NIKOLAI
The setting sun casts the entire island in stunning shades of pink and orange, like the sky itself is ablaze. I’m alone on the beach, trying to establish a secure connection on my phone, needing to call Alexei and update him. Though knowing the bastard, he already knows.
I glance back at the villa where Iris is resting, Roman with her as they take a late afternoon nap. I move farther down the beach, ensuring privacy because this is a call that requires it.
Bringing the phone up to my ear, Alexei answers on the third ring. “I was beginning to think you were dead.”
I huff a rueful laugh. “Not for lack of trying on my father’s part.” I sigh, allowing my shoulders to slump for just a moment. “We had to evacuate quickly. He found out. About the baby, I mean.”
“I know,” Alexei answers, his tone almost sympathetic, and I can hear the faint sound of papers rustling in the background. “My sources tell me Sergi has mobilised practically every asset he has. There’s a substantial bounty on your head…and on your pregnant girlfriend’s.”
My jaw tightens, a Russian curse falling from my lips. “Did your sources tell you that part too?” I don’t mean to sound petulant, but the whole situation is beyond frustrating. I didn’t know how many resources my father still had, which would have been useful. My gut twists, thinking about how I share blood with this monster. That part of his ire is directed towards me and he will take it out on those that are close to me, my chosen family.
“I make it my business to know everything, Nikolai. It’s why I’m still alive.” He pauses. “Your father is monitoring hospitals in six countries.”
“Tvoyu mat bliad!” Motherfucker! I pace along the shoreline, the beautiful scenery forgotten, my mind racing. “The New Year’s timeline—is it still viable?”
“More than viable. My preparations are on schedule. The question is yours.” Alexei’s voice takes on a harder edge. Here is the ruthless heir of the Volkov Bratva, one-third of The Fallen. “Can you still deliver your end without compromising our operation? Can you keep your father from discovering you until then?”
“I’ll be there,” I state firmly. “But I need to secure some things first.”
“Such as?” Alexei questions, and I can picture his raised brow.
“We’ll clean and secure transport from Southeast Asia to London. I need Iris close but removed from the conflict. We also require documentation that would pass scrutiny, and medical supplies, just in case Iris’s condition changes while we’re here.”
“Okay, done.” As simple as that, and some of the tension drains from my shoulders. “I need your access to the security protocols your father has implemented, and confirmation of which allies can still be trusted.”
“I’m surprised you can’t just hack your way in, or have one of your brethren do it,” I tease, and he swears at me in Russian.
“I’m keeping this separate from The Enlightened,” he tells me, his tone hinting that he knows that he just gave me something I could use against him. “Plus, we’re partners in this, are we not, Nikolai Petrov?”
“Da, Alexei,” I reply, wanting this alliance and for more than just the immediate need to dispose of our fathers. “I have one more request.”
“Da, Nikolai?” he parrots back at me, and my lips twitch, just for a moment, because this next request is too important to not say it.
“If anything were to happen to me, I need you to take care of them. Make sure they’re all okay and that my father isn’t alive to get to them.”
My heart thrashes inside my chest, wanting to deny a future where I can’t hold Iris, can’t make love to Roman, won’t be able to explore this thing with Hunter, or cradle our baby, my own brother. But I need to know that they won’t have to face this alone.
“I swear it, Nikolai. I will help them, and if you don’t manage to kill the Kusok idiota, the piece of shit, I will gladly slit his throat for you.” His words have the gravitas of a vow, and they further loosen the tension that gives me headaches most days.
“Thank you, Alexei, and I promise you the same if anything should happen to you,” I reply, my tone just as solemn.
“Okay, now that’s out of the way, I can have identities delivered to your location within 48 hours,” Alexei says. “Medical supplies will be trickier but doable. Your father’s watching the usual channels.”
“Do you have a list of his surveillance capabilities?” I question. “And which of his men are leading the search?” My phone buzzes with a notification, and I pull it away to find the information has just been sent to me. “That was quick.”
“Not what she said.” Alexei cackles in a slightly deranged way at his joke, and I roll my eyes. “Come on, that was funny!”
We move on to talking about resources and information. I need to keep us here and hidden for as long as possible in order to keep working on getting allies and putting my plan into place. About halfway through our conversation, my phone buzzes, and pulling it away from my ear, I see it’s a text from Hunter.
She’s asking for you.
“I need to wrap this up,” I tell Alexei, my tone changing subtly, becoming softer as it often does when I think of Moye Solntse.
“Your woman?” Alexi inquires, a note of amused confusion in his tone.
“Yes.” My answer is simple and to the point. Iris will always take priority.
A moment of silence reaches me from the other end. “My father never allowed such…attachments. He considers them weaknesses.”
“As does mine,” I reply, my voice becoming hard. “But then he can’t see what a strength it can be. To have something more than yourself to fight for. To live for.”
“Maybe one day I will be so blessed.” There’s a touch of wistfulness in his comment. “I’ll be in touch in a few days when the papers have been sent. Good luck, Nikolai.”
The call disconnects before I can say goodbye. Crazy fucking Russian.
Pocketing the device, I head back to the villa at a brisk pace, the sand shifting underneath my feet as I walk.
Wasting no time, I head towards the master bedroom to find Iris awake, propped up against pillows, her hand resting on her swollen belly. She looks stunning, the very picture of fertility, like a goddess of spring.
“Everything okay?” I ask, my voice soft as I cross to her side, sitting down on the edge of the bed and staring into her beautiful hazel eyes.
