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Yakov drives the heel of his foot into the man’s neck again and again. Then he kneels next to his body and slams his head against the floor until there’s nothing left but blood.
When Yakov looks up at me, his pupils are so big I can’t see the green of his eyes. His face is flushed and he’s breathing heavily.
He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Only then do I let myself jump at him and bury my face in his neck. I can’t believe he’s here. “Yakov.”
“You’re alive,” he whispers. His hands slide down my spine from all the blood coating his fingers.
He smells like iron and sweat. I hold him tighter. “You’re here.”
“Of course I’m here,” he growls. “I haven’t stopped looking for you since you were taken. I was never going to stop.”
I shiver against him and he silently takes off his shirt. He pulls it over my head, sliding my hair out of the collar and draping it over my shoulder.
There’s blood staining the front, but I don’t care. It’s warm from his body and smells like him. Akim would have to peel this off my cold, dead body if he wanted to undress me now.
Suddenly, I dig my fingers into Yakov’s arms. “Where is Akim?”
He brushes my tangled hair behind my ears. “I got him. You don’t need to worry about him anymore.”
“He’s dead?”
Yakov’s face darkens. “He wishes.”
At one point, I might have argued for mercy. Murder isn’t a solution. Violence breeds more violence. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. All that bullshit.
But now? Fuck that. I hope Akim suffers every single second until his last breath. I hope even his last breath is painful.
The shadow in Yakov’s eyes says he will make sure that happens.
“No one is ever going to touch you again.” Yakov smooths his thumbs over my cheeks. “I’m going to take care of you, Luna. You and the baby.”
It takes a second for the words to sink in. I blink up at him. “What?”
“I know about the baby. Dr. Mathers called me before… before everything happened.”
I just witnessed Yakov murder a man with his bare hands, but now, my heart is racing. “I was going to tell you,” I blurt. “I wanted to tell you. I tried. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t know?—”
He presses his thumb against my lips. “It’s okay, Luna. The only thing that matters now is that I’m going to take care of you both. Always.”
Tears blur my vision. I press my forehead to his bare chest and Yakov kisses the top of my head. If I woke up right now, I wouldn’t be surprised. This is like a dream. I could stand here forever. I don’t need anything else.
This is it for me. He is it for me.
I’m about to tell him when something else occurs to me. “Mariya!” I gasp. So much has happened over the last few hours that I wasn’t thinking about her.
“She’s okay,” he reassures me quickly. “She was shot, but she’s okay. I was in her hospital room an hour ago.”
I exhale. “Thank God. I wanted to save her, but I couldn’t. They were coming for me.”
“I saw it on the tapes.” His jaw clenches. “I wouldn’t have blamed you for running right past Mariya to escape. But you stopped.”
I squeeze his hand. “She’s your sister, Yakov. Of course I stopped.”
His hand curls tightly around the back of my head and he presses a kiss to my forehead. “I need to get you to a hospital.”
“I’m okay.”
