Page 111 of Dangerous Promises

"Sage, get over here!" Dad demands, cheeks reddening as I continue to disobey him.

Isla has an iron grip on me, but instead of pulling me over to my dad or back to Alexei, she's dragging me out of the bar. All I know is I can't leave them all alone here to fight this amongst themselves.

Isla gets me close to the door, and I know if I don't stop her here I will walk out of this bar to find someone else I care about dead all because of me.

Dad gets ready to fire again. Seeing Dad raise his gun and Alexei refuse to raise his in return has something inside of me churning. Something reckless but intrinsic and powerful inside all the same. In my chest I know Alexei is going to stand there right in the sights of my father's wrath and take the bullet that really isn't meant for him.

So I do something stupid here. Something that was once done for me.

I rip myself out of Isla's grip and run. Run directly into the line of gunfire.

Something visceral inside me snaps as my brain makes the incomprehensible decision to step into the path of gunfire for Alexei Rushkoff.

I am out of control of my limbs. The desire to protect is unconscious. So deeply ingrained and acted from the deepest parts of my soul that there's no universe that it could ever be considered a mistake.

So focused on his attack, Dad's raging eyes don't stray from his target even as I run into his sights. I close my eyes and waitfor the inevitable shot. The one I am choosing to take and cannot regret despite what happens next.

Lucky for me, that moment doesn't come.

"Dimitri, no!" Anton yells, intervening just as Dad fires the shot and just in time to knock his elbow off course. So swift in his movements that the consequences of my actions are far below the consequences for the person that stepped in front of a bullet for me.

The bullet still hits me but it just barely grazes my ear as it goes sailing past.

It would have been a headshot for Alexei.

"Fucking hell, Sage," Dad says, his hands shaking as he drops the gun. "What are you thinking?!"

I look back at Alexei in that moment. His eyes fill with a sad kind of symmetry also. We both understand the moment that passed us now and its significance not only to our history but also to the death promise we had made to each other.

"Stop, Dad," I say, maintaining eye contact with Alexei.

"Sage!" Dad yells. "You know what he did! He killed Nicholas! And then he set off on a path to kill you."

I run my hands over my face. "But he's not going to kill me, Dad. And I'm not going to let you kill him either."

Dad takes a step back. "Sage if you don't get over here right now!" Dad grits his teeth and stops himself short of pulling on his hair. "They are only pretending to work with us! Angie just told me he is trying to set you up. He's baiting you so he can hand you over to Chet, Goddammit!"

"I know! Fuck," I groan. "It's all a part of the plan to lure Chet out in the open."

"It's true, Dim," Anton says. "Alexei is doing this so that Chet will come out of hiding and we can fight him together."

"Chet will only come out of hiding if he thinks he'll get something he wants. Her. Specifically," Alexei chimes in but my Dad is hearing none of it.

"How could you do this?" Dad says in a strained voice that is filled with despair. It's not lost on me how hard it is to wake up in a world you don't recognize, with people who look like your family but are fundamentally changed. But Iamchanged.

"You don't get it, Dad," I shout, emotions getting the best of me. "You talk about Nicholas and what Alexei did, with no understanding of what that loss was like for me."

Dad frowns, his lips forming a harsh unimpressed line, but he stays silent.

"I loved Nicholas," I say, breathlessly. "Nicholas loved me. He took that bullet to save me. You have no idea what that loss did to me or what I have gone through to try and heal it. As much as you think you do, you don't have the right to this grief. It's mine. Nicholas was mine."

"And yet you forgive this - this -Rushkoff?"

"You don't underst-"

"After everything he's done to you. To us. You hand yourself over to him night after night-"

Dad points an angry finger Alexei's way and the sight of it is something I just can't take without breaking. The next of my words come rushing out of my mouth with no input or control from my brain. I growl in frustration. "It does not matter, Dad! Regardless of what he has done, could do, would do, fuck stillmightdo! Being with him… it’s like finally being able to breathe. Being with him feels like findinghome.He is mine, too. And I am his."