And just like that, I’m ready to do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t: find a way to keep her brother breathing simply because she’s chosen to carry me so close to her heart.
Speaking of the pain in my ass—his wrists are free now and raw. He cradles them like a man counting his own pulse to confirm he’s still alive.
“You’ll get your head start,” I tell him. “And then you get hunted by someone who doesn’t accept failure. Choose where you go carefully.”
Archer bares his teeth. “You think running is new to me?”
“I think you’re still bad at it. Stay off the highways. Stay away from cheap motels. That’s the first place he’ll have men look. Watch out for security cameras. Any friend you think you can trust? You can’t. If I were you, I’d go somewhere they don’t speak English or Russian.”
He looks at Alina with all the fury he has left masquerading as love. She steps forward, wraps her arms around him, and tells him a truth he doesn’t deserve. I let them have that moment. There are very few soft things left in my world, and she deserves them all.
When Alina steps back, I take the room again. “We’re moving now.”
Petrov tosses me a set of keys, which I hand to Archer.
In the hallway, the elevator doors open. We step inside—me, Alina, Renat, Petrov, Archer, Viktor. The car drops through the building.
The mirrored steel gives me her reflection. She stands close enough that the back of my hand touches her fingers. I give her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.
“Middle seat,” I remind her.
She repeats it back to comfort me.
The elevator doors open. Lights hum overhead in straight rows across polished concrete.
We turn left. The middle car, a dark sedan with new plates, waits. Renat and Petrov move ahead while Viktor leads the way a few feet in front of us. Alina is a step behind me. I won’t breathe properly until she’s in another state.
I open the rear passenger door, eyes scanning the shadows. “Hurry, hellcat.”
No one speaks. I just feel Gavriil, like a knife pressed to my spine. I see him before anyone else, except Alina. She freezes. She doesn’t get into the goddamn car.
I want to throw her inside, even knowing she’d be furious.
My brother steps out from behind a concrete column. Six men shape themselves along the wall. Not having any cameras on this level is a two-edged sword.
A small, false smile crosses Gavriil’s mouth: generous on the surface, never in truth.
“Little brother,” he says.
“Not today.”
I step in front of Alina, my palm finding her lower back to anchor her and keep her from making the mistake of thinking I won’t hide her with my life.
“Then I suppose that makes me yourPakhan,” Gavriil notes. He scans everything, the angle of my stance, the bandage under my shirt, the direction Archer heads toward the rusty red sedan.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to kill him because of her,” he says in Russian.
“He’s your problem now.”
His eyes return to mine, icy and sharp. “Refusing my orders, letting the traitor go, was foolish. Now, you’ll have to be taught a lesson.”
“I’m tired of your fucking lessons.”
Gavriil doesn’t respond. He looks past me to Alina and lifts two fingers.
Time stops.
None of us can breathe.
