I stared at Autumn’s sleeping form, trying and failing to come to terms with what happened in that arena.
She saved me.
She actually put her own life at risk to save me from a potentially fatal blow. While we had initially agreed to keep an eye out and help each other in the arena, I hadn’t expected her to truly honor it… Because if the situation had been reversed, I would have let her die.
Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to.
She was far too dangerous. Not only in the physical sense, but in her ability to make me feel for the first time in ten fucking years.
To make me laugh. Smile.
Horny.
And the thing that frustrated me the most was that I had no idea why she invoked those feelings in me.
“It’s because you like her.”
My gaze flicked to Yekaterina’s ghostly image, sitting next to me on my cot. This time, her appearance didn’t bring forth the same rush of emotions it usually did… Because of what she’d said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, not bothering to quieten my voice. The only people down there were Autumn and myself. After we’d returned from our fight in the games, all the other prisoners were gone.
I was suspicious about it from the very start. Talon didn’t do anything unless it served a purpose. So, what was this one? Why were all the other cells empty? I feared I wouldn’t know the answer to that question until it was too late.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Dima.”
Did I?
“The reason why you’re so consumed by her. It’s because you have feelings for her.”
I scoffed, the ludicrousness of such a statement making me shake my head. “You’re out of your mind.”
Yekaterina stared at me, not allowing me to look away from her. “Think about it. Why do you think you get so excited when she’s close to you? Why does your heart beat that little bit faster when she looks at you? Why does the idea of another man touching her make you want to cut his hands off?”
That was the problem with arguing with a figment of your imagination. They knew your deepest, darkest secrets. Things about yourself that you yourself didn’t even know. Things you were trying to ignore.
“So, what are you trying to say? That I love her or something?”
She rolled those mesmerising crystal blue eyes, getting to her feet. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you don’t love her. You barely know her.” She moved to stand over Autumn, staring down at her with a small smile on her lips, almost as if the words she was about to utter made her happy. “But you like her.”
“I hate her.”
“You hate her because you like her. There’s a difference. Sure, at the start, it might have all been hate. But throughout the time that has been forced upon you, you’ve come to admire her. Her strength. Her bravery. Her tenacity.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true, and I don’t entirely believe that it is, it doesn’t mean anything. Nothing will ever happen,” I said, refusing to even allow the notion, the idea of something romantic blossoming between me and Autumn.
“Let me ask you something.” She turned to face me, crossing her arms over her chest. “Do you think the real Yekaterina—the real one, not the one you’ve made up in your head” —she waved her hands up and down her ghostly form to signify herself— “Do you think she would want this for you?”
I squeezed my hands into tight fists. “It doesn’t matter what she would have wanted. She’s dead.”
Sadness streaked across her face. “She would want you to be happy, Dima. You know that.”
I gritted my teeth and turned away from her. Of course I know that. I knew that with one hundred percent certainty because it was something Yekaterina and I had discussed previously.
She’d said repeatedly that if anything ever happened to her, she’d want me to move on. To be happy. To remember her, but let someone else in.
She’d made me promise to do it.
And I did.
But I didn’t fucking mean it.
“I never thought I’d say this to you, but I want you to go away.” I couldn’t handle what she was saying to me. I didn’t want to hear it anymore.
“I can’t do that.”
“What do you mean ’you can’t do that’?’” I asked, frowning. “You’re a figment of my imagination, aren’t you? That means I control you. And I’m telling you to go.”
She smiled, but there was nothing happy about it. It was drenched in sadness. In pity. “That’s not the way it works. There’s only one way to get me to leave you alone.”
“And that would be?”
“Confront yourself.”
Confront myself? “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means—”
A bright, blinding light blasted through the room. I winced, raising my arm up to shield my eyes. After a few seconds, when I lowered my arm back down and my eyes had adjusted, Yekaterina was gone.
For once, I was thankful. Our conversation was making me uneasy.
Autumn groaned. She sat up slowly, groggily rubbing her eyes. “What’s going on?”
I didn’t answer her because I didn’t know. It couldn’t possibly be morning yet. Lights out was only a few hours before.
I watched Autumn as she got to her feet and stretched out her body, studying her very closely. Since her true identity had been revealed, I’d been feeling like such an idiot. How could I have not put it together? She was The Crimson Death. One of the most renowned and feared assassins in the world. Her exploits were fucking legendary.
