“What the fuuuuuuuck?!” I shrieked as my body was hurled into the air by a strong, concussive force. I barely had the right mind to curl myself inwards to try to lessen the blow. It all happened so fast.
I crashed into a hard body. We went tumbling to the ground. Reflexes took over, and I tried to jam the knife in my hand into the guy’s eye without stopping to process who I had actually landed on top of.
He blocked it just in the nick of time, the tip of the blade hovering an inch from his eye. “What the fuck, Autumn?!”
It was Dimitri. I’d just almost killed Dimitri. I would have felt bad about it, but I’d tried to kill him half a dozen times… What was one more?
“Oh, whoops.” I gave him an awkward smile, tucking the blade away. “That’s my bad.”
He narrowed his eyes and then threw me off him roughly.
Fair.
When I got to my feet, I stared wide-eyed at the destruction that lay before me. The colosseum, once a grand, beautiful monument was in ruins, one half of it completely blown to pieces, smoke, dust and sand bellowing into the air. The people who had been sitting in the stands were now running for their lives, screaming, trying to get away from the fire and rubble falling around them.
People in tactical gear carrying machine guns swarmed the arena, coming in from all different entry points. They shot at Talon’s men.
A rescue?
My gaze shot to Dimitri. He was wiping the sand off his body, his eyes moving around the arena, going from person to person. Recognition flashed across his face.
He knew who they were.
“Your people?” I asked.
He gave the barest nod as an answer. He looked about as shocked as I felt. Like me, he hadn’t expected anyone to actually find us—
“Duck!” I threw my knife as Dimitri ducked quickly. It sunk deep into a soldier’s chest who had been running up behind him.
“Left,” Dimitri barked. I spun right at the same time he launched himself forward, his fist smashing into a soldier’s face who was about to ram a sword into my back. He looked at me, breathing heavily. “Keep up if you want to get out of here.” And then he was off, running towards the gunfire.
Guess that was better than him just straight up abandoning me.
I smiled.
He totally likes me.
I bolted after him.
Talon’s soldiers were dropping like flies, no match for the high-powered weapons Dimitri’s people carried. The smart ones ran away now that the tables had turned, but over half of Talon’s army remained despite the overwhelming odds stacked against them.
Five of said soldiers stepped into our path, stopping us dead in our tracks. They each had a weapon of some kind in their hands.
Dimitri and I put our fists up. “You take the three on the left. I’ll get the two on the right.”
He just grunted in response.
Because a simple “okay” would have been too many syllables. The dick.
I tensed my muscles, preparing to strike when a rain of gunfire came out of nowhere, taking them all out instantly. A blonde-haired man jogged over a second later, a shit-eating grin on his face as he hiked his machine gun up onto his shoulder.
“Ahhh, DeDe, always getting yourself into trouble,” the man said, smirking at Dimitri.
I turned to Dimitri, arching a brow. “DeDe?” I mouthed, trying to keep myself from breaking out into a fit of laughter.
He said nothing, just glared at me, as per usual. He looked at the blonde. “Mikhail. How did you find us?”
“Kill now, catch up later.” He clicked a button on the gun, and the magazine slid out, crashing to the ground. He reached behind his back, pulling out another one, and slapped it into place before handing the weapon over to Dimitri.
Dimitri checked it over with the experience and precision of a man who’d been around guns all his life and knew exactly how to use them. Quick, precise movements, checking the mag, checking the chamber.
“And, who is this lovely lady?” Mikhail asked like he’d only just noticed I was standing there.
Dimitri barked something out aggressively in Russian that made Mikhail’s mouth drop open in shock.
“What?” My gaze whipped back and forth between the two of them. “What did he say? Did he insult me? He does that a lot. Whatever he said, it’s not true.”
Mikhail blinked. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Dimitri cut him off, speaking in Russian again.
Okay, this is getting irritating.
Mikhail responded in Russian. It sounded like they were arguing, but honestly, I had no idea. They could have been threatening to kill each other or declaring their love for one another, for all I knew.
“Okay, enough,” Mikhail shouted, switching back to English. “We don’t have time for this. We need to go.”
Dimitri gave him an affronted look. “I’m not leaving without my children.”
