“Enjoy the ride, Lilia,” he said.
And, oh, I did. Pretty soon, it was Gavril who was making a racket, roaring as I lifted and lowered my hips with abandon. He took over, and I let myself flop against him, wrapping my arms around his neck as he rammed inside me, hard and deep.
A sweet kiss landed on the side of my neck after the final thrust, his movements slowing and becoming languorous. I tipped forward, our foreheads touched. We smiled weakly at the same time.
“What would I do without you?” he asked.
His tone was lazy and flippant as we struggled to regain our breath, but his arms tightened around me as if he couldn’t bear to really think about how things could have turned out a hundred different ways.
I pushed off his chest and dropped a kiss on his nose. If he were serious about stopping this war once and for all, he wouldn’t have to ever find out because I didn’t intend on leaving him.
It was clear the plane was descending. There wasn’t much time until we’d have to act. Could we win this? It seemed impossible to lose at the moment, with the heady afterglow surrounding us like the clouds outside the windows.
But we’d have to touch down soon. Then the real fight would begin. And in battle, there were never any guarantees.
Chapter 38 - Gavril
We were a mess by the time we landed in the private area of the LA airport. Both our clothes were torn and bloodstained. Lilia had tried her best to wash up in the tiny airplane bathroom—seriously, I needed a bigger plane, although we’d managed just fine—but her hair was still bedraggled from her dip in the ocean, which seemed like weeks ago but was only just this morning.
She never looked more beautiful to me as she straightened her shorts and stepped out of the plane like visiting royalty. I already had intel from my people watching the Petrovs’ every move that Aleks and the others in Lilia’s rescue team had arrived back in the city shortly before we did.
If I made it through this alive, I might just ask Aleks what model jet he had, if he got back that quickly after still being part of the fight when Lilia and I left the farmhouse.
“I can’t just call him,” she said when we were in a chauffeured car and speeding toward my house.
The entire area was under lockdown after Luigi’s men had tried to breach it a few days ago. No one got on the property, and the security team had been whittled down to a select few of my best men from Russia as soon as they had arrived.
“Why not?” I asked. Time was of the essence, and if Aleks still believed I was behind the attacks, he’d go nuclear now that he must also suspect I was behind Lilia’s disappearance.
She rolled her eyes, explaining exactly what I had just been thinking. “He knows you’re part of it, he just doesn’t know we’re on the same side now. Unless he sees me face to face, there’s nothing I can say that will make him believe I’m not under duress.”
That meant I had to get her to Aleks in person. A man who would happily kill me on sight before either of us could get a word out. I didn’t love that plan, and I liked it less when I heard from Benedikt that some of the first attacks were already starting.
I still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that Benedikt hadn’t crossed over to the other side, but according to other sources, his intel was good. To face the leader of the Petrov organization while mine was actively attacking his territory wasn’t going to work in my favor.
If I put out some fires first, it would go a long way toward gaining Aleks’s trust. And keeping me from a sniper’s bullet the moment I brought Lilia anywhere near him.
Another thing Benedikt had informed me of was that Luigi had made it out of the farmhouse alive. Ran like a cockroach after that first shot I got off, that killed the bastard guard. It was just like him to live to fight another day, but his luck was about to run out.
If I could find him. Benedikt swore he was working on it with all his best trackers, but was he? And if he got me the information, would it be good, or would I be walking into a trap?
“What’s wrong?” Lilia asked when I fell silent for too long.
I didn’t want to worry her, and there was no way I would bring her into danger. She was already going to have a fit when she learned I planned to leave her at the house while I found Luigi and ended him.
“I’m trying to figure out logistics,” I said, not a total lie. “I need to set a few things in motion, and we both need to get cleaned up and eat something. Then we’ll talk more about meeting up with your cousins.”
It was very clear she didn’t like this, but also that she had to be starving and was obviously sick of being in her dirty clothes. Once we were back in the house, I could make some calls while she was in the shower. If necessary, I’d just slip away and explain later when it was all over.
I didn’t like the idea of these little white lies, and I hated the thought of her being angry at me. But there was no way I’d ever let her be in a situation where she could be shot or trampled, hit or put in any kind of danger again. My heart still plummeted into my stomach every time I remembered her being tied to that chair.
Luigi was going to pay for that, if only I could find him. Now that he knew I had once again stolen his prize out from under him, he wasn’t going to be rolling out the red carpet for me.
The shower was barely on in the bathroom when Benedikt called me back. I had known him since we were both kids. He had never betrayed me before. Why start now? I had seen how much he despised Luigi, maybe more than I did. All I could do in the moment was answer the call and take what he told me with a grain of salt.
“Just got word that Luigi’s back in LA, but we lost him on the way out of the airport.”
“There are thousands of cameras at LAX,” I said coldly. If his experts lost someone that easily, they were either not experts or he was willfully covering Luigi’s tracks. I swore ruthlessly. “If you don’t have answers for me, why are you calling?” I snapped.
