And the worst part is that a piece of me wants him back anyway.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Drago
Song - The Pretender, Foo Fighters
I slam the brakes on the truck as we pull into the stretch of woods buried deep enough that only the dead know we’re here.
I’m exhausted from the flight to Russia. I once called this place home, but now that feels further from the truth than ever. I’m mentally drained by the constant replay of my interaction with Lily.
I’ve studied her for years. Yet, nothing could have prepared me for actually being in such close proximity. Like a drug, one word and I’m hooked.
Never in my fucking life has anyone altered my brain chemistry like this.
Rowan opens his mouth, and I lift my hand to silence him. “Not a word. I need to concentrate.”
Silence settles immediately as I stare out of the window, holding onto my gun tight.
There isn’t so much as a breeze. No birds. No movement. It’s the kind of still that makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. My body is on high alert the second my boots hit the dirt.
Being back in my home country does that to me. This place knows my blood, and it knows I’m no longer welcome.
Despite the threat, despite the ghosts buried in this soil, Lev is the one man I would walk into a war for without hesitation.
I know this territory better than any of Enzo’s men. Better than Mikhail’s. I ran these trails as a boy. I fought here as a man. I bled into this earth and learned how it breathes.
I studied it.
If our enemy comes, it will be from the right. That’s why I have Mikhail’s men stationed there.
But if someone is tailing Lev, then this stops being an extraction and turns into an execution, which just leads more enemies to me eventually.
I tap my earpiece, patching straight through to Enzo, our eyes in the sky.
My gaze snaps to my watch.
Two minutes.
I lock onto the marker ahead. The tree with the big fucking X carved into its trunk. Same mark. Same place. Same rules. This isn’t the first time Lev and I have had to put our lives on the line for each other.
But that is what you do for family, blood or not. Which is why I can never let Lily that close to me again. Why I can never cross that line with her.
Nothing moves.
My jaw tightens.
“He’s one minute out,” Enzo confirms.
My pulse kicks hard.
One minute is a lifetime in territory like this.
I don’t breathe when I see him.
Lev steps out from between the trees like the forest has finally decided to give him back. I frown; he looks older. Leaner since I last saw him. But, I know he’s still carved from violence and will. His eyes lock on mine, and something tightens in my chest that has nothing to do with the vest.
For half a second, I’m fifteen again. A boy pulled from hell by a man who chose me.