“They’ll meet us at the rendezvous point. Reinforcements have already been called. If we’re going to get out of here, we need to leave now—”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Dimitri snarled, cutting him off. “I’m not leaving this arena until I’m sure all of my children are out of here.”
“Argh, fine. We’ll do a lap before we leave.” He pointed to me. “She coming?”
That bastard actually had the audacity to hesitate. My mouth dropped open in outrage. “Yes, I’m coming!” I snapped.
Mikhail didn’t take my word for it. He waited for Dimitri to give the all-clear, which he still hadn’t done!
I marched over to him and kicked him in the shin.
“Ow! Fuck!” Dimitri hobbled, holding his shin. “Yes, she’s coming!”
I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded. Damn straight I’m fucking coming.
“Alrighty, then,” Mikhail cleared his throat. His hand came up and touched the earpiece in his ear. “Dimitri secure,” he said to whoever was on the other end. He signalled to the men who had formed a protective circle around us, guarding us from Talon’s men. “On me. Move out.”
Guns up, Dimitri and Mikhail took point, leading the way through the chaos and shooting anyone that got in our way. Since no one gave me a gun, I swiped up a sword and an axe from the ground as we went.
The way Dimitri moved—slick and confidently—and the way he held the machine gun perfectly left no doubt in my mind he’d had some sort of military training.
“I’ve got confirmation Illayana, Lukyan and Aleksandr are out of the arena and on the way to the rendezvous point,” Mikhail said, blasting a soldier in the chest with a rain of bullets.
“What about Nikolai?” Dimitri grunted, using his gun to block a strike from a longsword. He front-kicked the soldier and put two bullets in his chest before moving on.
“Vincenzo confirmed he had him, but there’s been no update about whether or not he’s left the arena.”
“Well, I’m not leaving until—”
“Father!”
That one word was filled with so much fear and desperation that it made even me stop, searching for the owner of that voice, like Dimitri and Mikhail.
“There.” I pointed across the field to where Nikolai was on his knees, cradling a blonde woman in his arms.
Dimitri took off like a speeding bullet. We followed. Some dude was fighting around them, doing his best to try and protect them from Talon’s men. Mikhail ordered the men under his command to help as Dimitri crashed to his knees next to his son.
“What happened?” he asked, looking down at the blonde with concern.
Nikolai looked at his father, completely distraught, his eyes red with tears and voice cracking with panic. “S-she pushed me out of the way and took a bullet to the chest. The vest stopped it, but on her way down she hit her head on a rock, and now I can’t wake her. Help me. Please. Help me, Dad. I can’t-I can’t lose her. Please. Help me, help me, help me—” his whole body trembled as he spoke, his hands shaking the woman frantically, trying to wake her up. “Help me, help me—”
Dimitri stared at his son, his whole face crumpling with helplessness at the pain he could see Nikolai going through. “Okay, okay. Calm down, calm down,” he soothed, placing a hand on Nikolai’s shoulder. “She’ll be okay. We’ll get her help.”
“I have a team of doctors waiting onboard the submarine to deal with any injuries,” Mikhail offered.
Submarine? This guy has a submarine? Who the fuck are these people?
Dimitri nodded. “Alright, we need to get her on board. Come on, pick her up.”
I should have kept my mouth shut. It had absolutely nothing to do with me. And yet, I couldn’t help but offer my two cents after seeing that look of utter helplessness on Dimitri’s face when he saw how much pain his son was in.
“Stop,” I said when they went to raise her from the ground. “You need to get the bleeding under control first. Depending on how bad the injury is, she could possibly bleed out before we get there.” Nikolai paled, his eyes shooting to the woman in alarm. “Take your shirt off. Rip it up. I need about three long strips. Leave a big enough piece intact for me to use as a bandage to apply pressure to the wound.”
Nikolai immediately did as I ordered. He handed me the tattered pieces of his shirt.
“Turn her to the side, carefully. Okay, good.” I looked at the back of her head. She had long, beautiful locks of blonde hair, making it easy to see where the bleeding was coming from. There was a nasty cut right on the back of her skull. It was deep enough to be concerning—possibly life-threatening, but I didn’t say that. I could tell just by looking at him that Nikolai was holding on by a thread. He was so scared for that woman.
