Page 28 of Betrayal and Vows (Bratva Vows #2)

Lena

T he village cemetery feels like an appropriate place for a meeting that might end with our deaths.

Ancient Orthodox crosses lean at impossible angles.

The iron gates screech like dying animals when we push through them.

It’s all very dark. Gloomy.

And terrifying.

I pull my baseball cap lower over my face and adjust my sunglasses.

The disguise feels flimsy, like tissue paper armor against the entire Russian underworld hunting us.

"This is insane," Anton mutters beside me, his own sunglasses reflecting the gray sky. "We shouldn't be here."

"She's my mother." The words come out sharper than I intend, but I'm tired of running. Tired of not knowing who I can trust. "If there's even a chance she can help us?—"

"If there's even a chance this is a trap, we're dead." His hand hovers near the gun concealed beneath his jacket. Every muscle in his body is coiled tight, ready to strike.

I know he isn’t happy about this, but I have to know. I need to know if my mother is okay.

Dmitri appears from behind a massive mausoleum.

It’s disturbing that such a large man can disappear so easily.

I never would have seen him.

Clearly, that’s the idea.

All those years of training.

"Perimeter's clear. No tail on Elena. She came alone, just like she promised."

"That doesn't mean anything," Anton growls. "She could have a team waiting."

"She could," Dmitri agrees. "But I don't think she does. She looks..." He pauses, searching for the right word. "Broken."

My heart clenches. Whatever game my mother has been playing, whatever side she's really on, I know she loves me. The way she looked at me before lowering her gun—that wasn't acting.

"Where is she?" I ask.

Dmitri nods toward the far corner of the cemetery. "By the old chapel. She's been waiting for twenty minutes."

We move through the maze of headstones. I feel a bit like a ghost. Lena Rostova is dead.

I don’t know who I am. Not anymore.

The only solid thing in my life is the man that was once born to be the next leader of the Bratva. He was killed and Anton rose in his place.

And now Anton Malikov is dead.

Who will he be?

Who will we be together?

Anton’s hand stays on my back. I can feel the violence radiating from him, barely contained beneath the surface. He's a predator. I know he’s the most dangerous man on this earth—but not to me.

The chapel comes into view. It’s a small stone building with a collapsed roof and windows without glass. And there, sitting on the steps with her head in her hands, is my mother.

Dmitri was right. She looks broken.

Elena Rostova has always been immaculate. Perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect posture. The woman who taught me how to smile for cameras and never let them see me sweat.

This woman is a stranger.

Her dark hair hangs limp around her shoulders. She looks up when she hears us. The proud, controlled mask she's worn my entire life has crumbled away, leaving behind raw grief and exhaustion.

"Mom." The word slips out before I can stop it, and suddenly I'm five years old again, running to her after a nightmare.

She stands slowly, like her bones hurt. I see tears streaming down her cheeks. "Lena."

Anton's hand catches my arm before I can rush to her. "Careful," he warns, but his voice is gentler than before. Even he can see this isn't an act.

"I'm alone," my mother says, her voice cracking. "I swear to you, I'm alone. I had to see you. I had to know you were safe."

I know she nearly forced me to marry a man that would have made my life hell. But she's still my mother. And she looks like she's been through hell.

"Are you?" she asks, taking a tentative step forward. "Safe?"

I nod, not trusting my voice. Anton's grip on my arm loosens but doesn't release entirely.

"I've been so scared," she whispers. "I thought I'd lost you forever."

The dam inside me bursts. All the fear, the anger, the desperate love I've carried for this complicated woman comes pouring out. I break free from Anton's hold and run to her, throwing my good arm around her neck as she collapses against me, sobbing.

"I'm here," I whisper into her hair. "I'm here, Mom. I'm alive."

When Dmitri told us my mother had put out the word she needed to talk to us, Anton shut it down. He trusted no one.

I reminded him of how much she had done for us.

I believed I could trust my mother. She had risked everything.

“What do you want, Elena?” Anton’s voice is gruff.

"You have to leave.” My mother has regained her composure. The careful, controlled woman I grew up with is back.

I look at her face and I see what she’s trying to hide.

She’s not sleeping or eating.

“Did Dad hurt you?” I ask.

She smiles. “I’m okay.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I’m fine, Lena. We don’t have much time. They believe I’m visiting my sick aunt.”

“How did you find us?” Anton asks.

My mother gives him a soft smile. “I know people. People that I can trust. People Dmitri trusts.”

