Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 57155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Chapter Sixteen
Maykl
Nikolai grabs my arm. “Let her go.”
I shake him off, even though moving pains my bruised ribs. “Kira!” I run out to the street in time to see Kira racing away toward the lake.
I start after her, but Nikolai calls after me. “Respect her wishes. Give her space.”
That stops me. I don’t want to disrespect Kira. I’ve already done plenty of that, starting with not telling her I killed her father.
Blyad’.
It guts me to stand and watch her go, though. Absolutely ruins me.
“Come. We need to check the bombs,” Nikolai reminds me.
Double-fuck.
He’s right. They were planting bombs to bring our entire building down.
I shudder to think what would’ve happened if we hadn’t known they were coming.
But no, we still would have caught them. They were clumsy and disorganized and had far too few men to actually take us down.
Dima is already examining one of the bombs. “It wasn’t armed yet,” he reports.
Nikolai goes to the other one, and I carefully pick up the third to bring to Dima for inspection, since explosives aren’t my area of expertise.
I hear the chatter on the comms. It sounds like the team who entered upstairs was quickly eliminated, as was the team who attempted to breach our air intake to pump in poisoned gas. Kuznets isn’t among any of the men killed.
Nikolai reports that three men got away, including Stepanov. He leaves out Kira also walking out.
I don’t know if she was still considered our prisoner, but it doesn’t matter. She proved her loyalty as far as I’m concerned. She disarmed Stepanov before he shot at Nikolai. And if Ravil wants to slit my throat for letting her walk, I’ll offer it to him.
At this point, I’d almost prefer that fate to the terrible ripping sensation in my chest. The feeling of having my heart rent from my chest and dragged flopping behind me on a chain.
And it isn’t from the bullet bruising my ribs.
Heartache doesn’t begin to describe the desolation crashing through me.
I walk through the parking garage and up the stairs.
I pass the first floor where I should go to report to Ravil. I keep walking up flight after flight. Passing my own floor.
Passing the next one and the next.
I walk up all forty flights of stairs until I get to the rooftop.
Only when I arrive out on the rooftop do I realize why I came here. I go to the railing and stand to look over the edge.
I’m looking for Kira.
Trying to figure out where she might have gone.
She had no jacket. No money. No passport. She’ll have to come back.
Except I know, as soon as I think it, that she won’t.
Kira is a warrior. She’s stubborn and strong. She will not slink back here to collect her things. No, the only way she’d come back would be with the FBI or police to arrest me for kidnapping and murder.
I search the sidewalks below, trace the lake shore for her slim figure or pale blonde hair, but of course, it’s dark. I can’t make out anyone down there.
Damn it.
“Where in the fuck is Maykl?” I hear Ravil demand in the comms unit.
“Coming.” I move for the door.
“In the basement,” Ravil instructs. “Where's the girl?”
“I let her go.” Heaviness soaks the words. Like I just dropped an anchor into the depths of the sea and will never be able to move from the spot in my life again.
Ravil may kill me over this. Fuck. He may kill Kira over this. That I can’t allow. I jog into the elevator to take it down to the first floor.
But Nikolai speaks. “Kira may not be a problem. She ran because her boss dropped the bomb that Maykl pulled the trigger on her father.”
Ravil curses. “Is that true?”
“Yes, Pakhan.”
“And you knew that?”
The elevator plunges down. “I tried to tell her. I wanted to. But I also didn't want to fuck things up.”
“It's me you should have told,” Ravil growls.
I stab my fingers through my hair. “I know. I guess I was hoping…it wouldn't come to light. He was my initiation kill. I was thirteen.” I slump against the side of the elevator then, purposely smacking my head into the wall just to feel something other than the anguish choking me. “I never knew Fate would bring me the one woman who wants me dead.”
The elevator doors open, and I step out into the scene. The bratva members quickly work to move bloody bodies onto laundry carts to be wheeled out the secret exit. The exit we used to get all the occupants out safely this afternoon.
Adrian looks at me as he drags a body out from the other elevator. Great. The entire inner circle has been privy to my fuck-up via the comms. “Maybe Fate brought her to you to make things right.”
I remember that Adrian kidnapped Kateryna because her father was responsible for enslaving Adrian's sister, Nadia. What started out as a revenge mission turned into love.