I pushed the fabric onto the cut and tried to apply enough pressure to stem the bleeding. The woman groaned. Quickly, I used the long strips to tie around her head to hold the shirt in place, pressing against the wound to soak up as much blood as possible.
“Okay, that’s the best we can do here. You need to get her to the doctor as soon as possible.”
Nikolai nodded. He picked her up so, so carefully, like she was the most precious thing on Earth and cradled her close to his body, tucking her into his chest.
“You four,” Dimitri began, pointing to several of the men. “Stay with him. It’s your job to keep them safe.”
“Yes, boss,” they all parrotted back.
“Everyone, move out!”
Dimitri and Mikhail took point again, with Nikolai, the woman and me right behind them.
Getting out of the arena was the easy part. There were holes blasted into the side of the colosseum from what I guessed were pretty powerful explosives. But trying to make it through the town and down to the rendezvous point Mikhail kept referring to?
That was the hard part.
It was utter mayhem. People running in all directions, screaming and crying for help. Several buildings were on fire, burning to absolute crisps with no one stopping to put them out. The whole place was going down and none of Talon’s people knew what to do about it.
I didn’t give a rat’s fucking ass about any of them. Let the whole place burn with all of them in it, for all I cared.
We kept a tight formation as we moved through the chaos surrounding us. Mikhail said the rendezvous point was along the beach line, so we headed straight for it, not letting anyone or anything in our path stop us.
Luckily, we weren’t met with much resistance. Everyone was more concerned with saving their own asses than trying to stop us at that point.
When we finally reached the beach, a dozen speedboats sat idle, some of them already being loaded with people. Out in the ocean, I could see the submarine Mikhail had briefly mentioned, the light from the moon reflecting off its surface, shining like a massive beacon of hope. Of escape.
We moved quickly, rushing down the small embankment to get to the boats. Some of Talon’s people were begging to be let on. The fire raging from building to building was slowly starting to make its way towards us, and they were all freaking out about it.
None of the armed men guarding the boats allowed them to board. They’d clearly received instructions not to let anyone else enter them, and they were prepared to follow that command to the letter, even going so far as to shoot those who tried to get on a boat anyway.
The rest of Dimitri’s children were there. Illayana, upon seeing us, rushed over quickly, going right for the unconscious woman in Nikolai’s arms.
“Tatiana! What-what the hell happened?!” she asked, voice frantic.
“Not now. We need to get her onboard!” Nikolai pushed past her and jumped into the last free speedboat. “Come on! Let’s go! Now!”
Dimitri, Mikhail and I joined him, while Illayana, some tall guy with multi-coloured eyes who hovered over her like he was afraid she would disappear and Lukyan jumped into another. Aleksandr and a woman literally half his size, covered head-to-toe in tattoos and piercings, were already waiting in their own boat with several other people, prepared to leave.
I couldn’t miss the odd looks even if I tried. Apart from Nikolai, who was completely focused on Tatiana, rocking her back and forth, whispering in her ear, the other Volkov siblings kept giving me the side-eye, unable to hide their surprise at my presence.
None of them objected, though, so I supposed that was a win.
Two men pushed our boat into the water and climbed in. The engine roared to life, and then we were off, speeding across the water.
My fingers gripped the sides of my seat so tightly that they turned white. Out of all the modes of transportation we could have used to get out, it just had to be by fucking boat.
The ocean freaked me out.
Instead of focusing on the fact that there was thousands of feet of water below me, with god knew what swimming in it, I looked back at the island, thoroughly enjoying watching it all fall apart. Watching all the trees burn. All the buildings crumble. All the people scream. The smoke billowing into the dark sky. The flames racing along the grass.
Burn, motherfucker, burn.
Exhaustion began to seep deep into my bones. Now that we were no longer fighting for our lives, all that adrenaline that had been pumping through my body was starting to wear off. That sucked for a multitude of reasons, the main one being that it helped keep the pain at a manageable level. Particularly the stab wound in my fucking shoulder.
My hair whipped around me in a chaotic frenzy as the boat plowed through the water, zooming towards the giant, dark grey submarine. It sat just above sea level, a tall tower with sails on either end sticking up high from the rest of the watercraft. People were disembarking from the speedboats and walking along the outer hull when we pulled up next to it. They moved towards a hatch located at the bottom of the tower that would allow them access to the inside of the submarine.
