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The man gives me a lazy salute and grabs his medical bag. “Yell if anything changes. Otherwise, I’ll be back up in a couple hours.”
Isabella turns to Emery as soon as Toma is gone. “Will Sasha be okay?”
I shrug. “You heard Toma. He’ll be fine.”
The little girl frowns. “But what if he’s wrong?”
“If he was ever wrong, then I wouldn’t have hired him in the first place.”
“But what if—”
Emery jumps in before Isabella can keep going. “Why don’t I go set you up with a movie in your room, sweetheart?”
Isabella’s eyes widen. “But there’s no internet here! You said.”
“I have movies downloaded on my phone,” Emery admits sheepishly. “I was just saying that so you’d do something good for your brain for a while. But now, I think your brain needs a break. So movie time it is.”
Isabella takes that at face value and beams. Already, thoughts of Sasha’s pain have been forgotten. What must it be like to have a memory as short as a child’s? No grudges, no desire for revenge.
Unfathomable.
As soon as they’re gone, I reach for the satellite phone Toma brought with him on my orders and call Stefan.
“What’s going on, Adrik?” he answers. “Toma said someone was hurt.”
“Everyone is fine now.”
“Isabella is okay?”
“She’s part of everyone, isn’t she? She’s fine. Better question is, why aren’t you concerned about my well-being?”
Stefan snorts. “Isabella is cuter than you.”
“Your attachment is charming.”
“Yeah, well, the way you pretend you’re not attached is not so charming.”
I roll my eyes. “Attached, not attached, I don’t care what you call it. I’m doing everything I can to keep them safe from a fucking psychopath. Yasha was here.”
There’s a beat of silence before Stefan speaks. “Fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“Is he still there?”
I chuckle humorlessly. “If he was, do you think I’d be on the phone with you?”
“So where is ‘here’ exactly? I can’t help but notice I have no fucking clue where you are.”
“That was on purpose,” I tell him. “No one was supposed to know.”
“But Yasha did.”
I grit my teeth. “Apparently.”
Sofia was the only person I ever told about the existence of this retreat in the woods. Aside from Sasha, obviously. And as far as I knew, neither of them ever shared that information.
It’s been years since she died. Surely, the Volandris would have hit this house by now if they knew it existed.
So how the fuck did Yasha find out about it?
“Okay, so what do you want me to do?” Stefan asks. “Track him down?”
“Exactly. All the usual haunts and beyond.”
“Okay, so the regular bars and clubs,” Stefan says. “But what does ‘beyond’ mean? I’m not fucking Buzz Lightyear.”
“It means ‘find him,’ sobrat,” I growl.
Emery comes back into the living room, her eyes on me, her forehead creased in concentration.
“Where are we rallying?” Stefan asks.
“We aren’t.”
“Wait. You aren’t coming?”
“Not this time. I have stuff to take care of here.”
More like people to take care of.
“No goddamn way,” Stefan huffs. “You always have to be in the action. I’m usually the one trying to drag you out of life-threatening situations. And now, you want to sit on the sidelines?”
“I’m not sitting on any sidelines,” I bark. “I’m fighting on another front. Yasha wants me to leave Isabella and Emery behind. He wants me to leave them unprotected. I’m not going to give him that.”
Stefan whistles. “I never would have thought.”
I hesitate to indulge my best friend when he’s obviously baiting me. But in the end, I do. “Thought what?”
“Adrik Tasarov, a family man,” he sighs. “Truly the stuff dreams are made of.”
“Shut the fuck up, Stefan.”
“I don’t mean that as a bad thing,” he adds quickly. “I actually think it’s nice. Softens up that growly exterior of yours. I’ve been telling you for years that—”
“Shut up and do your job, man. You can get sentimental later. People are bleeding right now.”
He sobers up quickly. “Aye-aye, Captain.”
I hang up and toss the satellite phone onto the couch just as Emery sits down next to me. Her leg brushes against mine.
“Was that Stefan?”
I nod. “He’s going to track down Yasha.”
“And you’re not going with him?”
“You were listening in. You know the answer.”
She sighs. “I know, but…”
“Would you rather I leave you alone?” I ask. “Do you want to be the only thing standing between Yasha and Isabella?
“No, but—”
“Because that’s what would happen,” I snap. “Yasha wants to draw me out and get you alone. I don’t know what he has planned, but he doesn’t want me around, I can tell you that.”
“But your Bratva is important to you.” Emery turns to me. “It’s… it’s everything.”
I raise a brow. “A few days ago, you didn’t even know about the Bratva.”
“I understood enough,” she says sheepishly. “I knew you were connected. I knew you had men who were loyal to you. I know the terminology now, but I understood where your priorities were before.”
“You don’t have the faintest fucking clue what my priorities are, Emery.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I mean, you married me just to make sure you would get control of the Bratva. That tells me all I need to know.”
How many times does Emery need to be dead wrong before she stops trusting her own instincts? It would be endearing if it wasn’t so frustrating.
“You make it sound like some huge sacrifice,” I scoff.
She shrugs. “Wasn’t it?”
Her green eyes flick up to mine for just a second. She wants to look at me, but she’s afraid of what she’ll find on my face.
She’s afraid I’ll agree with her.
“Even someone like you must want to marry for love,” she adds in a near-whisper.
I lean forward. “Someone like me? You think you know who I am?”
“Someone who… someone who has everything else,” she says. “Someone who can get whatever and whoever they want.”
“Then you should know that if I wanted to go help Stefan find Yasha, I’d be gone already.”
She looks up at me. “I’m just saying, I don’t want you to regret—”
“I don’t have regrets,” I snarl. “Ever.”
