“Pleeaasse help me.” Her face crumbles, and my soul tugs against my skeleton, desperate to rip free to get to hers to soothe her.
“We will. We will,” my brother and I say in unison.
“Let’s get you into the back of the car and I’ll drive back to your place,” I say, eager to get out of this parking lot. “We will get everything sorted.”
“She’ll be back soon,” she mutters, her eyes out of focus. She’s in shock.
Coaxing her from the driver’s seat, Zahkar lifts her into his arms, and practically peels her from the leather seat, leaving behind a bloodied outline of her thighs.
I rush to open the back door and help him duck inside with her.
Jumping into the driver’s seat, I click on the home button on her GPS and begin driving when the directions flash on the screen.
“We should take her to a hospital,” Zahkar growls. “Some of this blood is fresh and warm, Rodion.”
“No,” she yelps, jerking in his lap and attempting to climb over the seats to reach the steering wheel.
What the actual fuck?
“Calm down, love,” I tell her as calmly as I can. “You’ll kill us all.”
Z manages to get her back and settled in his arms.
We’ve patched each other up plenty over the years, so we should be able to help her. If anything needs more attention, we can decide what to do afterward. Right now, we just need to get her the fuck away from here.
“Alyona, you need to tell me where the woman is who did this? Is she still at your place?”
I don’t want to risk taking her back there before we’ve dispatched the woman.
“Dead.” She shakes her head against Z’s chest. “They’re both dead. I couldn’t let her live. Sheknows.” Small sobs shake her body.
That’s scarier than anything else I’ve seen tonight.
Alyona was forged in our ring. She was made of steel and determination. Strong. A survivor. She killed the woman who attacked her, yet something has her so rattled she’s breaking.
“It will be okay.” Z comforts her, stroking a hand down her congealed hair. But she continues rambling.
“She’s mine,” she chokes out. “She’s my everything and I couldn’t let her tell him about her.”
“Nothing she’s saying is making sense.” Z’s voice is strained, and I imagine him counting his Mississippis in his head.
“Shock can do that to a person,” I assure him. “It will be okay.” I parrot the same words to attempt to comfort him, too.
I pull onto a driveway of a large house with too many fucking windows when you need to be discreet. It’s all one story by the looks of it, but vast. This Jeremiah has—had—money.
The garage door opens when I drive toward it, and I move forward, allowing the garage to encase us inside so we’re out of view.
“Is there anyone else in the house we should be aware of?” I ask, giving the space in front of us a quick scan. We don’t have weapons on us because wearethe weapons.
“No.” She rushes off Zahkar’s lap and almost tips out of the car when she jerks the door open. Her bare feet slap the tiled floor leaving little blood splatters, leading us into the house.
I enter warily, mapping out every doorway and window. Keeping an escape route in mind and also to prepare for anyone joining us.
Everything is either white or cream décor. There’s no personality, which isn’t like the queen we know. I wonder how long she’s lived here with him.
“There.” She points her finger at an open doorway leading into a bedroom.
Shifting from foot to foot, she closes her eyes. “It was a fluke.” She laughs without any humor.
