Page 44

44

OLEG

Chaos bleeds from the sharp left turn our plan has taken. My empire is going to hurt because of it.

But for once, I’m not concerned with my empire.

I’m concerned for my family.

Drew lies, cold and dead, in the morgue.

Sydney is sitting alone in a frigid cell, charged with his murder.

And Sutton is shaking in the back seat of my SUV, completely devastated over her sister’s arrest.

I’m in major damage control mode as I try to assess how best to contain this situation. But it’s like trying to fight a wildfire.

Problematic, dangerous, and ultimately, futile.

I can see Sutton’s fists pounding at the inside of my SUV window, but I ignore them for the moment and answer Artem’s incoming call.

“Talk to me.”

Artem grunts, “They’re refusing to post bail because there were so many witnesses. Looks like she’s gonna have to stay in there a little while longer.”

Fuck. I’m already dreading telling Sutton that. Lord knows she’s in a foul mood, considering I’d forced her into my SUV and locked her inside the moment she tried to get to her sister.

“Did you talk to the DA? What about Judge Simmons? He owes me a couple of favors.”

“I spoke to both,” Artem answers. “They keep citing due process. The truth is, their hands are tied on this one, brother. It happened too publicly. They can’t risk their reputations in order to call in a favor for a powerful friend. This might have to be by the book.”

“ Blyat’ ,” I say, fists clenching helplessly. “That’ll take time.”

“I’m sorry… But, fuck, who could have seen that coming?” Artem hisses. “Did she give Sutton any indication that she was gonna hijack the whole plan?”

“Obviously not. If she had, Sutton would have told me, I’m sure of it.”

“Jesus,” Artem mutters. “This is a real shitshow.”

I’m inclined to agree. The only silver lining: Drew Anton is dead. Deader than dead.

I’ll give Sydney one thing: she may be a shit judge of a situation but she can make a decent kill shot.

The Palmer sisters have been nothing if not surprising.

“Get our legal team on the job immediately. We need to drum up a believable defense for Sydney. There’s no way Sutton is going to rest until her sister is free.”

As evidenced by the screaming and pounding coming from inside the SUV.

“I’m on it,” Artem assures me before the call ends.

I take a deep breath and approach the SUV, ready to be assaulted by a pregnant woman with the heart of a warrior.

I’m not surprised by the tornado that hits me the moment I pry the door open.

“Let me out!” she screams. “How dare you lock me up in here like a child?! How dare you keep me from my sister?!”

I force her back into the vehicle and climb in after her. The locks click back into place and the partition goes up, separating us from the driver.

“You need to calm down, princess.”

“Don’t call me that!” she snarls. “And don’t tell me to calm down! They have my sister! They arrested her!”

“Because she shot a man in broad daylight,” I snap back, furious at how out of control I feel right now. “No, she didn’t just shoot a man—she killed the fucker.”

“He deserved to die.”

“But they don’t know that! Eleven different bystanders saw it happen. As we speak, they’re in the police station, giving eyewitness accounts of what they just saw.”

“No!” Sutton breathes, her panic dissolving into fear. “God… What was she thinking?!”

“So you had no idea she was planning this?” I ask.

Her eyes snap to mine. “Of course not. If I did, I would have stopped her.”

I swear under my breath. “The situation is dark but not dire. We can find a way to spin this.”

Sutton frowns. “What does that mean?”

“My lawyers are already putting together a compelling defense for Sydney. She was the victim of emotional and physical abuse. She was in deep depression and suffering from PTSD as a result. We can use provocation as a defense. There’s precedent for it and?—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Sutton interrupts, her eyes swimming with tears. “Slow down. You’re talking about mounting a legal defense for her? That will take time. That will mean she has to sit in a jail cell until a trial takes place! Unless—” Hope floods her face. “—we can get her out on bail.”

“They’ve denied bail.”

The fragile hope flees altogether. “There has to be something we can do!” she sobs. “We can’t just leave Sydney to rot in there!”

“I’m working on a loophole to get her out. But it’s going to take time.”

“She doesn’t have time!” Sutton declares. “She doesn’t do well in enclosed spaces, Oleg. In our first foster home, our foster mother used to lock us in the hallway cupboard as punishment. Sydney hated it in there.”