We were the last boat to arrive.
I swallowed the massive lump in my throat and tried my best to wipe any unease from my face.
I am going to have to do that? Are you having a fucking laugh? There was no protective barrier to keep you from falling into the ocean. One wrong move, one slip, and you’d find yourself plowing towards the water and right into the jaws of a fucking shark.
Aleksandr stood on the submarine, feet planted firmly, arms crossed over his chest, expression hard. Dangerous. When Nikolai got to his feet with Tatiana still in his arms, the boat rocked, causing him to stumble.
A small shriek fell from my lips. Dear God, don’t let me get eaten by a shark.
Dimitri glanced over his shoulder at me, and I gave him a thumbs up, plastering a smile on my face as quickly as I could. His narrowed, suspicious gaze had me thinking he didn’t believe the act I was trying so desperately to put on.
That hard expression dropped from Aleksandr’s face immediately, replaced with what I guessed was sympathy. “Give her to me,” he grunted, stretching out his arms.
Nikolai clutched Tatiana closer to his chest like the mere idea of handing her over to someone else was inconceivable. He must have realised how hard it would be trying to get onto the submarine while still holding her because he kissed her forehead softly, tenderly, before begrudgingly handing her over.
“Be careful. Don’t drop her. Watch her head.”
“I’ve got her, Nik. I’ve got her.” Aleksandr held her tightly as Nikolai jumped up onto the submarine. He quickly took her back from his brother.
Mikhail jumped up next. “Head straight down into the ship’s galley. There will be a team of doctors waiting for you.”
Nikolai nodded once and took off, running surprisingly well along the wet surface of the submarine. It gave me a fucking anxiety attack.
Dimitri climbed up next. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves.
Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. You’ll never live it down if he sees. You can do this.
I went to follow behind him but froze when he turned, placed his hands on my waist and lifted me up onto the submarine like it was nothing at all. Beautiful blue eyes locked with mine, staring so intensely at me that it was like he was looking into my soul.
The man was such a fucking enigma. One second, he was telling me he’d leave me behind if I don’t keep up, and the next, he’s helping me up with such tenderness and care. It was like the dude couldn’t make up his damn mind about how to deal with me.
Dimitri frowned, looking down at his hands, still on my waist. He immediately let go and stepped back, his face turning hard, impassive. He shook out his hands before they closed into tight fists. He gave me a cross, angry look, like it was my fault he’d reached out and helped me, and then he spun on the balls of his feet and marched away.
See what I mean? Fucking enigma.
The inside of a submarine looked exactly as I predicted. Dull. Cramped. Bland. It had long, thin hallways that I had to turn sideways to get through, and ugly steel walls. It was kind of what you’d expect if you crossed a spaceship with the NASA Command Centre. Enormous computers and monitors everywhere. Big, oversized buttons and dials. Giant machines that looked like they could destroy the world with the press of a button.
Decor aside, it was actually a pretty impressive vessel. I’d never seen a submarine before, let alone been inside one. Despite how fucking awesome the whole thing was, it made me incredibly wary. What kind of connections did these guys have to be able to call in a fucking submarine like they were calling a goddamn uber?
We were all sitting in the galley—a space usually reserved for cooking meals and eating them, but it had been reconfigured as a makeshift infirmary. Based on what I’d observed on my way through the vessel, I suspected it was because it was the biggest space available on the submarine. Several doctors were tending to the injuries some of the soldiers had sustained during the rescue. Stitching up open wounds, strapping broken bones, etcetera, etcetera.
Across from me, one of said doctors snapped off his pair of latex gloves and threw them into the trash. “That’s all we can do for now.”
Nikolai apparently didn’t like that answer. He jumped to his feet, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Dimitri stepped into his path, I was sure he would have tackled that doctor to the ground and beaten him to death. “What the fuck do you mean ’that’s all you can do’? She’s still unconscious!”
“And I suspect she will be for quite some time.”
Nikolai growled.
The doctor licked his lips nervously. “Mr Volkov, please understand. She’s sustained quite a significant head injury. I’ve done all I can for her here, but she needs a CT scan to rule out any brain damage or internal bleeding.”