She’d managed to kill one of her marks by shooting him through a window on a moving train from over 200 feet away. Straight kill shot to the head. Another one I heard about was when she hijacked a private plane, killed one of the lieutenants in The Triad and then just jumped out while over 30,000 feet in the air.
She was fucking deadly.
We hadn’t yet spoken about that new revelation, but believe me, I had every intention of bringing it up when the time came. That whole time, I’d been a step behind. At a disadvantage. She knew everything about me while I knew jackshit about her.
That new piece of information made her even more dangerous in my eyes—something I honestly didn’t think was possible.
My eyes darted to the door when I heard the lock snap open. It slowly began to swing open.
Panic clutched my chest so hard that I couldn’t breathe, pain exploding inside me. “No. No, no, no.” I shot to my feet faster than I ever had, running to the front of my cell. My fingers curled around the bars, squeezing tightly. “No, this can’t be happening. No. No,” I whispered under my breath as I watched four of Talon’s soldiers carry in a limp body.
Aleksandr. No.
Each of the soldiers had one of Aleksandr’s limbs in their hands, and despite the fact that there were four of them carrying him, they each struggled to hold up the weight of his unconscious form, their faces red and strained, their feet shuffling forward one miniscule step at a time, all grunting with excretion.
How did this happen? What is he doing here?
My mind went crazy with question after question, my panic-filled eyes watching on in agony as they carelessly dropped my son to the ground, unlocked one of the now empty cells and dragged him inside.
I prayed that was it. That he was the only one of my children in harm’s way.
But I knew before the next round of soldiers even entered the room that it wouldn’t be the case.
One by one, Talon’s soldiers brought in the only people in the world I loved, and what was left of my heart after Yekaterina died shattered into a million pieces.
First, Lukyan, my crazy, erratic, Golden Retriever little boy who drove me crazy half the time but could always make me laugh. Then Illayana, my beautiful baby girl who looked so much like her mother that it hurt to look at her sometimes. And finally, Nikolai, my brave, strong genius who would do anything for the people he loved.
I clutched my chest, trying to keep myself from succumbing to the pain smothering me. The pain of knowing my children, my beautiful little babies, were going to die, and I was going to have to watch it happen.
Because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Talon would make it happen, knowing it was the only way he had to truly, truly hurt me.
A cyclone of emotions hit me all at once. Anger. Frustration. Fear. I stared at my unconscious children, lying on the floor of their locked cells, knowing there was nothing I could do to help them. To protect them.
In all my life, I’d never felt so fucking helpless. Powerless.
How could this happen?
“What—”
I spun so quickly that Autumn gasped in surprise as I grabbed her by the chin roughly, stopping her from saying another word.
“For once in your life, be. Fucking. Quiet,” I snarled, breathing heavily.
I was at my breaking point, my emotions threatening to bubble over, my control all but gone.
My children were in danger. The panic. The anger. The fear. It was all too much for me to handle, and I was close to exploding.
Autumn’s eyes darted to my children and back to me, widening even more in surprise. I wasn’t sure what it was she saw on my face, but whatever it was made her gaze soften the slightest touch.
Did she know? Did she know that those people Talon’s soldiers had just brought in were the most cherished, important people in my life?
Of course she did. She was far too observant not to notice.
“Do you want to fight it out?” she whispered softly, understanding lying deep in her green eyes.
I did. God, fuck, I did. I wanted to hit something. Someone. To take my frustrations out the only way I knew how: beating the shit out of something.
The fact that she knew that was what I needed pissed me off even more.
Who was she to know those things about me?
I pushed her away from me and immediately swung my leg into a fast roundhouse kick. She ducked, evading the strike with plenty of time to spare because she was good, quick and could anticipate my moves frustratingly well.
She returned with her own kick, and then we locked in a battle of blows. Punch. Kick. Elbow strike. Knee strike. We attacked and blocked. Attacked and blocked. Over and over. Exchanging blow after blow, never letting up.
I didn’t bother going easy on her because she was strong as fuck, and I knew she could take whatever I dished out.
