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Without a word, they shove my legs inside, start the engine, and slam on the gas.
Yakov isn’t coming.
Mariya is shot.
I’m alone.
72
YAKOV
We turn into the mouth of the driveway and Nik curses. “Fuck. The gates are wide open.”
We’ve had thirty minutes to imagine what we’ll find at the mansion. Every single one of my worst-case scenarios begins with those gates being open.
Without discussing it, Nik pulls his gun out of the center console. I get mine ready, too. We both know what this means.
I was right.
He eases the car through the open gates, crawling along the drive until we see the first body. Someone is lying face-down on the curb just outside the wrecked security shack. The door is hanging off the hinges, there are so many bullet holes in the siding it looks like a sieve, and the red warning lights inside the shack are flashing again and again, red throbs like blood splashed against the black, empty night.
One of my men is dead.
It’s not Luna. It’s not Mariya.
I’d sacrifice my own life and countless others to keep the two of them alive.
I jump out of the car and check the man’s pulse without flipping him over. The time for identifying bodies will come later.
Nothing. No pulse. But his body is still warm.
I look up and see more bodies. Blood squelches under my feet as I go to each of them. Dead. Dead.
“Goddammit.” Nik kneels down next to Oleg, his hand flat on the man’s back.
Oleg is next in charge after Nik. If he’s gone… they didn’t stand a chance.
“Yakov.” Nik’s voice is barely above a whisper, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
I follow his gaze and see the front door to the mansion standing open.
Dread coils low in my stomach. I’m vibrating with rage and terror and regret as Nik and I race across the grass towards the house. It’s too quiet. There should be yelling. We were supposed to show up in the middle of the fight, bullets flying, bodies dropping.
It’s not supposed to be over.
We’re too late.
I’m so focused on the front door that I almost miss the dark shape off to the right. But I turn towards it and nearly fall to my knees.
“Mariya!” Her name roars out of me.
Nik spins around, searching until he sees her, too. We run for her, dropping down on either side of our baby sister.
Nik combs his hand through her hair. “Mariya, can you hear me? Mariya.”
I can’t even look at her. I keep my eyes pinned to the grass above her head. Her face is so pale it’s practically glowing in the darkness. With every blink, I see my father draped across my arms. The trickle of blood that came out of his mouth and his nose. How still and cold he was.
Then Mariya whimpers. “Lu… Luna?”
