Chapter Nineteen
Mira
I crash on. I think I hear people behind me, but it could be my imagination, like footsteps in the dark.
The way up ahead gets lighter, as though there are fewer trees up there. It’s a good sign—it could mean I’m coming out the other side. My legs are bleeding, but I don’t even care. I burst out from the trees, and there it is, a two-lane highway. Not much traffic, but all I need is one person, one driver willing to help.
And coming, in the distance, is a black car. I slide down the steep, grassy slope and wave and jump, right in the middle of the road, thankful I’m wearing bright colors.
The vehicle slows. Coming.
I move to the side, waving more frantically. “Help!” I call out.
And then I recognize Yuri. Eyes boring into mine. Angry.
I turn and scramble back up the side.
The vehicle pulls off. I run into the woods. My feet are getting torn on roots and branches. I trip, and suddenly he’s on me.
He pushes me down and presses a knee to my back. I’m squirming, trying to get free, as he makes a call.
A voice on the other end. Viktor. They speak in Russian.
I feel something cold and hard on my arm. I jerk away too late. The Taser shock jolts through my body.
And then the darkness closes in.
Familiar arms around my shoulders, under my knees. “Mira. Baby.”
Aleksio.
An angry voice nearby. “She would run to her father. Tell him everything.”
Viktor.
I open my eyes, blink in the sunshine.
Aleksio’s looking down at me, gaze dark with worry. “Are you okay?” Trees above. Dizzying sky. Part of the roof. We’re out in the driveway of that Stonybrook house.
I force my lips to form his name. “Aleksio.”
He’s holding me like I weigh nothing. “Fuck, Mira.”
“She was going to run to Daddy,” Viktor says again from somewhere nearby. “She would tell him where we are. Show the patsani we are weak.”
“I wouldn’t,” I mumble. “Wouldn’t…tell…” I try to speak but I can’t.
Because Yuri Tasered the hell out of me.
I can feel the rage pulse through Aleksio. He must have pulled me from the truck. “She would never do that,” he says. “She would never betray us.”
“She’s a Nikolla.”
“This conversation is over,” he growls. His growl reverberates through me.
“She’s hurting us, brat.”
For once I agree with Viktor. I’m hurting them, tearing them apart.
I feel the rumble in his chest, deep and possessive. “You don’t touch her.”
“Kiro is dead, and she lives,” Viktor says. “She weakens us. They would see that she has her fingers. She shows them we don’t keep our promises.”
“This shit between us right here is the only thing weakening us,” Aleksio barks. He carries me into the house, limping through the foyer, clutching me close.
“Your ankle,” I say. “Put me down.”
He tightens his arms around me.
Viktor’s drunken voice follows behind, talking half in Russian.
Aleksio pulls me more tightly to his chest. It reminds me of the first day in the yard when they shot up Dad’s boat.
We pass Yuri, who is standing in the kitchen holding a blue ice pack to his eye.
Viktor keeps coming. “Aleksio—”
“Lay off! And if you or any of your men touch her again, I’ll kill you.”
“Don’t say that,” I say. “Don’t say that to your brother.”
Aleksio is too far away in rage to hear anything. He slams the study door with his foot and settles me down on a leather couch, putting pillows around me.
“Stop it—I’m not made of glass.” I sit up. “And you can’t fight with your brother like this.”
He goes to get me a glass of water from the wood-paneled bar in the corner. He hands it down to me. His cheeks are pink. His eyes wild.
I clutch the glass. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be fucking sorry. But you can’t do that again.”
“Think, Aleksio. How does this even work with me here? It doesn’t!”
He loosens his tie and undoes a button, baring his neck. Raw power pulses around him. “Drink. Now.”
I drink.
He watches me as if from on high, a dark god with unruly curls, chest rising and falling. I think about that night in the hotel with a rush of lust. But this is not the time for lust.
I hand him up the empty glass.
“Good girl.” He sets it on the desk and pauses there, with his back to me. He stacks up some files and puts them aside.
It seems strange he’s suddenly focused on files.
“I can’t stay.”
“You have to stay,” he says.
“I wasn’t going to Dad, I swear. I would never betray you like that.”
“I know.”
“I was just going to disappear. You have to let me do that.”
He kneels in front of me, gaze like a weight on my skin, rolling all over my skin.
“You have to let me go.”
He takes my hand and turns it over, exposing my palm. He just holds it like a trembling fortuneteller, freaking out at the story that he sees in the lines. “I can’t let you go.”
“You know I can’t stay.”
He kisses my palm. It feels intimate—forbidden—like he’s kissing the very secret part of me. He feels dangerous.
I try to pull my hand away, but he won’t let go. He pulls back my fingers, and he kisses my palm again, feverish breath on my wrist. “I can’t let you go.”
Heat blooms through me. He’s invading me, taking me, and it’s just my palm. “You can’t keep me prisoner.”
He lifts his wild gaze to me, chocolaty hair half in his eyes. And fuck if that’s not a yes, I can.
I want him so badly I can’t breathe, but he’s not thinking right. If he had his head on straight, he’d understand how destructive it is for me to be here. “It was the perfect solution. I was going to go somewhere where you’d never find me.”
“I would tear apart the world looking for you.” He kisses the inside of my forearm. I have the crazy sense of him as a large animal, consuming me from the edges in.
I gasp as he rips my sleeve, then he kisses the tender skin on the inside of my upper arm.
“I would tear apart the fucking world,” he says.
“The longer I stay, the harder it will be to let me go.”
“I’m not letting you go.” He kisses my neck, melting my resolve.
“You’re grieving,” I say. “This is about Kiro.”
“This is about you.” He brings his mouth near mine, hovering there. Electricity builds in the blank space between our lips. “You’re mine. You always were.”
I could close the space between us. I could push my face to his and be lost in him. It starts with just this kiss. I would care for him and love him. Be his.
I want that kiss more than anything. But I push him away and stand.
He sways. His pain is rough and raw. He’s all heart, and right now that heart is wounded in a thousand ways.