I front-kicked, and she swerved out of the way with the grace of a dancer. She hit me with a spinning back fist, making my head snap to the side and blood pool in my mouth. She spun and ran. There wasn’t anywhere to go, yet I gave chase anyway, staying right on her heels.
She surprised the fuck out of me by pulling some action movie kind of shit, running up the wall and flipping behind me. I barely managed to stop myself from plowing into the wall. Pain rocketed up my spine instantly from a blow to the back, and I shot forward, smashing into the wall anyway.
Fucking shit.
I kept forgetting how fucking fast she was.
I swung back blindly, which she of course ducked under because, like I said, she was irritatingly good at anticipating my moves.
Well, lucky for me, I was good at anticipating her moves, too. I hunched inwards, tucking my arms into my side to block the relentless onslaught of punches she unleashed.
When the opportunity came, I lashed out with a knee strike to her abdomen. She blocked it like I knew she would.
We were just too evenly matched for one of us to truly get the upper hand.
That didn’t stop us from fucking trying, though.
It made me genuinely curious. In a true fight to the death between Autumn and I, who would win?
If you’d asked me a few weeks before, I would have said me, hands down. But after witnessing her in action and being the recipient of her brutal attacks, I honestly couldn’t say anymore.
A deep groan from one of the other cells made us both stiffen, our fists freezing in the air. My eyes snapped to the left to see Aleksandr stirring. I ran to the bars separating us instantly, forgetting all about the fight.
“Aleksandr.”
He groaned again, rolling over onto his back. Autumn came up to my side, wiping a trail of blood away from her chin.
“Aleksandr,” I tried again, edging more steel into my voice.
His eyes snapped open. Lightning fast, he was on his feet, his gaze whipping around the room frantically as his fists came up in a boxer’s pose. When his eyes clashed with mine, his whole body went deathly still.
“Fuck,” he breathed out, his arms lowering to his side.
Fuck? That’s all he has to say?
Now that I could see he was okay, the worry I’d felt over his safety was replaced with anger.
“Look behind you,” I all but growled out.
He turned slowly, almost as if he feared what he might see. “Fuck!” He rushed forward. “Lukyan! Illayana!”
It was no use. They were both out cold. So was Nikolai. Lukyan had one arm flung over his face and was snoring loudly. Illayana was lying face down with a puddle of drool forming around her mouth.
I would have been worried something was seriously wrong if it wasn’t for the fact that she’d been drooling in her sleep since she was a child.
“What the fuck happened?” Aleksandr asked, confusion on his face.
My anger spiked to dangerous levels. Again. “I was going to ask you that question.”
“I don’t…” He ran his fingers through his short, black hair. “I don’t know. I was out when a van pulled up next to me. Four guys got out. One shot me with a dart or something. I killed him. A few of them, I think. I’m not sure. It’s all a little…hazy.”
“And Lukyan? Illayana?”
He looked back at them. “I’m not sure.”
My jaw clenched. “You’re not sure,” I repeated, my tongue running over my teeth in distaste. “It’s your responsibility to look out for your siblings, is it not?”
He cleared his throat and stood up a little straighter. “Yes, Father.”
“Then explain to me how they ended up here.”
“I…can’t.”
“Bozhe proklyat eto, Aleksandr!” Goddamn it, Aleksandr! I thundered, banging my fist against the bars. “You have one job. One job. Keep your brothers and sister safe. And look at them. Look at them!” I roared.
He flinched. Barely, but I saw it. He did as I ordered.
“Do they look safe to you?”
“No, Father.”
“You sent Nikolai in here, knowing how dangerous it would be. How could you do that?”
“We were trying to save you,” he defended, his own anger starting to rise.
I growled, slicing my hand through the air to silence him. “I didn’t need saving! You should have known better!” I spat. “If your siblings had some ridiculous notion to rescue me, you should have shut it down! My life isn’t worth all of you being at risk!” I looked him dead in the eyes. “YA tak razocharovan v tebe.” I am so disappointed in you.
He recoiled as if I’d struck him. He looked down, his hands clenching at his sides.
Guilt burst in my chest, and I instantly regretted my choice of words.
The last time I used those words was after I’d found out he didn’t escort his mother when she left the house.
He’d been her bodyguard since he was seventeen. It was his job to keep her safe when I was not around to do so. I trusted him with one of the most precious people in my life, and he’d let me down.