Nikolai looked at Tatiana, clutching his chest. He swayed slightly, almost like it was all too much for him and he was going to pass out, but his father was right there, helping to keep him standing.
“So do the scan,” Nikolai demanded.
“I can’t.” Fear flashed in the doctor’s eyes, but he kept going. “We don’t have that kind of equipment on board. We’re a trauma team. We assess, triage, and for the really severe cases, we try to keep the patients alive until we can get them to hospital.”
All the colour drained from Nikolai’s face. “Is-is—”
“Is she going to die, Doc?” Dimitri asked in place of his son.
The doctor hesitated briefly. “I’m not sure. Look, her vitals are good. She’s breathing on her own. The only thing I’m concerned about at the moment is whether the blow to the head has caused a brain bleed. For right now, we monitor her. Keep an eye on her, and if there are any changes, come get me immediately.”
Nikolai took those instructions like they were the gospel. The man didn’t move from her side the entire time. He held her hand. Placed his ear on her chest to hear her heartbeat. Held his hand in front of her nose and mouth to ensure she was still breathing. He took a wet rag and cleaned her face and arms.
I’d asked Dimitri before what love felt like. He’d described it, but that… That was the best representation. I could see the love Nikolai had for that woman as clear as a bright blue sky. It was in everything he did. The way he cared for her. The way he looked at her. The way he didn’t give a shit about anything else going on around him, only focusing on her.
Even when others tried to talk to him—urge him to eat something, shower, or sleep—he refused, staying right by her side.
And at his side was Dimitri, watching over his son. It was quite strange. When I first met him, I’d pegged him as a ruthless, emotionless robot who didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything. And while the ruthless part was still true, I’d come to realise how wrong I actually was in my original assessment.
Dimitri hid his emotions behind a thick, impenetrable wall, and he only allowed those he cared about to get through. And even then, they only saw glimpses of the man behind it. Never the whole being.
Sitting back, observing him being there for his son, taking care of him, doing everything he could to try and ease the pain he knew Nikolai was going through, made me see him in a different light. See that whole different side to him I was sure not a lot of other people saw. That incredibly caring, loving side.
I wonder—
“Hello.”
“Jesus, fuck,” I hissed, startled, a hand flying to my chest. I looked up to see Lukyan standing over me, a boyish smile on his face. “Uh. Hello?”
“I’m Lukyan.” He offered me his hand.
I know? “Autumn,” I said instead. I glanced at his hand and then up at him. He didn’t lower it, waiting. With a sigh, I shook his hand. He took that as an offer to sit down next to me.
“You’re Australian, right?”
How did he—
“I heard you speak a few times. I have an ear for accents. Took me a while to place yours, but I eventually got it.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what else to really say. Why is he talking to me? The rest of the Volkovs were making a point to ignore me. In fact, everyone on the vessel was. Not that I minded. I much preferred to be on my own, anyway.
“Do you know Margot Robbie?” Lukyan asked.
I frowned. “The actress? Uh, no.”
“Do you know the Hemsworth brothers?”
“No.”
“Nicole Kidman?”
“No.”
“What about Hugh Jackman?”
“No.”
“Crocodile Dundee?”
“Are you just going to name every famous Australian you know?”
He smiled. “Maybe.”
“Let me save you some time. I don’t know anyone.”
He pouted. “Damn.” He leant back, spreading his legs out wide, and exhaled loudly. “Thanks for the save, by the way.”
I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “What?”
“In the arena.” He pretended to throw a knife, sound effects and all. “Swoosh. Pow. Ughh.” He tilted his head to the side and stuck his tongue out, playing dead.
I stared at him, utterly bewildered.
“You hit that guy in the shoulder with a knife just before he took my head off with that axe,” Lukyan explained.
“Right.” I looked around the room awkwardly. My gaze moved over Nikolai, Dimitri and Tatiana, and my eyes did a double take when I realised Dimitri was watching us, his brows furrowed.
“It was a pretty sick move,” Lukyan continued. “Especially when you consider how far away you were. You were, what, 100 feet away? How did you do that?”
“Practise.” Dimitri was still watching us, his face getting angrier and angrier by the second. What is his deal? Does he not want me talking to his children? He was driving me fucking crazy with all the mixed signals he was sending me.