Anton looks at his friend.

Dmitri shrugs. “You think I snapped my fingers and that car appeared? You think Luda took us in on a whim?”

Anton says nothing and reaches for me.

I go to him because my place is beside him now.

And forever.

"What do you mean, leave?" Anton asks.

“You have to get out of Russia. Both of you."

“He’s still searching?” Anton questions her.

Mom scoffs. “He’ll never stop.”

I have so many questions, but I keep my mouth closed for now. She’s alive. The past week I assumed the worst. I believed Vadim killed my parents to punish them for my escape. If they’re alive, it’s because Vadim believes there is still a chance to complete the marriage.

“I think we knew that,” Dmitri says. “We’re not all brawn and no brain. Well, I’m not. I can’t say that about this one.”

My lips quirk.

That’s Dmitri. I’ve come to appreciate his sense of humor this last week. He knows how to poke at Anton when things are too tense. He finds joy in little things.

I know it’s all an act, but it works. It’s made this week of hiding bearable.

"I can get you to Georgia,” Mother says. “The border crossing won’t be easy. Over the mountains. Dangerous. But once you get through, I have a contact who can fly you to Spain. There’s a house there. Coastal. Safe."

I blink. Spain?

“What?” I ask. “Spain? How?”

She offers a faint smile. "I’ve been planning my escape for years. Twenty-three to be exact.”

Twenty-three years. Since I was born.

“For you?”

“For you ,” she corrects.

I look at Anton. His jaw is clenched. "Why would you help us?"

"Because of Irina. And because of a boy named Alexei."

Anton stiffens. So do I.

She slowly sits down once again.

We both join her with Dmitri standing guard.

She looks at Anton, and I see the love. She looks at him like he’s a son.

"You were never supposed to come back,” she whispers.

Anton frowns. “Yeah, I know. I’m supposed to be dead.”

“I got you out,” she says softly. “Juliette promised to raise you as her own.”

My heart skips a beat.

I look at Anton who’s staring at my mother. “It was you,” he says. “The park. It was you.”

Mom smiles and reaches out, her hand cupping Anton’s cheek. He doesn’t pull away. “Oh, sweet boy. I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner. I tried. I couldn’t save her, but you were still alive.”

I watch my mother's face transform as she speaks. I see the young, scared woman she must have been thirty years ago. The woman desperate to save her best friend’s child.

"I got word about the hit three hours before it was supposed to happen," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "One of Vadim's men had a conscience. He called me, told me to warn Irina."

Anton's breathing has gone shallow. I reach for his hand. I want to shoulder some of his pain.

"I drove like a madwoman through the city. Ran every red light, broke every traffic law. But I was too late." Tears stream down her face now. "The house was already burning when I got there. The smell—God, the smell of smoke and?—"

She can't finish. My own tears start falling as I imagine my mother, barely older than I am now, racing through flames to save her best friend.

"I found her in the kitchen," Elena continues, her voice breaking. "She was still breathing, barely. She grabbed my hand and said one word: 'Alexei.' I knew what she meant."

Anton makes a sound and it feels as if my chest is cracking open. It’s half sob, half growl.

"I found you in a closet where she'd hidden you. You were unconscious and bleeding. Your little body was so still, I thought —" She stops, pressing her hand to her mouth. "I thought I was too late for you too."

I'm crying openly now, watching this man I love learn the truth about the worst day of his life. About how close he came to dying with his mother.

"There was a nurse, Katya. She owed me a favor. I carried you to her apartment, and she worked on you for hours. Stitched up the gashes on your little body, treated you for smoke inhalation. You were delirious with fever for three days."

"I remember being sick," Anton whispers. "Someone singing to me."

"That was Katya. She has a beautiful voice." My mother wipes her eyes with shaking hands. "But we knew they'd keep looking for you. They don’t leave loose ends. If anyone discovered you were still alive, they would have finished the job.

"So you killed him," Anton says flatly. “You killed Alexei Orlov.”

"I gave you a new name, a new life. Juliette was my cousin. She lived in Belarus, far from Moscow, far from the Bratva. She was lonely, couldn't have children of her own. She promised to love you like her own son."

I watch Anton process this, see him trying to reconcile the fragments of memory with this new truth.

"She did love me," he says quietly. "For the little time I had with her."

My mother’s face hardens, anger flashing in her eyes. “I didn’t know until years later that she sold you to them. To the Center.”

“She sold him?” I gasp.