The sound is a loud crack against the walls. Vasili’s body jerks once and then goes completely still, sprawled out on the cold ground, reduced to nothing but an empty shell.
I slide my gun into the holster strapped across my chest and step over Vasili’s unmoving body. My boots crunch on the shattered glass and debris as I make my way across the room.
Beneath the bright, swinging lightbulb, Tatiana’s small frame trembles violently. A soft, fractured whimper slips from her lips, and her eyes stay wide and wet with a terror that I intend to make the rest of the world pay for.
I drop to one knee before her, and my hands, still slick with the blood, move with a practiced gentleness as I work at the heavy ropes biting into her wrists.
The rough cord gives way, and the moment she’s free, she collapses forward onto my chest.
Her arms lock around my neck in a desperate grip. She buries her face into the shoulder of my leather jacket, and her heavy, shaking sobs echo around us.
I shift at the sound of boots crunching glass on the floor behind us, and my hand slides to my holster on instinct. I look over my shoulder and relax when I see Mikhail standing guard at the hallway with the rest of my men.
I hold Tati close, pressing a hand to the back of her head to anchor her against me. Blood, sweat, and tears mix against my skin—the price we just paid for her survival.
But I am victorious.
The threat that loomed over my family is bleeding out on the floor behind me. I have won the battle, ripped my sister from the jaws of death, and irrevocably cemented my absolute control over every single shipping lane and dock in this harbor.
No one will ever look at me again without seeing Vasili’s ghost. They will always remember the consequences that come with resisting me.
But as my sister shakes against my chest, my blood remains at a violent, chaotic boil. I’m still seething. The victory doesn’t extinguish the dark, protective fury clawing at the inside of my ribs.
I look past her shoulder into the shadows of the empty room, and my jaw locks tight in certainty.
The harbor is mine. My family is safe. And now, nothing stands between me and the long drive back to the mansion. Back to the only other woman who holds the key to my heart.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Elena
Fear suffocates me so much, I can almost taste it. The air is heavy with tension, hot and damp as I breathe in and outfrantically, each breath faster than the last.
With my hands on my hips, I cross the room multiple times, pacing like it’ll ease the burden that feels like a ton of bricks on my chest.
“Calm down, Elena. Take a deep breath,” I try to encourage myself. But it doesn’t work.
Nothing has made me feel better for the past few hours since I was forced to enter the safe house, which only has one lamp to serve as light.
There’s been no way to communicate with anyone or anything in the outside world. My instructions were clear: all I have to do is wait. They’ll come to me.
But it’s so freaking hard to just stand by and do nothing.
Anxiety claws at me, gnawing at my insides, till I’m sure I have little time left until I finally crack with insanity. I want to pull my hair out. I want to scream.
The mental pictures won’t leave me alone, no matter how many times I’ve attempted to remain positive.
Leonid could be hurt right now. Tatiana, too. What if he doesn’t find her on time? What if the men aren’t able to protect each other? What if—
I flinch when the heavy reinforced doors burst open with a loud groan. I hear muffled conversation in hot rushes of Russian before the men step inside—Mikhail first, then a few others.
Some limp in obvious pain and crumple to the floor with their backs against the wall, while the others start tucking their weapons aside and hunch to attend to the injured.
My eyes search their faces wildly and my heart rate triples for every second I don’t see Leonid.
I’m quick on my feet, running toward Mikhail. His gaze zeroes in on me as I approach, and I stagger on my feet, halting immediately at the large smear of crimson across his vest.
The light in the room might not be bright, but I don’t need it to tell what that is.Blood.And from the looks of him—with how perfectly alert he is, standing upright and easily dismantling his gun—it’s not his.