“He’s kicking up a storm,” she says, taking my hand and placing it where our son and my brother is clearly most active. “I think he knows something’s wrong.” Her brows furrow, and it guts me to see the worry on her face. Her life should be full of smiles and happiness. She’s suffered too much already, all at the hands of a madman who is obsessed with someone he can never have.
I feel the powerful movement beneath my palm and something twists further inside my chest. “Nothing’s wrong, Moye Solntse,” I inform her firmly, staring into those eyes that mean so much to me. “We’ve just hit a complication in the plan. A bump in the road. That’s all.”
“Nik…” Iris gave him a knowing look. “I know that face. What aren’t you telling me?”
I consider how much to share, balancing her right to know with my desire to protect her from additional stress. Plus, I know she’ll be pissed at being kept away, but I just can’t risk anything happening to her or our baby, and he’s due not long after New Year’s Eve. “Alexei’s still on board. We’ve been finalising details, strengthening our position.” I pause. “He’s going to help me find someplace safe for you while we deal with Sergi.”
Her hand tightens over mine as she inhales sharply. “What do you mean, Nik? I want to be there. I need to be there.” Her eyes fill with tears, and I know they’re from anger as much as hurt, but I can’t let her near him.
“It’s too dangerous, Malyshka,” I plead, begging her with my eyes to understand. “I can’t have you hurt. It would break something inside me if anything were to happen to you or the baby.”
“But Rowan promised I could be there,” she says, her voice small, and I hate the defeat in it. “Don’t I deserve vengeance for everything that man has done to me?”
“What’s going on?” Hunt asks as he strides in, Roman at his side, and their eyes immediately land on Iris. “Why the fuck is she crying?”
“She is crying because apparently she is not allowed anywhere near the man who raped her for three fucking weeks even though she has just as much right to cut his balls off, if not more than any of you,” she snarls, and I flinch back, my eyes widening.
“Of course you can cut off his balls, Lamb,” Rowan says casually from the doorway. He stalks over to the bed, getting on his hands and knees and crawling up Iris’s body until he’s face-to-face with her. “I’ll even hold him down for you like a proper gentleman and you can use my favourite knife.”
“Rowan!” I hiss, and he turns his head, but his amber eyes are full of a darkness that has a shudder running up my spine.
“What? I made our girl a promise. That I would help her kill our enemies and fuck her in their blood.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal, and red coats the edges of my vision.
“You say the sweetest things, Roo,” she purrs, and I throw my hands up, looking at Hunter.
“Tell me you’re against this?” I beg, and he huffs out a breath.
“She deserves revenge, and with all of us there, we can incapacitate him first so there is no chance of her getting hurt. One of us will need to keep her safe until that happens, but afterwards, I don’t see why she can’t join us.”
I stare at him wide-eyed. “I thought you’d be the voice of reason!” I shout, getting up and striding over to him, poking his chest. “Or don’t you care? She could fucking die!”
My mother’s face flashes before my eyes, my father standing over her broken body, her blood staining his hands as I was forced to stand there. Unable to stop it, to do anything but watch as the light faded from her eyes.
Hands cup my face, and blinking, I’m back in our room, the sound of the gentle waves in the background contrasting with my thundering heartbeat. “Where did you go just then, Sweetheart?”
I take a shuddering inhale, something inside my chest fracturing just as the first tear burns a path down my cheek. “He killed her, Hunt.” My voice is broken, rasping as the hour of that night bleeds into it. “He had his men hold me back and watch as he beat her, raped her, and then killed her.”
“Who, darling? Who did he kill?” His voice is so soft, so gentle as he holds my face and wipes away my tears with the pad of his thumbs that a sob slips from my lips.
“My mother, the only light in my life until I met Iris.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Sweetheart,” Hunt rasps, pulling me forward and kissing the tears from my skin. “And you’re worried the same thing will happen to Iris.”
It’s not a question, it’s a statement, and the thing that smashes through the box I keep that night locked in, destroying what little control I keep over my emotions. My hands grab his vest as I drop to my knees, but he stops me from falling, gently lowering us down to the ground as he pulls me into his powerful embrace and holds me as I sob.
I cry for my mother, for the pain I watched her go through when I was so young, not able to help. I cry for the boy who saw the evil in the world and had to live with him day after day, unable to stop the agony of knowing I stood by while the light faded from her eyes.
A warm cheek rests on my back, delicate arms coming around to hug me from behind.
“We’ve got you, Nik,” Iris whispers and holds me tight.
Another set of arms wraps around me from the side; Roman, Moy Lev, placing kisses on my damp cheek as he, too, holds me. Arms hug me from the other side, Rowan joining in, and I cry harder, the knowledge that I’m no longer alone, that I have a family who will help hold me up too much.
“We’ll save you one of his balls, if it means that much to you,” Rowan states, completely deadpan after my cries have quietened, and I huff a laugh. Then I twist my head, still resting it on Hunt’s chest, and look into bright amber eyes that are full of a mischief that is more often on his twin’s face.
“Very generous of you,” I say, my voice thick with the tears I’ve just shed, though my soul feels lighter than it has in a long time.
“I thought so too,” the bastard says, placing a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ll go see what the others have made for dinner.”
Then he gets up and saunters out, the others moving, each of us helping one another to get to our feet.
“We’ll keep her safe, Sweetheart, I swear it,” Hunt promises, leaning in, and my eyes close as he places a gentle kiss on my lips. “And we will keep you safe too.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat, not wanting to shed any more tears. Sergi Petrov has had enough of them, and I don’t intend to give him any more.
