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His words hit me hard.
The thought of either Mackenzie or Kirill being dead makes it harder to breathe. I’ll fall apart if we lose them, and I’m sure Tino will, too. Whatever progress we’ve made—no matter how small—since our Duchess came into our lives will be reversed ten-fold. The thought alone is enough to make me want to find a razor blade and carve the skin from my body.
This isn’t just about her survival, or Kirill’s. It’s about the survival of all of us. We simply don’t function without each other.
Once we’re all tooled up with more weaponry than an army unit, we turn to each other.
“Let’s move out,” Tino calls.
The men bump fists and smack each other on the back, buoying each other up.
Tino leaves them for a moment to take me to one side.
“You holding up okay?” he asks.
I give a brief nod. “Yeah. You?”
He does the same, though his gaze flits to the left and then back again. “We’ll get them back.”
I grab his hand, and we pull each other in with mutual back pats of reassurance. Open emotion and affection isn’t something that’s easily shown to the same sex in our society, but we were never about following convention.
Tino leaves me to join his men.
My father has already arranged for our own vehicles to be ready. He’s also managed to convince Lucia to stay behind. She didn’t want to, but he doesn’t wish to put her in harm’s way. There are moments like this where I believe his love for her is real. Maybe I don’t want to believe he’d put another woman above my mother, but who am I to tell him he’s not allowed to move on? I might never learn why she was driving away from the college in the middle of the night, or why she lost control of the car like she did. It’s a painful pill to swallow, but if I’m to move on with my life as well, I might have to force it down.
“Are you ready?” my father asks, his gaze full of concern.
I grit my teeth. “Yeah, I’m ready to show Grigoriy Stepanov that he fucked with the wrong people.”
Chapter 13
Kirill
All my raging and slamming myself against the bars has been for nothing. I’m still trapped in this fucking cage, while my father is upstairs with Mackenzie.
I squeeze my eyes shut, wanting to tear them from my own skull at the thought of what he might be doing with her. If he lays a hand on her, I swear I’ll cut them from his arms. I hate even the thought of him seeing her naked, though I know he can do far worse.
At least they didn’t shut the door at the top of the stairs and the lights have been left on. It’s only a tiny glimmer of hope, but it’s one to hold on to. It means she’s coming back. We won’t be kept in this fucking place forever. If my father wants this wedding to happen, then our circumstances will change.
I can’t afford to be complacent, though.
What is it they say about lights at ends of tunnels? That sometimes they turn out to be trains.
Movement comes in the doorway and my father reappears with Mackenzie. She’s still got that damned collar on, but now she’s wearing a white dress. Her hair is wet and a shade darker than its usual honey blonde, and she seems uncomfortable, but not traumatized. Her blue eyes are wide and haunted, but she’s not screaming and crying and trying to get away.
I take that as a positive sign that he hasn’t hurt her.
Grigoriy hauls her back down the stairs. “What do you think of your new bride?”
He directs that question at me.
I hold my gaze on our Duchess. “She’s beautiful. She’s always beautiful.”
She also doesn’t deserve this. She should be a regular college student, hanging out with her friends, drinking coffee and complaining about her tutors. Instead, her tutor groomed her and abused her. She then had to run, and the poor girl ran right into our arms.
Now she’s where she is because of us. Because of me.
She shouldn’t be wearing a cheap-ass wedding dress, a collar around her neck, standing in a goddamned basement.
