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And if it were for anyone other than Alina, I would drop the act in an instant.
I’d have put bullets in Sergio’s and Viktor’s heads without a second thought.
5
ALINA
After hours of waiting, I know Mishka won’t come find me tonight. He can’t. He’ll have no reasonable excuse to seek me out, and I don’t want to think about what has been taking him so long. Not when I know my father has five prisoners chained downstairs.
So, I turned off my bedroom lights, and now I lie awake, Boris nestled close against my side as I stare up at the ceiling. I can hear his 4Runner’s distinct motor rumble to life shortly before midnight, and still, I cannot sleep.
It kills me to know I should tell my father about Mishka. By all that’s right, if I want to ensure my family stays alive, I need to tell my father that he has a traitor in his midst.
But I can’t get the pain in Mishka’s eyes out of my mind. His reason for wanting my father dead is entirely personal, and clearly, a major driving force in his life. He could easily be capable of breaking his word and trying to kill Papachka again.
And as much as it breaks my heart to think it, I’m not sure I can blame him. If my father did kill Sascha, then Mishka has every right to hate him, to want him dead.
Once again, my thoughts turn to the night we got ambushed coming back from the engagement party for one of my father’s captains. The night the car Mishka and I were in went tumbling over the side of a cliff. The night he saved my life by pulling me from its smoking wreckage just minutes before it burst into flames.
I can’t help wondering yet again if Mishka might not have been involved in the ambush. His actions tonight would indicate he and those men have the same goal in mind. But for some reason, my intuition tells me he wasn’t with them.
For starters, I’m fairly confident the men locked in the catacombs of this house have something to do with that ambush, and from what I could gather, Mishka was working with my father to interrogate them—or whatever they were doing down there. Mishka wouldn’t help imprison men he’s allies with, would he?
It’s torture to realize I have no clue what he’s capable of.
I feel like I don’t know him at all anymore.
He had me completely fooled once before, believing he was part of my family’s loyal men. How can I possibly trust him again?
But that look in his eye when I asked how he could possibly think I would want to be with him after what I saw—it was almost as tortured as the agony I see when he talks about losing his brother. That emotion is too real to be manufactured.
And it shakes my resolve to hate Mishka.
How can I possibly hate him when his whole reason for wanting my father dead is because my father took someone special from him? That would make me a complete hypocrite.
Sighing, I bury my face in the soft fur of Boris’s neck.
Even though he’s shattered my trust, I don’t want Mishka to die. Least of all at the hands of my father—which is exactly what would happen if I told my father. I have no doubt my father would punish him in the worst way possible because my father despises traitors.
And just as I could never forgive Mishka for killing my father, I’m not sure I could forgive my father for killing Mishka at this point. Because, despite everything I saw today, I still love him. And he’s still the father of my child.
“What do I do, Boris?” I murmur, stroking his soft ears and gaining comfort from his steady warmth.
He releases a low whine, feeling my pain with me.
“I can’t let Papachka kill the father of my child, right? What kind of monster would that make me?”
Boris doesn’t answer, though his caramel eyes almost glow as they watch me sympathetically in the dark of night.
“And I can’t just sit by and do nothing. What if Mishka breaks his promise? I mean, clearly, he didn’t tonight. But that doesn’t mean he won’t change his mind. And if I say nothing, then I’m as guilty of killing my father as he would be if he chose to go through with it.”
Tingling anxiety ripples through my body as I voice my concerns.
The house is utterly quiet, everyone lost in peaceful sleep but me. Still, it makes me anxious to think someone might overhear me.
I can scarcely dare to breathe life into the words. But if I don’t, I feel like I might explode from the tension building inside me.
“I love Mishka, God, I love him. And that’s terrifying because how could he possibly love me? Not when he must hate my family so passionately. And now… with the baby…” I sniffle as emotion overwhelms me. What am I supposed to do?
