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"Come here, hell girl," I beckon her, strapping her tightly to my front. "We're going down alright, but we're not dying today," I tell her confidently.

Once the parachute is secure around my back, and Sisi's safely strapped to me, I push the safety door aside, air whooshing in from the high altitude.

The plane is wobbly trying to regain balance, but even so the decrease in altitude is visible, and I know it won't make it without the second engine for too long.

"Ready?" I ask her, and she simply nods, her eyes full of trust.

With no other preliminaries, we just jump.

28

SISI

"Ican't believe they tried to shoot down our plane." I shake my head, taking the harness off.

The trip down had actually been exhilarating, and at no point had I been worried about my life, or anything, really. I knew Vlad would get us out of there and that he'd know exactly what to do. My trust is firmly placed in him.

And he hadn't disappointed. No, he'd actually made everything fun. From the moment we'd jumped, he'd tried to distract me from the distance to the ground by keeping my attention on him, offering up silly jokes and trying his best to make me laugh, so I’d forget the situation we're in.

If that's not sweet, then I don't know what is.

But that's just Vlad. My sweet killer.

Throwing the gear to the ground, I turn to look at him, surprised he's not replying.

He has an ominous expression on his face as he watches the plane going down in the distance.

"Vlad?"

"They dared," he starts, a deep rumble that has the hairs on my body stand up, "they fucking dared to endanger your life. Again," he seethes, an aura of danger unlike any otheremanating from him. "I'm going to end them," he states, blinking twice before his features are back to normal.

"Yes, you will," I tell him, grabbing his hand in mine, "but first we should get home before we get another attempt on our lives," I add playfully, but he's not smiling.

"We're going straight to your brother's. We need to fix this mess before something worse happens," he says.

"He's going to kill us," I mutter, but Vlad doesn't seem to mind that.

"I'll deal with Marcello. He'll probably throw a few punches and then we'll be able to talk. But since I'm even more of a pariah than before, I'll need his help to figure this out," he sighs, rolling his eyes.

"Really?" I tilt my head to look at him. "Who told you to start this bloody war with the Russians? Should I remind you thatyouprovoked them by sending them the heads of their men via mail?"

"I provoked them?" He sounds offended as he mutters something under his breath. "I merely played a little with them, looking to confirm my suspicions about their involvement. Which ended up being true, so it's not like I was wrong." He shrugs.

"But you still started it."

"Did I? Maybe they were going to attack me anyway since they certainly didn't like me being so nosy." He shrugs again, mentioning the warehouse incident where the leaders of all the East Coast Bratvas had banded together to try to kill him.

Alas, he'd just proven to them that he'snotkillable.

Not by a human, anyway.

"Vlad," I purse my lips at him, amusement threatening to spill over. "Just admit that you wanted to kill them in the first place," I say and I watch a small blush envelop his features.

"Maybe." He looks away, and I can't help myself as I raise myself on my tip-toes to kiss his cheek.

Sometimes he's too cute.

Hand in hand, we walk a couple of miles through a never ending field before we reach the main road.