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She laughed humorlessly and got up to get something to restrain Roman’s last remaining man. I would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it all, too, if I wasn’t so sure this was only the beginning of the bloodshed.
Chapter 22 - Theresa
After I actually found a packet of zip ties in a toolbox in the kitchen, I returned to watch Aleksei truss up Pavlov’s injured minion. He had wrapped a towel around the bullet wound in his leg, which was more than I would have done for him. Another man came out from below, holding his head and moaning. I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sight of him coming toward us, but noticed he was wearing the crew member’s uniform and meant us no harm.
“Sorry, Aleksei,” he said. “I got knocked out.”
“Don’t fret. It’s over now,” he said, tightening the last tie around the hostage’s ankle and the leg of the chair he’d propped him up in. “This one may or may not make it.”
The man looked around at the carnage, his face going pale and making the huge welt on his forehead stand out in stark relief. “It’s just us?”
“And the captain,” Aleksei answered shortly. “Go keep an eye on him, by the way. He seemed shaken up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Once we were alone and it really did seem like no one else was going to jump out at us, I noticed Aleksei’s battered face. Dried blood caked around his nostrils, there was a cut at his hairline, his jaw was turning purple and both his eyes would soon be ringed in black. His nose was sharply off kilter, causing his breath to come out in labored wheezes.
I waved my hands around his face, not wanting to hurt him and not knowing how to help. “Oh, your poor nose,” I said, since it seemed the most pressing injury.
To my horror, he grunted, wrapped his hand around it and jerked it back into place. He swore as fresh blood gushed down his chin.
“Oh my God. Did you just reset your own nose?” I asked, hurrying to grab a towel from where we’d been lounging blissfully—how long ago? The whole attack might have been an hour or five minutes. I pressed it gently against the flow of blood and stroked his hair out of the cut on his forehead. “Oh, my poor Aleksei.”
“That’s all the doctor would do,” he said with a shrug, then winced. “Pavlov got me in the ribs with his bony feet.”
At the mention of the man I’d killed, I fell silent, dabbing at his cuts with the towel. Though I’d grown up in a mafia family, my experience with crime had never been this violent. I’d only shot a gun to learn how to do it, and occasional trips to the range to keep my skills sharp, whenever one of my mom’s minions thought to take me. I’d never actually aimed one at a person before, let alone pulled the trigger to kill someone. I didn’t feel guilty about it, though. I’d heard from Pavlov’s own mouth he meant to kill Aleksei if I didn’t intervene, and I would have made the same decision a hundred more times if that’s what it took to save my man’s life.
“Come with me, little one,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to the lounge chairs. “Rest until we get back to shore. My face is fine.” He sighed when I gave him a disbelieving look. “Or, it will be. I’ve had worse than this.”
“I don’t like your job,” I whispered.
He dragged me down against his good side, or at least the less bruised side. “Nonetheless, I have to do it,” he told me.
I nodded. “What’s waiting for us at home?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Just rest.”
I spent the rest of the journey back to port clinging to him, and every time I started to worry, he seemed to sense it and held me tighter. He fell asleep shortly before the captain pulled into the slip, waking up again just as the harried man came out of the wheelhouse to kick us off his boat.
I waited on the dock with Aleksei’s guard while Aleksei calmed the captain down and made whatever promises he had to in order to keep him from calling the police until we were on our way. He hurried down the gangplank, barking orders at his guard to deal with our hostage, then took my hand and tugged me toward his car.
“My brother Yuri will make sure the right cops show up at the scene, but I have things to take care of and don’t want to risk wasting any time.” He scowled down at his phone. Now that we were back on land, messages seemed to be rolling in one after the other. “I’ll drop you at the apartment and take care of all this.”
“What is all this?” I demanded. “And no, you’re not dropping me anywhere.”
He got his bossy, demanding face ready, but I stared him down until he sighed, pulling out of the parking lot. He tossed his phone to me. “Read for yourself if you’re so determined to know.”
There were several rude messages from Sofia that I skimmed over. I had no real feeling of triumph over her, since I knew all along there were no feelings between them. She only wanted to know what was going on, and the fact I was responsible for her being fatherless now gave me some compassion for her. The next messages were from his brother Ivan. My heart began to hammer as I read them.
“An entire warehouse?” I asked, shaken.
He nodded, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he sped along the road. “Completely blown up. Two of my businesses ransacked, and some of my employees injured. These are just innocent people who work at my bars. They won’t stop unless I can manage to convince Sofia to call them off. Once they know Roman is dead, there’s no telling which way things will go.” He turned long enough to give me an arch look. “You still want to go with me?”
“This is because of me,” I said quietly.
“Damn it, Theresa.” He pulled over to the side of the street with a squeal of tires, ignoring the other drivers blaring their horns at him. Once he was parked, he turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “You did what needed to be done. You saved my life,” he said harshly. His eyes softened, and he trailed a finger down the side of my cheek. “Thank you for that, by the way. I don’t think I’ve told you that yet.”
“Any time,” I told him, meaning it with all my heart. “And I still want to go with you.”
