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“Turn around, Valentina,” Andrei orders, sounding just as calm as my grandmother. “She’s right, they won’t hurt you.”
Slowly, I turn to face my lover. He’s holding the barrel of a gun directly at my chest.
“Move, zhena.”
I don’t recognize the man in front of me. There’s a precision in his eyes that scares me, a deathly calm that only an experienced killer can possess.
And he’s aiming a gun at me.
“I can’t,” I whisper, fear rooting me in place. “If I move, you’ll shoot her.”
Ezra appears behind Andrei, his own gun aimed at the guards behind me. The look on his face is just as calm, but a muscle in his jaw tics. He’s not looking at me, solely focused on the task at hand—keeping his pakhan safe.
My grandmother clicks her tongue against her teeth. “You’d shoot an unarmed old woman?” I hear her stand behind me. “How cowardly. Tolkotsky at least had dignity, like my husband before him. They wouldn’t shoot an innocent.”
“She’s lying,” Andrei hisses, his armor cracking. “They’d kill an innocent in a heartbeat. Valentina. Please. Move.”
My heart breaks at the hint of desperation in his voice. “You’ll kill her.”
He growls deep in his chest, frustration rolling off him in waves. “I’m trying to save you, dammit! She’s a fucking liar, and the sooner you realize that, the better.”
My heart jumps to my throat. I can’t believe this is happening. “Put the gun down, Andrei.”
His glare is solid, unwavering, deadly.
I hold my arms up at my sides and try to stay strong in my resolve. I don’t want any bloodshed. I don’t want anyone to die. “If you want to kill her, you’ll have to go through me.”
Andrei’s expression morphs into fury. “You choose her over me?”
“I’m not choosing sides. I won’t let you kill her.”
“That is choosing a side,” he yells, his anger lashing like a whip against my cheek. A tear rolls down my face before I even realize I’m close to crying.
My grandmother shifts behind me, and I try to hold her back.
“They won’t shoot me, Valentina, or my guards will open fire. You’re not thinking with your head.” She pats my hand and walks out from behind me, not the slightest bit afraid as she moves behind her guards.
Andrei doesn’t shoot. Ezra doesn’t shoot. Neither of the guards open fire.
“See?” Katya’s smile turns smug. “They’re too afraid to hurt you, ditya. They don’t want you to hate them for hurting me.”
I’m not sure if that’s true. They might want to avoid getting shot.
“I’ll see you at the wedding,” she says with finality. “And to be clear, Valentina...” Her eyes cut into me like daggers. “You do not have my blessing.”
As the former matron of the Baranova Bratva walks away, what hope I had for a happy family, or even just an amicable one, splinters into sharp, jagged pieces. My arms itch, like I’ve run through a maze of thorns, and I hug them tight around myself. “You didn’t even try,” I whisper, disappointment washing over me like a slow-rising tide. She didn’t even try to like them.
Two armed guards materialize from the shadows behind the hedges, and what was once a detail of two becomes four. They flank my grandmother on all sides as she rounds a corner in the maze and disappears.
My sorrow rises higher as I turn back to my men and find them glaring at the space Katya had occupied.
Ezra grunts and makes to follow, but a quick nyet from his pakhan makes him scowl and hold his gun at attention.
“Valentina has made her decision,” Andrei says coldly. “We will honor it.”
If Ezra disagrees, he doesn’t voice it.
My fiancé turns to me, looking truly and wholly pissed off. “You will never,” he snaps, the small space amplifying his voice to a yell, “never stand in front of a loaded gun again. I forbid it.” He clenches the gun in his hands so tightly that his knuckles turn white.
