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“Okay.” We head out the way I came in and down to the SUV parked in the alley. “What’s this about a family?” I ask Ainsley.
She scoffs. “Now you want to know. Lyric found your father’s girlfriend and her daughter. She looks a lot like you.” She pauses for a moment. “My sister loved you so much, she married you knowing you didn’t love her. I had to get her away before you really broke her. I thought she would be safe.”
“I won’t tell you my feelings as your sister gets to know them first. Where did she think your friend was taking her? She wasn’t running from me?”
“No, she wasn’t running. She thought we were going to Laughlin. You should’ve told her before about your feelings.”
Turning, I look out the window and watch as we head toward Henderson, where I know the Italians live. We don’t make it all the way there. Instead, Mikhail turns into an area housing large storage units and stops at the entrance.
“Barone, we are in your area,” Andrei says into the phone. “We had an agreement that Lyric Duncan-Belyaev was off limits.”
“We did,” he says, his voice on speaker for all of us to hear. “Why are you calling and in my area?”
“Your sister, Maddalena.”
“She left years ago.” I hear the bite in his tone. “You got a reason to bring her up?”
“Duncan told us he was hired to kill Belyaev.”
“I didn’t hire him. I didn’t kill Belyaev. I gave him my blessing to be with Lena.”
“No. Lyric found out it was Giovanni, and he has her here at your storage units. We are going in and getting her, just thought I’d let you know.”
“I’m on my way.”
“You’ll be too late. I have a husband upset his wife was beaten as he listened over the phone.”
“Fucking Giovanni. I’m still on my way.”
I jump out of the car and take off running. I saw the GPS. I know which building she’s in. I pull my father’s gun and shoot the guards as I come up on them. The old me, the one who was going to make a life for myself in the Bratva, boils to the surface. I’ll kill everyone who gets in the way between my wife and me. I didn’t marry her just to protect her. I married her because she is mine. Because I love her.
I love her.
The words roll through my head as I burst through the doors. I fire my gun, killing the few guards in the room. When I aim at Giovanni, I shoot his arm and watch as his gun falls to the ground. I go to shoot him in the leg so I can torture him the way he did my wife, but the gun clicks empty. I holster it as I advance on Giovanni. He’s standing over my wife, who is beaten. Her face bloody. Her hand clutched to her chest is broken. The fingers mangled. I reach down and grab the bat clutched in the dying Italian guard’s hands.
“You can’t hurt me. I’m an underboss.” He laughs.
I don’t care. I swing the bat at his head. His blood splatters, and as soon as he hits the ground, I slam the bat against his chest hard, knowing I’ve cracked some ribs.
“You took my beloved wife. I’ll kill you for touching her,” I yell as I continue hitting him with the bat. I beat him, over and over. I don’t see or feel anything but vengeance. He hurt my Lyric.
“Take her out.” Andrei’s voice breaks through the fog in my head, but I don’t stop. I hit Costa again and again until his chest cracks apart. I hear Lyric yelling my name, and I finally pull through the fog.
“Aleksei, please stop.”
I drop the bat and turn toward her. I wrap her in my arms.
“I love you,” I tell her as I kiss her, my bloody hands holding her face.
“I love you too,” she says softly, and I hold her to me.
Eleven
LYRIC
I’m lying in bed with Aleksei, his arms tightly holding my body to his. He hasn’t let me go since the Bratva doctor gave him the all clear to take me home. My jaw and ribs are bruised. I have three broken fingers as well as a part of my hand. My nose was also broken. I’m pissed that this all happened.
“I was scared to tell you my feelings. Everyone I’ve loved has died or left me,” he confesses as he strokes my hair back from my face.
