father.
A war waged inside me. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to end it all, to exact my revenge. Here we were, exactly how I’d imagined, but I wasn’t doing it.
“Zane,” Sadie whispered.
Chris was behind me, at the door. He had his weapon pointed at Thomas. Sadie was pointing her shaking gun at Ivanov, and I had mine on Senator Blanchet.
We had them.
If I pulled the trigger, it would be murder, but I didn’t care. I wanted to end his life. I wanted to make him suffer for what he’d done.
The Protector: The Complete C.I.A Romance Series Page 16