I turned to face her as I fisted the blanket in front of me. “Really?”
She nodded. “He marched straight over to Dimitri’s and told him what a damn fool he was being. Gave some big dramatic speech about love and not letting the woman you want slip through your fingers.”
My vision clouded with tears. I sniffed as I snatched a throw pillow up and clutched it to my chest. “That sounds like him. For being a scary mafia dude, he’s surprisingly poetic when it comes to love.”
Emma laughed. “They would howl if they heard us say it, but really they’re both just a couple of big growly teddy bears.”
I sighed. This time I put my head on her shoulder. “What’s wrong with me?”
Vaska was the whole package. Tall, dark, handsome, sexy, and rich, but he was even more than that. He was also fun to be with. I loved our time spent at home cooking or cuddling on the couch as I forced him to watch Buffy.
Home.
It struck me. In just a few short days, it had become home to me. Vaska had made a home for us. It was warm and safe and filled with laughter and fun. Here I was determined to focus on all the bad when there was also a great deal of good.
She stroked my hair. “Nothing. You’re in love. There are few things more terrifying than that. And let’s be honest, it certainly doesn’t help things that we both fell in love with two good men who happen to have bad men jobs. Relationships are hard enough without having to worry about bullets flying over your head.”
“Or getting dragged away in a freaking helicopter,” I chimed in.
“You know he’s only reacting this way because he’s scared to death the same thing that happened to me will happen to you. He’s controlling because he loves you and wants to protect you.”
I nodded. “True. It doesn’t help that he can be so insufferable, brutish, stubborn, obstinate, mule-headed, arrogant, and high-handed.”
“One of these days I’m going to cross-stitch that onto a pillow for you.”
I hugged her. “It’s way too long of a phrase. Just stitch Vaska and I’ll know what you meant.”
There was a knock on the back door.
The three guards who had been sitting nearby, staying a discreet distance from us, all stood, hands on their weapons.
Emma said, “That must be our reinforcements.”
I let out the tense breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. I had forgotten she had sent one of the guards out for tequila and chips.
The guard nearest to the back opened the door. The fifth guard took a single stiff step inside. Alarm bells went off in my head. Something felt wrong. His body language was off.
There was a loud thwap sound, like a bullet being shot into a mattress. The guard dropped the bag of groceries he was holding. His knees crumpled as he toppled to the floor.
Emma and I screamed as a large group of men rushed into the house with guns raised. Our guards tried to exchange gunfire, but they were outmanned.
One guard shielded Emma and me as he yelled in Russian, “Ubegat’! Ubegat’!”
I didn’t have to speak Russian to know that meant run. I pushed Emma in front of me and we raced toward the front door as the intruders poured in through the back. There was no guarantee they weren’t also covering the front, but we had to take that chance.
Emma unlocked the door and swung it open.
There was another volley of oddly muffled shots over our heads. They must be using silencers. The gunshots were muted but just as deadly. Plaster chips rained down on us as the bullets hit the surrounding walls. Without the actual sound of gunfire, there was little chance the neighbors would hear and call the police. Our only chance was to reach the outside and scream for help.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the wide-eyed, slack-mouthed face of the guard a second before he collapsed. Behind him stood a stocky Latino man in black fatigues.
Turning, I shoved Emma over the threshold and slammed the door shut, hoping it would buy her a few precious seconds to escape.
The man raised his arm and pointed a handgun only a few inches away from my face.
My last thought was of Vaska and how I should have told him I loved him when I’d had the chance. Then everything went black.
Chapter 28
Vaska
We had been successful in rescuing Yelena from the Columbian gang, the Los Infieles. Their leader, Santiago Garcia, had kidnapped her and paid the ultimate price. Damien was already on his way back to D.C. with her.
It had been our plan to let things calm down and learn more about the Los Infieles before we wiped them off the planet for daring to fuck with us. They were a well-armed gang with connections. It would take careful strategizing to ruin them without starting a war with any of their other gang affiliates. We also needed to learn how politically connected they were and who we’d need to bribe or blackmail to look the other way. Dimitri and I didn’t gain a reputation for coldblooded ruthlessness by striking in the heat of anger. We preferred calculated, targeted attacks over a sloppy scorched-earth approach.
Of course, that was before we got word of the attack on the safehouse.
That was the moment everything changed.
I drove like the hounds of hell were at my heels, not giving a damn for any traffic lights or other cars on the road. An entire fleet of police cars could have been in my wake and I wouldn’t have taken my foot off the gas. We walked into a scene of absolute carnage. Five guards dead on the floor. There was blood everywhere and both Emma and Mary were missing. Dimitri and I stood in the center of the room, absorbing each other’s blistering rage and pain.
The crunch of shattered glass under a foot had us both turning, Glocks drawn.
Emma stood in the doorway, shaking and pale.
Dimitri crushed her in his embrace, falling to his knees amongst the debris, overcome with relief. My gaze trained on the door, willing Mary to step over the threshold. I lunged for the door and stepped outside, searching for her. There was no sign of her.
I turned back and looked at Emma.
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry, Vaska. They took her.”
My whole world shattered into a million blood-soaked pieces.
I didn’t hear anything after that—a beastly howl of rage filled my ears, blocking out all sound and reason.
It wasn’t long after Emma appeared that I received a secure, coded text with nothing but an address. I showed my phone to Dimitri. Keeping one arm around Emma, he took out his own phone and searched the location.
He held his phone up for me to see. “It’s a boarded-up restaurant.”
Before I could respond, a second text message arrived. Bile rose in the back of my throat. I gripped my phone so hard, I heard the screen crack. Dimitri laid a calming hand on my shoulder as he wrestled the phone from my grasp. He looked at the screen and cursed. Before he could shield her, Emma looked at the screen as well and shrieked. She would have collapsed had Dimitri not caught her.
On my phone was a photo of Mary. She had a black eye and her mascara was smeared and running over her cheeks. Her glossy black hair was wrapped in the fist of a man we knew was named Alejandro as he wrenched her head back at an awkward angle.
Another text came through. It was a time to meet, thirty minutes from now.
A final text came through with only one sentence.