“Insane,” Lukyan breathed in wonder. “Anyway, here. I brought you some food.” He pulled a bowl of pasta out from behind his back and offered it to me.
Not wanting to be rude, I took it, even though I wasn’t hungry. “Thank you.”
He nodded. He leant closer to me, and I gave him a weird look, leaning back slightly. “Little piece of advice,” he whispered. “My father is a bit of a hardass, but he has the biggest heart out of all of us. I watched you guys interact. I haven’t seen him smile in over ten years, and yet, he smiled at you. There was this light in his eyes whenever he looked at you. Whenever he spoke to you. If you do anything to hurt him, I’ll gut you from throat to pelvis and let rats eat you from the inside out. We clear?”
All signs of that boyish, jokestar were gone, replaced by a hardened, utterly serious man, prepared to do exactly as he vowed. A dark, evil beast shone in his eyes and it put me immediately on edge. Behind that class clown exterior was a dangerous predator—one he chose to keep concealed until he needed to bring it out. A shiver of warning coiled down my spine, telling me to be cautious. That the man was a hell of a lot more dangerous than he appeared to be.
I felt the overwhelming urge to clasp my knives. “Clear.”
He smiled a dazzling smile, and the beast vanished, going back into its den. “Great! Now—”
“Lukyan!”
We both whipped our gazes to Dimitri, who was now standing, glaring in our direction. “Get over here,” he gritted out, pointing to the ground next to him.
Lukyan’s head swung back my way. “He’s also a grumpy old fart sometimes.”
“Lukyan!” Dimitri barked again.
Lukyan winked and then bounced to his feet. He waggled his fingers at me in farewell as he walked backwards to his father, who pointedly smacked him upside the head and gave him a harsh talking-to.
I shook my head and looked down at my bowl of food, chuckling softly.
What a weird guy.
For the rest of the trip, no one else said anything to me. Not even Dimitri, which I wasn’t overly surprised by. The man couldn’t make up his damn mind about whether or not he hated or liked me, so whatever. I was fed up with the hot and cold game he was playing.
After god knows how many hours of travelling by submarine, we eventually stopped, rising to the surface where three giant cruise ships were waiting to take us the rest of our journey. I vaguely heard Mikhail explain that we had gone as far as we could via submarine, and we needed to take the rest of the way by ship—something about how a Russian submarine in American waters could cause some pretty big problems.
The entire time, both on the submarine and on the cruise ships, Dimitri stayed by Nikolai’s side, supporting and comforting him as much as possible. And I just watched him—covertly, of course. I didn’t want to make it obvious I was oggling him, but fuck, I was.
He’d showered and changed since then, and was in a well-fitted black three piece suit, looking every bit like a man you’d see photographed on the front cover of a GQ magazine. I liked how he looked before, rough around the edges, shirtless, covered in dirt and blood. But there was something about a man in a suit that just got my pussy tingling.
I was given clothes to change into as well, which I appreciated. Just basic pants and a long sleeved shirt that I put on after I showered. It felt good, refreshing, to wash away the taint of the island and everything I’d endured being there.
When we made port, it was chaotic. So chaotic that I was able to slip away easily. Dimitri and his children were so busy helping Nikolai with Tatiana that no one was watching me. I just stepped back and back until the shadows swallowed me up.
But a part of me kept me rooted in place, unable to walk away completely. I stayed hidden, watching Dimitri order his men around, committing every detail about him to memory because I knew it would be the last time I saw him.
Now that we were free of the confines of the island, we were also free of any promises we’d made to each other. Our truce was officially null and void. We were free to kill each other. Where once that idea had excited me, it now filled me with unease.
Dimitri shut the car door and tapped the roof twice with his hand. The car sped off with Nikolai and Tatiana inside, most likely heading towards the closest hospital. He turned, running a hand through his hair as he exhaled a deep breath.
My eyes ran over his face, that strong jawline, those mesmerising blue eyes. He really was a fucking marvel.
I saw the exact moment he noticed I was gone. His brows furrowed deeply, and he spun, looking around frantically, his eyes jumping from person to person. He marched forward, constantly roving his gaze over everything, searching, searching.
But it was too late.
“Bye, Butcher,” I whispered, stepping back and disappearing into the night.
