Page 86 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

The war is over. Mikhail is dead. The estate is in the dust.

But as I look up at his pale face through the dark, I know one thing for certain.

I’m going to stay right here until he opens his eyes.

And when he does, we’re going to rebuild our empire together.

34

ILYA

Am I dead?

There is no light here, only a thick, heavy grey mist that feels like the bottom of the river.

I’m drifting, floating in a space where my body doesn't exist. There is no pain in my ribs, no burning in my dislocated shoulder, and no cold water filling my lungs. It is quiet. Too quiet. For a long time, my mind is just a chaotic jumble of loose images, spinning in the dark like debris after an explosion.

Am I really dead?

The question doesn't scare me. If I’m dead, the war is over. The docks are gone. The blood is washed off my hands.

But then the panic hits my chest.

Via. My mind scrambles, trying to claw its way through the fog to find her face. I try to remember the slipway. I try to remember the wooden pier, the sound of the automatic gunfire, and the look in her eyes as she stood over her father’s body with the smoking submachine gun in her hands. Did I catch Mikhail? Did we go into the water?

I remember the cold. I remember the heavy, dark depth of the channel, my knife cutting through his beige trousers, the wet, bubbly shriek escaping his throat. I remember dragging him onto the concrete. I remember the blade sliding across his neck, the thick, hot rush of his blood stain the dust.

Mikhail is dead. I killed him. I put him back in the ground.

But where is my sister? Where is Via? Did the Russos take them while I was drowning in the dark? Did I fail them both?

The worry is a physical hook that grabs my chest, dragging me upward through the grey layers of mist, forcing me closer to the surface. The quiet vanishes, replaced by a low, rhythmic hum that vibrates through my skull. A steady, annoying beep is echoing near my ear, loud and persistent.

The weight of my own body returns in a sudden, crushing wave of agony.

My eyes snap open.

The light is a blinding, white-hot flash that burns straight through my retinas, making my head throb with a violent, rhythmic hammer. I choke, my chest locking as a searing, agonizing heat drives through my left lung, my throat clicking against a dry, plastic tube. My dislocated left shoulder is a dead, burning brick of pain, and my leg feels like it has been stitched together with rusted wire.

Everything aches. Every single muscle, bone, and tendon in my body is screaming, the pain so raw and intense, it makes my vision darken at the edges.

I try to turn my head, my jaw tight. The white walls of the room are clean, clinical, and smelling of heavy disinfectant and floor wax.

"Dmitri."

The name escapes my dry lips before I can stop it, a quiet, gravelly croak that barely carries over the hum of the heart monitor. I look toward the door, expecting him to step out of the shadows with his tablet, his face a silent, static mask as he tells me which warehouses are running late.

No one moves.

The memory of the war room hits my brain like a physical blow, the blinding white flash of the thermite, the concrete ceiling collapsing, and Dmitri lying ten feet away with a jagged piece of glass embedded deep in his chest.

He didn't make it out of the cellar. I squeeze my eyes shut, a hot, tight knot of grief rising in my throat. Dmitri was the only brother I had left. He was the one who stood by my side when my father handed me a blade at seven years old. He was the one who cleaned the blood off my boots, who managed the ledgers, and who kept me from turning completely into a beast.

And now he’s gone, buried in the ashes of the estate.

The door to the room creaks open, the quiet rustle of soft-soled shoes approaching my bed.

I open my eyes, my gaze locking onto Yuri, the young field medic. He’s looking down at a clipboard, his face pale and tired, his green apron gone, replaced by a clean white lab coat. He stops when he sees my open eyes, the clipboard almost slipping from his fingers.