Page 159 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

For a few seconds I felt like I was flying. It was peaceful. I’ll be all right. The top of the stairs slowly faded. Then my head hit the first metal railing, the force making the entire fall more violent. More railings connected with my skull as each step also mangled my legs. I reached the bottom of the stairs, and my skull slammed against the hardwood floor, unbearable pain exploding behind my eyes.

The ceiling above spun as my sight grew dim. A blinding crack of pain split through me, white-hot and then…

Nothing.

Chapter 53

Kirill

Dread clings to the back of my throat as I kneel in front of Sandrine, passed out in the interrogation room. I watch her breathe, just lying there on a cot I keep for the men who like to pull all-nighters here with their prey.

Two months of therapy are gone.

Across the room, Adrian Chernov sits in chains, flanked by two of my men. He watches with the dull, calculating patience of a man who believes he still has leverage.

He doesn’t.

Sandrine stirs, a small, fractured sound escaping her lips as consciousness returns. My heart leaps in my chest in response. Her lashes flutter, and her breath hitches as her gaze struggles to focus. It settles on me first, soft and searching.

I lean down and kiss her lips. A smile creeps across her mouth. She’s back. She’s mine. Suddenly, she sits up in awareness and scans the room.

When she looks at Adrian, her entire body locks.

“You…” The word scrapes out of her throat again. Her hand grips mine, in a painful squeeze. Violent. “You pushed me.”

The room goes silent.

I don’t move. I don’t speak. Something inside me fucking dies. I orchestrated this for Adrian to tell me what happened. I assumed her father did something to her when she got home, and Chernov helped Thomas cover it up.

Turning to Sandrine, I stroke her jaw. “You remembered?”

She nods, her eyes wide and glassy. Her chest rises and falls in choppy breaks. She speaks, revealing the vital memory that returned to her during her anxiety attack.

The night she left me. Starting with how the baby wouldn’t stop crying. She repeats the conversation we had five years ago nearly word for word.

It’s been etched in my brain.

She remembers!

She keeps talking, clarity coming on strong. Filling in the pieces after she left the penthouse. The way her father didn’t let her leave. The way he spoke about our daughter like she was nothing. The way Chernov stood there with my father’s men, the plane waiting, and the new name already picked out. The way she tried to escape to get home to me, the phone that wasn’t there, the broken lamp, the knife in her boot.

The struggle with Chernov and then… Her fall.

My stomach threatens to revolt as I listen.

I stand up and face Chernov, lips snarling. “You tried to kill my wife?”

Jagged pieces of the past slide into place with a precision that makes my pulse hammer against my chest so hard my ribs might break.

Drago pulls out a knife and puts it to Adrian’s throat.

The man has a tell I’ve picked up on. Every fucking word out of Sandrine’s mouth is the truth. The truth I have been denied for five years.

The truth Chernov buried, so I was left with nothing but anger and betrayal and the assumption that my wife had chosen to walk away from me. They let me think that. He and my father.

“You slept with Tamara?” Sandrine asks me.

I go still. Of all the things she could have pulled from that moment, from that memory, it’s that dreadful truth. Not the fear. Not the fall.