“Listen to me: I’m gonna make sure she’s okay in there,” I assure my panicked fiancée. “But right now, we can’t do much for her.”

“No!” Sutton says, her hands pushing at me and pawing at me like she doesn’t know if she wants me farther or closer. I doubt she even realizes what she’s doing. “Then… then I want to go and see her.”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that.”

She stops short, her eyes going wide and disbelieving. “What do you mean, you can’t allow that?”

“You have been through enough today,” I explain. “And I don’t think I should have to remind you that you’re pregnant. Pregnant enough that the slightest amount of stress can affect the baby. I’m not driving you to a police station just so that you can see your sister in a cell.”

“She needs me!” Sutton hisses. “She’ll need to talk to someone.”

“Then she can talk to Artem.”

“Artem is not me . Artem is not her family. She needs me, Oleg. I should be with her.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I say grimly, hitting the roof of the SUV with my palm. Immediately, we start pulling away from the curb, moving in the direction of the house.

“No!” Sutton wails, pressing the button to bring down the partition. “Ilya, turn this car around. Take me to the police station.”

There’s only radio silence from the front seat.

“Ilya!”

He flinches, his eyes meeting mine for a split second in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he says regretfully.

“You can’t do this!” Sutton screeches, turning on me. “Oleg?—”

“Enough.” My voice is icy in its curtness. “I’m not risking your health and the health of our unborn child on a woman who didn’t think about either one of you before she did what she did.”

Sutton’s eyes widen but her mouth snaps shut. We spend the rest of the drive back home in arctic silence.

And somewhere in the midst of that silence, regret creeps in.

What the hell was I thinking, letting Sutton take charge of the annihilation plan for Drew?

What was I thinking, letting her stage and star in the thing?

I wanted to give her justice on her terms. I wanted to boost her confidence. Give her some much-needed autonomy.

I should have stuck to what I know: Brute force and ruthless efficiency.

Poetic justice is for the people who can afford to be soft.

I don’t have that luxury. I never have.

When I finally unlock the doors to the SUV, we’re parked in the driveway in front of the house.

Sutton is out of there faster than I can say, “I’m sorry.”

Which I am—but not for the reasons she wants me to be.

I follow her into the house and find her pacing in the kitchen like a trapped lioness. “Do you need anything?”

She twists around, eyes blazing. “I need my sister.”

“How about water instead?” I suggest calmly. “You look parched.”

“What I am is pissed .”

“I admire your ferocity, Sutton. I admire your loyalty, too. But in this case, I think you’re misguided.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Oleg?”

I veer around the chair she’s lodged between us like she thinks that will stop me. “How exactly did Sydney find out about the ambush location? I thought you told me that you kept all the gory details from her.”

“I did!” she swears. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

“And yet she knew exactly where to show up.”

“She probably picked up on a few things along the way. She did spend most of her adult life surrounded by men like you .”

“Don’t compare me to that fucking ex of hers,” I say. “I don’t involve women in my schemes. I shouldn’t have broken that rule this time, either.”

Her eyes flare with insult, her cheeks go blotchy with the sting of my words. “You… you’re a misogynistic, heartless monster!” she spits at me, because it’s probably the last leg she has to stand on. “How can you be so calm, so controlled when my sister is behind bars for murdering the man I was supposed to kill?”

I bite my tongue, keeping the acid-like words from dripping off it.

The truth is, the only thing that’s keeping us above water is the fact that I can stay calm and controlled even through the worst of hurricanes.

My training has prepared me for precisely this eventuality. It’s one thing to be prepared when everything goes your way.

But I’ve been trained to be prepared when nothing goes according to plan.

My first lesson came on a yacht when I was eighteen years old.

The smell of burning flesh will always be the compass that guides me.

“Hate me all you want. Be pissed all you want. But I don’t have time for this,” I growl, filling a glass with water and slamming it on the table in front of her. “Thanks to your sister, I have a hundred different fires I need to put out.”

“Go then! I don’t need you.”

Again, I have to fight the urge to retort. Because we both know that she does need me. She needs me to save her sister’s ass.

“Drink your water,” I order before turning my back on her.

I stalk out of the kitchen, leaving her to her grief and her stubborn thirst. If there’s one thing I could wish for right now, it would be to put this nightmare of a day to bed once and for all.

As it stands, I’m nowhere close to being done.