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“She knows too much, hermano. Ya sabes lo que tenemos que hacer.”
My eyebrows drew and I looked around at the faces, hoping that someone would flinch and give away what their sicario had just said. No one batted an eye, if anything, the men were more attached to their assault rifles and waiting for a call. Something inside me snapped and I understood just how much danger I was really in.
“He wants to kill me?” I whispered, my voice had been buried somewhere deep with me and refused to make an appearance.
Yuri didn't seem to mind and as if he didn’t sense the weight of the situation, or maybe he just didn’t give a fuck, he wrapped his arm around my waist and yanked me into his side. “I won’t let that happen.”
He stepped forward and helped me up the small hill. My body ached and my throat was on fire. It made sense that my voice was gone, I’d been strangled within an inch of my life. As we neared the top, Matteo took another step toward us, and Yuri’s hands wrapped around me again, this time securing me behind his muscled frame. “Back off.”
His brother didn’t stop.
“If you lay a hand on her, I’ll kill you myself.”
Matteo’s eyes narrowed and rage seethed around him like a glowing aura. His lip pulled in a snarl, and I didn’t miss the way his fingers twitched at his side, nearly crushing the butt of the gun. My fingers searched for Yuri, and I gripped his shirt. I needed to know he was there. He let out a breath at the contact and stepped us to the side, keeping me blocked from the man trying to kill me. “Take them and go, I’ll be in touch.” And with his final word, Yuri picked me up, cradling me against his chest, and jogged to the nearest vehicle.
“What if he…”
“Shoots me in the back?” he finished my question. “Family kills face to face.”
He helped me into the passenger side and made sure I was buckled in before he rounded the hood. In the few seconds it took him to cross to the driver’s side, my heart thundered. I could have sworn that not a single one of the soldiers moved and the chilling look from Matteo kept me breathing heavily long after we were out of sight.
Finally, it was just the two of us and I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Chapter 17
Darya
It wasn’t supposed to hurt this bad. When he’d walked out on us and I’d been too young to process the tears that dried along my mom’s cheeks as she waited by the front window for his headlights– that hurt…eventually. It came in waves. Missed holidays, forgotten birthdays, ignored calls, each wave crashed harder until the tide pulled me out and I had to sink or swim. I learned how to swim.
But this? Grief shattered through me. It pulled no punches on my already battered body.
“My dad…” I mumbled against the grittiness of my throat. “He…”
“Darya, cariño,” the leather of the steering wheel squeaked beneath his flexed fingers.
There were no words to convey the sorrow that rocked through me. It just existed. Like a rock in the pit of my stomach.
We barreled down the highway. The brown, hilly lands I knew existed in the moonlight gave way to mountains, the small shrubbery growing larger until trees lined the landscape and the roads began to climb. No cars, no houses, no people. We'd passed no one in the past half hour. I realized we weren’t heading back to the house and that’s when the first audible cry sliced the silence between us. Yuri’s head snapped in my direction, and he pulled onto a side road and the SUV slowed to a stop.
“Yuri?” I swallowed down the knot as my eyes blurred.
“Not yet,” he spoke. His knuckles were white against the wheel. Rage was barely contained beneath his hot skin. I didn't want to push him, but I needed to know. Did he bring me out here to kill me?
Could he… kill me?
But my mouth stayed shut. I couldn’t beg for my own life when he'd been seconds away from killing his own family. For me? Or because those family members didn’t follow his orders? Maybe I was splitting hairs and I needed to focus on his protection over everything.
But it did matter. Was it me or the power he was clinging to?
As if reading my thoughts, sensing all the questions running through my head, Yuri kept the keys in the ignition but turned off the headlights until we were invisible in the darkness, and he angled his body in my direction.
“Come here,” he said before he reached for me. Across the center console, his fingers circled around my waist, and he effortlessly lifted me off the seat. His strength pulled me close to his chest and I melted into him, my legs straddling his and nearly every inch of my body plastered to his. I was wrapped protectively in his arms, and he let me cry against his chest, absorbing the sorrow that poured out of me. But then the sorrow morphed into something else, and I couldn’t hold back my outburst.
“Where were you?” I cried out. “Where were you?” My fists came down to bat against his chest before he caught them and held me steady.
“I was so scared,” he whispered. It was so faint, I almost missed it. He pulled me to him again, anchoring my arms between our bodies. One of his fingers trailed up my back, rubbing at the sore spots where I had been slammed against the wall. He was soothing and gentle as if rubbing out the knots like I was only stressed from a long day of work. But it wasn’t his touch that stopped the flow of tears— it was his words.
“Scared?”
