“Your mother is old and loud and raised a disrespectful, ungrateful daughter.” His words are designed to upset us and give him an excuse to hurt her. I won’t take the bait. I will not react. “An old woman and a pair of infants? They are not worth what I am giving you. I’m offering grace and mercy, and you beg me for more? I will not make this offer twice, Mina.”
“They are my family, Vitaly. If you hurt them, I will end you.”
He laughs. It’s a chopped and broken laugh, and it sends a shiver down my spine. “You can’t kill me. You couldn’t even leave me right. You never do anything right, Mina. That’s why you need me. Do this right, and I might even take you back. Tell me you’ll do it, and she lives. For now.”
“You’re a monster.” Tears burn my nose and I hate that he can hear it. “I will never be with you again.”
“Say the words, Scarface.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap before I can stop it.
He drags my mother hard enough that she stumbles. He catches her by the hair to keep her up. The sound I make is not a word.
“You will do it,” he says, using a flat voice like he’s bored with me. “Your mom lives to take care of your bastards. If you don’t do it, they all die screaming for days.”
“No—”
“The choice is yours. Either way, baby, you’ll end up in my bed again. If you’re a good girl.”
“Vitaly—”
“Kill him, and save your family.” The line goes dead.
I watch him pocket the phone, before he drags her toward the van. Her knees hit the bumper. She scrambles. She turns her head and looks at the window. I press my palm to the glass. I don’t know if she can see me. I hold my hand there anyway.
She disappears inside. The door closes with a soft thunk. The van rolls back without headlights, slips out of the white line of the floodlight, and is gone. The hedge swings and stops. And then, they’re gone.
I lower the shade. I raise it. I lower it again. I don’t know what else to do. My brain cannot accept what just happened, so I replay it over and over and over until the skin on my hand feels raw from raising and lowering the shade.
This has to stop. I can’t live like this.
And if I fail, they won’t live at all.
My heart runs so fast I taste metal. I walk to the bathroom and grip the sink until my fingers ache. I splash water on my face. It does nothing. I turn the tap off and on and off again. I stare at tile until it looks like a map that refuses to give me a route.
If I use the code on the nightstand, the inner doors lock and the cameras pivot and every person in this house moves. Vitaly will make good on the promise if I test it. Sealing myself in here won’t help anyone.
If I call Roman, he will do everything in his power to help me, and it won’t be fast enough to stop Vitaly from killing my mother or our sons. I don’t know how he took her from the retreat, but I have to assume he has Yuri and Xander too.
And that the women protecting them are dead. He wouldn’t have left them alive to alert anyone or try to escape.
More dead. All because one man didn’t accept a fucking breakup.
I walk back to the bed and sit. My legs shake, so I rock to burn off the energy. I put my hands under my thighs. Not sure why, but it feels more secure.
Until it doesn’t.
I set the phone on the table and then pick it up and type the words he said into a locked note.Knife. Throne. Left arm. Under. My fingers stumble. I delete and type again. And delete again.
If I text Roman, it won’t help. He will never get to them in time. We don’t even know where they’re being kept.
And if I have to kill him…I probably shouldn’t warn him ahead of time. I don’t know how he’d react, but it would likely involve trying to find Vitaly first instead of letting him come to us, and that brings us back to square one, with him killing my family before we can reach him.
But how can I shove a knife into the man I love?
My sons’ faces spring to mind, and I wonder how it’s even a question. I’ll do anything to save them. Anything.
There is a knock at the door. Sergei. “Mrs. Ekimova. Do you need anything?”