For years, I’d blamed him. Blamed him for what happened to her.
Of course, I eventually realised how irrational that was. It wasn’t his fault. My anger and grief was just looking for someone to blame, and he was the easiest target at the time.
I looked at Aleksandr, and the guilt increased tenfold. So lost. So vulnerable. And it was all because of what I said. The specific words that I knew would cut him like a blade.
I was about to apologise when Autumn shoved me so hard that I stumbled. “Ease off him,” she snapped.
What the fuck?
I righted myself and glared down at her. “This is family business. It has nothing to do with you. Stay out of it.”
“I will when you stop being such a fucking asshole,” she hissed.
Aleksandr gasped, unable to hide his shock. I ignored him.
“What are you talking about?”
Instead of answering me, she turned to Aleksandr, her face a mask of disgust. I didn’t fucking like it. “This kind of shit happens so often he can’t even see it, can he?”
Irrational jealousy snapped my spine straight. Why the fuck was she talking to my son like I wasn’t even there? Why was she jumping to his defense? She didn’t even fucking know him. If she was going to defend anyone, it should have been me.
I gripped her roughly by the chin and forced her to look at me. “Don’t talk to him. Talk to me.”
She scowled, those fiery green eyes I was slowly coming to adore burning with anger.
I should have taken that as the warning sign it was.
She stomped down on the top of my foot with the heel of her own. Pain shot up my leg, and I winced. She pushed my hand away from her, stepped forward until she was right in my space, standing nose-to-nose with me, and then jabbed her finger into my chest.
“You want me to talk to you instead? Fine. I don’t know your kids personally, but if they’re anything like you, I’m willing to bet they’d do just about anything to save someone they love.”
My jaw clenched as she jabbed me in the chest again.
“Why the fuck are you having a go at him when you would have done the exact same thing in his position?”
“Do you have children?”
She was silent for a moment. “No.”
“Well, until you do, you have no right to comment on my parenting.”
“I can comment on whatever I want to comment on. It’s a free country, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m very vocal about my opinions.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed,” I scoffed. “And that’s part of the problem. You voice your opinions even when no one fucking asked for them.”
She cocked her head. “Aw, and here I thought that was one of the things you liked most about me.”
“I don’t like anything about you,” I growled behind gritted teeth.
“Reallyyyy,” she dragged out, a smirk on her lips. Her eyes flicked down and back up again quickly. “I think there’s one thing you like about me.”
I didn’t bother looking down because I knew exactly what she was referring to. I was rock fucking hard, getting harder and harder the more we argued.
I didn’t realise until right at that moment that fighting with her turned me on.
A lot.
Well, two can play at that game.
I stood taller, not shying away or trying to hide what was going on. I didn’t want her to think I was uncomfortable and that she had the upper hand. “Should we revisit your little dream from last night?”
Her face turned bright red. I took a mental picture, wanting to remember that moment forever. It was fucking priceless.
“I’m sick of your shit!” she shouted.
“I’m sick of your shit!” I shouted back.
“Oh, you know what—”
“Ahem, ahem,” Aleksandr cleared his throat loudly. Autumn and I both looked at him. His gaze ping-ponged between the two of us, incomprehension in his eyes. I could see the gears turning in his head, that intuition I’d always praised him for working double time. He studied our faces, how close we were standing next to each other…
Shit. We’re so close, our chests are practically pressed right up against each other.
I shoved her away quickly, an almost erratic edge to my movements like I was some sort of teenager who’d just been caught by their parents with a girl in their bedroom.
Admittedly, I might have pushed a little too hard because she went flying, landing roughly on her ass.
“You dickhead,” she hissed under her breath, but she made no move to retaliate.
At first, I was confused. Autumn never passed up the opportunity to hit me. What I saw in her eyes wiped away any confusion.
Understanding.
She knew the reason I shoved her away was because my son was staring at us with that questioning look on his face. Her gaze flitted back and forth between me and Aleksandr. She grumbled while she got to her feet, went to her cot and sat down with her back to me, facing the wall.
I knew what that meant. She did that any time she was pissed at me.
It was probably for the best. Now that I knew what fighting with her did to me, I had to try my absolute hardest to avoid it.
