Page 51

YULIAN

Visions swirl before my eyes. Hazy, confused images, like dreams inside of dreams. Mia’s face. Mia’s smile, bright as the midday sun. Mia’s lips, calling my name.

For one endless second, I think I’m back in bed with her. That the yacht ambush never happened. She’s rolling over towards me, a huge grin on her face. Saying something that I can’t hear.

Her mouth shapes three words. I think I know what they are. I haven’t told her yet—been waiting for the right time, the right place.

“I love ? —”

But when I open my eyes, it’s not Mia I see.

It’s darkness. It’s the Hudson closing in on me. Then it’s sand.

“Oh, no, no. Don’t even try.” A cold, abrasive voice cuts through the fog. “You don’t get to die yet. Not until I say so.”

Desya.

He drags me along the sandy bank, then rotten planks. I barely have time to realize what’s happening—that he’s pulling me out of the water, saving me— before he drops me unceremoniously near the edge of the pier.

I twist around, start coughing up water. My lungs burn. My shoulder throbs. Everything hurts.

But somehow, I start laughing.

Because I was right. I found it. The one thing Desya gives a shit about. A single, precious piece of leverage.

Me.

Desya’s face turns vicious in the moonlight. “You think this is funny?” He reels back his leg and kicks me in the stomach. Once, twice, again, again, until I lose count. “You think this is a fucking joke?! You’re mine, Yul. You don’t get to quit this game. Only I decide when you’ve had enough!”

His foot connects with my side over and over again. Soon, a metallic taste fills my mouth. The next time I cough, it isn’t water anymore.

I reach for my gun—waterproof, the height of StarTech research—but Desya instantly kicks it far away. Then he grabs me by the collar and yanks me up to meet his gaze.

“You abandoned me,” he snarls. “You left me to die. Worse, you didn’t even finish the goddamn job. Do you have any idea how hard it was? To pick myself back up after that? I wanted to die. ”

“Then you should have.”

He throws me down again. I should feel weak, being pushed around like this. I should be ashamed. But I can’t find it in me.

Because, for once, I’m winning.

Desya killed two of my vory. He grazed a third, crippled a fourth, sent the fifth hiding. Tonight, he came for my right-hand man.

But I’m the one he wants.

And as long as that’s true, I’ve got the upper hand.

He yanks off his eyepatch. A blackened crater stares at me from where his eye used to be. The jagged scar there… I remember carving every inch.

“It wasn’t mercy, you know.” He’s laughing now, crazed and manic. “What you did. It was cruel.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You let me live. ” His voice turns jagged with madness. “It was hell. You damned me, Yul. Forced me to live with my sins for twenty fucking years!”

Sins. That word lodges in my gut like a stray bullet. So he’s aware, isn’t he? He knows what he’s done. That he butchered my family for nothing. After all those bullshit justifications he fed me, all the mental gymnastics—in the end, they couldn’t hold up in the face of the truth.

I wish I could say it feels good, but it doesn’t. In our past, there are no winners. Desya’s war made losers out of us all.

His remaining eye is bulging. I look at him and can’t find a single trace of the boy I once knew. Just a twisted reflection in a broken mirror.

My anger drains from me. All I can feel is cold, bitter disappointment.

It didn’t have to turn out this way. None of this had to turn out this way.

You could have chosen differently.

But he didn’t.

And here we fucking are.

“Now, you’re going to come with me.” He pulls out his gun, aims it right at my head. “You’re going to join me in hell, and you’ll never fucking leave again.”

“You think you can fix one sin with another?” I level my gaze. Even though I’m staring down the barrel of a gun, I’ve never felt calmer. “You think you’ll feel better with me dead? You won’t. You’ll still be miserable. You’ll still be alone.”

“No.” He shakes his head. A sick grin splits his face in half. “No, you’ll be there with me. But before I join you, I’ll pay a visit to your whore. Make sure every last Lozhkin is wiped from this earth, your little bastard included.”

“Like fuck you will.” All the anger I’d lost comes back with a vengeance. “You gave me your word.”

“Maybe you didn’t get the memo.” He cocks his gun. “Dead men can’t testify. And they sure as shit don’t keep their promises.”

I have no time to think. I lunge for the weapon. If I have to die, so be it—but not Mia. She’s blameless. Our child is blameless. There’s no point in my death if it can’t save them.

Desya kicks me back to the ground. He’d never get away with such a cheap tactic any other day, but my shoulder’s still bleeding freely, pounding with pain. When he grinds his foot on the wound, I can’t help the roar that comes out of me.

He touches the gun to my forehead. “See you in hell, brother.”

“Not if I see you first,” a feminine voice cuts in.

We both turn.

No.

It can’t be.

What’s she doing here?

“Mia.”

My voice is a whisper. Mia’s gaze flits to me, full of concern, but she doesn’t dare look away from Desya. She’s too smart for that.

Instead, she cocks the gun Desya stole from me. “Get away from my fiancé,” she orders.

“Your fiancé?” Desya lets out a cruel laugh. “Damn. I guess congratulations are in order. Sorry I didn’t bring a gift.”

“The gun in your hand will do.”

“Mia,” I grit, “leave. I can’t protect you if?—”

“You don’t need to.” Her jaw sets. “I’m protecting you.”

“Aww. Isn’t that adorable?” Desya digs the mouth of his gun harder into my forehead.

I’ve never wanted to kill someone with my bare hands more, but right now, I can’t afford to act recklessly.

Not when Desya can easily punish Mia for it.

“But I’m afraid this is a private party. See, you’re not welcome here.”

“Then you shouldn’t have invited me.”

“Me? Invited you?” He barks another laugh. “No way. I wasn’t planning on sharing.”

Invited? I can’t follow the conversation. I feel like I’m missing a crucial piece.

Surprise flits across Mia’s face, too, but only briefly. Soon, she’s looking murderous again. “Final warning,” she says. “Let him go, or I shoot.”

“What, with that soggy old thing?”

“I’ll take my chances.”

But I don’t. Her hands are shaking hard, she’s got no training whatsoever, and that gun, while theoretically waterproof, just took a dive in the Hudson.

I’m not risking it. I’m not risking her.

So I take a chance.

It takes everything to summon my last ounce of strength. But once I do?—

Once I do, I stop feeling pain.

I grab Desya’s ankle and twist hard. His body tilts, off-balance, his foot dislodged from my injured shoulder. He tries to shoot, but the sand eats his bullet.

Then another gunshot echoes. And another. And another.

Mia’s face is a mask of panic as she pulls the trigger. She’s a nurse—she’s never had to hurt someone. Never broke her oath before.

But now, for me, she shatters it.

Desya’s body sways. He looks down at his chest, filled with bullet holes, with a horrified sort of disbelief.

Then he falls off the pier.

I watch the dark waters churn around his body. Bubbles come up to the surface in a heated froth until it all turns still. As calm as the grave.

He’s dead. He’s really dead.

“Yulian!” Mia drops the gun and rushes to me. “Are you okay?! Where are you hurt?!”

I want to answer. Want to raise my hands to her shaking shoulders, cup her face and kiss her. But then the world starts tipping over.

“Yulian.” Mia’s voice turns panicked, desperate. “Yulian!”

I’ve lost too much blood. The realization comes slowly. Is this it, then? Am I done for?

But then another thought comes. A brighter, happier thought.

I saved her.

I saved them.

My family.

This time, I didn’t let them die.