Page 43 of The Pakhan’s Heir

I want to say all of that, but the only thing that comes out is, “Okay. I will.”

She hangs up, and my heart’s in my throat. What do I do if he doesn’t come home? How long do I wait? It’s already almost dawn…

I hear the front door open and for a split second, I don’t know what to do. He’s home. He’s home.

I’m in the hallway, rushing to the front of the house. I hear talking coming from the kitchen. Rikki’s voice saying, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”

I round the staircase and walk into the kitchen. Alex and Rikki are standing near the kitchen table… Both of them look like hell.

Rikki’s jacket has smears of blood on it. He’s got a bullet wound in his right shoulder and the jacket is covered in blood around the burn hole, but he’s not bleeding at this moment. But Alex…

He’s covered from his chest to his pants in blood. It’s splattered across his face, which is ghostly pale. His eyes are wet and rimmed with red and his nose has pinked at the tip.

It went wrong. It went very, very wrong.

They both stop talking and look over to me, then Alex looks away, back to his brother.

“After you tell her, stay with her tonight,” he says.

“What about you?” Rikki asks. “I don’t feel right about leaving you⁠—”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. “Yeva won’t be.”

Rikki nods slowly and as he turns away, I see a deep hurt on his face. Rikki’s going to talk to Yeva… About what?

“What happened?” I ask, my voice betraying me once again. I sound small and frightened. Alex is not even looking at me.

“I’ll call you in the morning,” he says to Rikki. Then he walks out of the kitchen, maneuvering around me so that he doesn’t touch me at all.

I turn to Rikki, walking up to him. “Hey. What happened tonight?” I ask again.

Rikki sighs and with his large frame, he looks as though he’s deflating a little. “We were ambushed,” he says simply. “Lost a lot of good men tonight… and the Pakhan. The Pakhan was killed.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Alex… is he hurt? He-He was covered with blood. He’s not hurt…?” I trail off. I don’t know what I’m even asking.

Rikki shakes his head. “No, no. He’s all right. In fact, he’s the only one of us who got out without a scratch.” He clears his throat and looks away from me. His eyes are starting to water. “We’ve always joked that he was charmed. Or bulletproof. The rest of us come out all beaten up and he’s always…” He stops himself and clears his throat again. “Look, you’re going to want to give him some space to get himself together, but… but make sure he gets some sleep tonight. We’ve got a lot to take care of tomorrow. He needs as much of his head in the game as possible.” He pauses, his watered-down rusted-gold and green eyes locking eyes with me. “All of us have to be ready tomorrow.”

He turns away from me and says, “I’ll talk to him soon.”

I nod. He returns my nod with his own, then he leaves, walking out into the rain through the back door.

I wander to the foyer and look up the stairs to the second floor. Alex has left smears of blood on the railing. Specs of red dot the steps. So much blood… and apparently, none of it is his.

He lost his father tonight. Forget all the Bratva politics and rules. Forget that a king was assassinated. Alex lost his father tonight. I can’t begin to imagine how much pain he has to be in. He shouldn’t be alone. No one should be alone after something like this.

I walk up the steps. Immediately, I see the door to our bedroom is cracked and the light is on. I walk to the door and the moment I do, I hear the shower running in the bathroom. The first things I see are his bloodied clothes on the floor, leading to the bathroom door, which he didn’t bother closing. Steam rises out to the bedroom ceiling, filling the room with a heavy, wet scent with a hint of his musky odor mixed with copper.

Give him some space, Rikki had said. I suppose that would be one thing I could do. Pick up his clothes and close the bathroom door. Let him do what he has to do to get himself together.

But what if he can’t do that? This life can be filled with death at times… But to lose your father? Tomorrow, everyone will be looking to him to take over, and he’s got to be ready for that.

And… and he shouldn’t be alone. Maybe tomorrow, at some point, he can work through this on his own, or even the next day. But not tonight. I can’t leave him alone tonight.

16

ALEX

Ikeep replaying it in my mind. I can’t seem to stop. Over and over, I see myself in the backseat, my father dying in my lap, the light of his eyes dimming by the second as he focuses on a point somewhere beyond me, the car, maybe even the rain outside. I can’t seem to stop seeing it and I wish to God that I could. It replays in my mind like a broken reel, over and over again.