Page 99 of Exacting Vengeance

“Gates, if you don’t let me on that plane she dies right here.”

If he let Yuri take off with her, she’d still die. Eventually. The only chance of getting her out of this alive was to keep Yuri on the ground, but he still didn’t have a clear shot without risking Victoria’s life. Yuri was smart enough and tactical enough not to take the gun away from her head.

“Let her go, Yuri.” His calm voice sounded completely at odds with the adrenaline coursing through his system. “She never did anything to hurt you. I did. Take me instead. But let her go.” For the first time in years, he wasn’t risking his life out of guilt. He was risking it to save Victoria and their baby. His steady voice masked the blood-curdling fear eating him up inside. “Killing her won’t get you anything,” he said, moving steadily closer. “It’s me you want. I lied to you, humiliated you, and threw your worthless ass in jail. Now’s your chance to get back at me.” Yuri’s ego should have a difficult time ignoring that invitation.

“That’s right, Gates. I do want to get back at you, and what better way to accomplish that than by taking my woman back?”

“Taking her won’t change anything between us,” he said, continuing to inch closer. “You’ll still have to live with the fact that it was me who brought you down.”

“You’re wrong about that.” Yuri chuckled. “This time, it will be me on top. I will win this time. You have nothing I want. I have something you want.”

Kyle was close enough to see Yuri’s lecherous gaze dip to Victoria’s head.

“She’s coming with me, and so is your bastard child.”

Fear. Rage. Hopelessness…emotions with no outlet that didn’t end in death. The death of his family. Again.

He said the only thing he could, because it was the absolute truth. “There’s no place on earth you can hide and nowhere you can go that I won’t find you. You’ll never be free. Not as long as I’m alive.”

He let his words hang there, hoping and praying harder than he’d ever done in his life that Yuri would take the bait and turn the gun on him. Once he did, he’d shoot him between the eyes.

But Yuri knew better. His time in the Gulag and on the streets as a Russian gangster had taught him well. Victoria was the only thing standing between him and certain death. Kyle had to get the gun away from her head. It was a basic rule in any hostage situation. His best chance was to keep messing with Yuri’s ego. Hit him where it hurt.

“Any man in your position should want to kill me, considering how your wife is carrying my child.”

Yuri’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“You didn’t have it in you, did you? You couldn’t even sire an heir to your own pathetic legacy. Don’t you want to kill me for doing what you couldn’t?”

Kyle waited for a sign his mind-fuck was working. Dammit. It wasn’t. Somehow, in the last decade, Yuri had found a way to tamp down his uncontrollable rage.

They were at a standoff. No way would he ever let Yuri take off with Victoria in that airplane, and Yuri would never let her go.

“Victoria!” he shouted, locking gazes with hers. “You’re not alone. I won’t leave you here. I promise.”

And he meant it. Even if it was only to die with her.

Chapter Forty

He came for me.

Kyle hadn’t abandoned her, and he was putting his life on the line for her and their baby. Victoria’s heart burst with so much love there might as well have been a ray of sunshine beaming down on her. But there was only a cloud of death.

Unless I do something.

She wanted to live, and for her and Kyle to finally get their happy ending and the family they both deserved. It had taken them ten long years and nothing short of a miracle to find their way back to each other. It couldn’t end this way.

Victoria fisted her hands at her sides.

It can’t. I won’t let it.

“Your promises mean shit,” Yuri shouted. His chest muscles flexed against her back, his breath hot on her neck and his voice loud in her ears. He began backpedaling in the direction of the sedan parked beside the house. His arm remained tight around her upper torso, which meant⁠—

His ribs were exposed to her elbows.

Though she’d only gone to one of Kyle’s self-defense classes, she remembered everything he’d taught her as if it had happened yesterday.

He continued dragging her backward, closer to the car. More anger and resentment for all the wrongs Yuri had committed against her welled to the surface.