“I’m okay,” she says. “We’reokay.”
I pull her in and kiss her deeply. I have the option to choose. I always have, despite whatever was beaten into me. And I’m making the right choice today.
She pulls away from me gently, looking at the bruises on my face. She touches my jaw and I flinch from its sting. “It’s nothing,” I tell her. “I’ve had worse hangnails.”
“I’m just glad you’re alive. I thought… well, you don’t want to know what I thought.”
“Takes more than this to put me down,” I say to her.
She smiles, and it’s like a ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds after a rainstorm. “So, what now?”
I take a deep breath. It won’t take long for all this to be discovered. Once Pavel wakes up, he’ll send the hounds after me. The hunt will officially be on. I flirt with the idea of staying and taking my rightful place asPakhan, but one look into Isabella’s eyes and those thoughts are dashed.
“We leave it all behind. Starting right now.”
She blinks. “Really? Just… just like that?”
“Just like that. I don’t know how much time we have, but we need to be on a plane out of the country as soon as humanly possible. My father’s men will be all over Fortune looking for me in hours. There’s no time to waste.”
I take her hand and we rush out of the office, then out of the mansion, bound for a new life…
With one stop along the way.
A timer is going off in my head as we head for the penthouse. Isabella’s sitting next to me in my father’s car, her hands wringing with worry. “Are we headed back home?”
“Yes, but only to grab what we need and then we’re leaving Fortune for good.”
She nods and goes quiet. After a few minutes, she asks, “What about your brother? Should… should we really leave everything to him? I mean?—”
“Would you rather stay?”
She regards me for a moment. “Do you… do you want to stay? You could be the boss. Run everything. Stop the war. Maybe make some real changes?—”
“Nothing ever changes,” I say with a little sadness. “You know that to be true. Even for your father, but especially for mine. This life turns as it has for hundreds of years, Isabella.” I take her hand in mine and squeeze it. “I want something more for myself, for you, and for our baby.”
Her face broadens into a smile.Yes,I want to say to her,I’m choosing you.
“One changeof clothes and only what you need,” I say as we walk into the penthouse. “I want to be on the road in ten minutes or less.”
“Got it,” Isabella says as she rushes past me to the bedroom. I go into my study first.
Somewhere along the line, I learned that there comes an inevitable moment in time when running is the best and only option. I think that we all learn it, regardless of the criminal enterprise. If you’re smart, you prepare for the day when you have to leave town immediately, even if you’re fortunate enough for it to never come.
I can’t say that I know anyone who’s ever had to do this. I don’t think Father ever thought to. When Pavel and I were boys, we would search the house for hidden caches of fake IDs and cash after watching old gangster movies. We never found them. That’s not to say that Maxim Mechnikov wasn’t smart enough to have something stashed away, but rather that I think he was too arrogant to make such a preparation.
He’d have preferred to end his reign the way that it inevitably did—with a bullet. I think wherever he is in Hell right now, he’s smiling up at me, proud that I was the one who had the stones to do it.
In my bookshelf there are three stashes disguised as books. I find those quickly and stuff the stacks of cash into a duffel bag. Then I locate the hidden compartment I built in the wall near my writing desk and retrieve my stash of passports and otherimportant papers, fake and otherwise. On the way here, I called in some favors to get a plane chartered and ready for us when we get there. With any luck, we’ll be in the air within the next hour or two.
With my duffel bag filled, I go to the bedroom. Isabella is zipping up her suitcase and moving on to mine. She’s in the closet, looking through my suits skeptically.
“Get my shaving kit and everything in the bathroom,” I tell her. “I’ll take care of my clothes.”
“Okay.” She turns and goes into the bathroom.
I grab one comfortable pair of slacks and a casual shirt. No suits. I may never wear one again, I think. Well… perhaps one more, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
One change of clothes down and now I’m looking for my shoes. My most comfortable loafers are around here somewhere. I get down on my knees and look under the bed and I freeze.
