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Dmitri’s mysterious girlfriend. He won’t even dare uttering her name. It’s almost like he thinks he isn’t worthy of saying it out loud, as if he might sully her by the meaningless act.
“I would have helped you, Dmitri. I would have done my best to help you because we were friends. Or at least I thought we were before you kidnapped me after I welcomed you into my home.”
“I’m so sorry, Kat—more than I can ever say. If there had been any other way… I wish I could promise to make up for this, but that would be a lie. I won’t have time.” Dmitri’s eyes dart from side to side, unseeing. He’s in full desperation mode, controlled by the adrenaline raging through his veins.
“Funny you should say that, Dmitri—I doubt I will, either. Now that I’ve taken the Flame of Mir from your dad, he will kill me on the spot, and you know it. You’re sending me to my death.”
Dmitri’s shoulders sag, and he clenches his jaw. “I’m sorry,” he says, his words barely more than a whisper. “You don’t deserve this. I wish there was another way, but I’m out of time. My father will release her in exchange for you. And if Nik catches up with us before I can make the trade, you’ll be my only leverage. He will do anything to get you back.”
I open my mouth to retort, but then I think twice about it. There’s just no point. Dmitri won’t change his mind. He is too far gone to release me. I’m just wasting my breath and energy by arguing with him.
Dmitri’s words about Nik make me want to weep, because I realize I will never see him again. I won’t ever be in his arms again, feel his skin against my lips, or breathe in his scent…
Even worse, the last shared moment we will ever have will be one of hurt and regret. I’ll never hear his laugh again. Our last kiss will be our last. If only I had known then…
I wish I had realized before that my fear of losing control was the only thing standing in the way of my happily ever after. I wish I had understood that by choosing to hold on to it, I was sentencing myself to live out the rest of my days with no chance of true love and happiness. If only I could return to the moment when I burst into his office to throw his diamond at him… I would tell myself that holding on to that fear would only bring me misery.
The irony is that I now realize I’ve been clutching to something imaginary. There is no such thing as complete control of your life or yourself. All this time, I’ve been clinging to an illusion, and it only brought me pain and anxiety. Now, I must accept that however much time I have left before Dmitri ends me will be full of nothing but regret. I lived a full life, I suppose. I did things my way, on my terms, for the most part. But, when it truly counted, I fucked up.
I didn’t understand then that real love is so rare and magical that life puts you to the test before awarding it to you. I had to prove I was worthy of it. I had to pay a price for this kind of magic—the type that only comes around once in a lifetime—by sacrificing something of myself. Something that made me unworthy of it, even though I’ve been clinging to it like it’s worth something.
I failed my test horribly by allowing my fear of letting go of nothing but a stupid illusion of control make me lose Nik. Unlike that pretense of control, Nik is real and capable of making me happier than I knew was even possible.
By a turn of fate, I came across someone who is every dream I have ever had made flesh. Everything I have ever wanted was on the other side of my fear, and I made the wrong choice. I chose to hold on to what needed to be lost, and now it’s too late. I will never get a chance to get Nik back. And I have nobody but myself to blame for it.
While sweating profusely, Dmitri glances at his phone, harmlessly displayed on the console. Again and again, his eyes return to the device, and it makes me nervous. His frazzled state already makes him a careless driver. I don’t like our chances of getting out of this car alive if he won’t stop taking his eyes off the road.
“Expecting a phone call?” I ask with sarcasm. “If you untie me, I can check your phone for you.”
Dmitri briefly looks at my wrists, painfully tied together by a zip tie. “No. I’m just… debating something.”
“Are you having second thoughts about this plan of yours? I don’t blame you. Why don’t we pull over at that gas station and take a moment to think this whole thing through again?”
He shakes his head. “No. I’m torn about whether to keep or toss the phone. Nik can track it. If he suspects I might’ve taken you, he’ll sniff us out in a heartbeat. But I need the phone to find her because it’s the only way I have to locate her right now. I don’t have the time to figure something else out before Giuseppe learns what your friend discovered about me.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” I ask.
Dmitri shrugs. “I guess I’m just thinking out loud. But believe it or not, Kat, I still think of you as a friend. Even though I don’t expect you to feel the same way about me right now. Also, in the end, it doesn’t really matter if you know this stuff or not.”
“Because I’m as good as dead, right, friend?” I ask, almost yelling as I struggle against the restraints around my wrists. But it’s a waste of time and hurts like hell.
Dmitri doesn’t bother giving me a response. With a resolute expression, he stares ahead through the windshield. The unwavering look in his eyes tells me my fate is as good as sealed.
The two of us sit in tense silence as he drives for what seems like hours. After an eternity has passed, Dmitri slows down. As he pulls over, the unmistakable sound of gravel being crushed under the car’s wheels startles me. A moment later, we come to a stop in front of an abandoned-looking warehouse.
The building looks like it has no business still standing. It’s massive, wide enough to cover an entire block, and at least five stories high. Its once-blue paint has almost completely faded to a pale gray. Multiple spots over the facade have been stripped of it, replaced by a thick layer of rust.
I glance around, but I don’t see any signs of life or anything else. The warehouse is the only structure occupying the massive lot.
“We have to make a quick stop. We won’t be long,” Dmitri says, unbuckling both our seatbelts. He comes around the car to open the passenger side door and drag me out of the vehicle against my will, while I drag my feet—quite literally.
Dmitri says nothing, and neither do I, as he forces me to walk into the decrepit building. Somehow, it’s even more massive looking inside. It’s damp and cold, too. Almost no sunlight makes it through the crumbling structure, but the interior is illuminated enough for us to see the way ahead.
Unable to contain myself any longer, I ask, “What are we doing here?”
I fully expect Dmitri to give me the silent treatment, but to my surprise, he answers my question. “I need to grab something with more of a kick than my pistol before we meet my father. This is one of the bratva’s armories. We won’t be long.”
While clutching my upper arm, Dmitri moves forward deliberately, clearly familiar with the place’s layout. We stop before a set of double doors—a closet, if I had to guess. A thick metal chain is wrapped around the door handles, and a padlock larger than my fist secures it.
