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PROLOGUE
Charleigh
I’m still bruised and battered, thanks to the fucker Dimitri, so I lean carefully against the elevator wall with my good arm as we descend. Kir leans toward me to hear the words I’m mumbling, but even I’m not sure what I’m saying.
Whatever it is, I’m making it up on the spot.
I have to. It’s a prayer, and I don’t know any prayers.
Kir knows this. He’s been where I am right now. When he had his accident with Clara all those years ago, he probably did the same thing.
It didn’t help him. It may not help me.
And I know that right now, Kir wants nothing more in the world than for my prayers to be answered.
If the explosion that has undoubtedly taken Stacey’s life also grabbed my sister’s, that’ll be the end of me. There’s no way, absolutely no fucking way, I will survive. If I don’t die of a broken heart, I’ll be no more than a shell of my former self. A waste of flesh, just taking up room on this earth.
A useless piece of shit, that’s what I’ll be.
Which means I’ll essentially be gone to Kir and his brothers. Oh, they’ll take care of me, no doubt. They always will. That, I know. But I won’t be their girl, their partner, their lover.
Not the way they would want me to be, anyway.
When the elevator opens to the ground floor, I bolt. Dominika said the accident was a few blocks from the club, and it’s clear the direction I need to go in because there’s black smoke billowing into the sky and the sound of fire engines getting closer.
But before I break into a sprint, Kir grabs my arm and turns to the front door security guy, who stands guard like he always does, but whose lips are right now drawn into a thin, rigid line as he watches the smoke several blocks away. He has his hand on his gun holster as he should, ready for any other bullshit that might come our way.
“Call for backup,” Kir yells at him. “Niko’s car exploded. It may have been a bomb. Get everybody. Now!”
I shake off Kir while he’s still barking orders at security and start running, faster than I thought I could, considering I have one arm in a sling and am wearing high-heeled boots. But if the person you loved more than anyone in the world was in danger, you would do the same.
Kir’s catching up, but I’m damn fast. He finally gains on me and as we round a corner in the direction of the accident, I stumble, crashing to one knee. Before me is the burning hulk of what used to be Niko’s Audi, T-boned by a giant big rig truck.
The Audi I’ve been driving, and in fact drove just this morning with my sister as passenger.
The knee I fall on kills but only for a moment, then strangely stops altogether, I guess because of some adrenaline thing, even though I see blood through the torn hole in my jeans. Pushing back to my feet with my good arm, I continue to run, screaming incoherently for Evie, and getting closer to the fire. Too close.
A cop grabs me. I try to wrestle out of his hold, screaming ‘my sister.’ But instead of releasing me, he doubles down, lifting me up by the waist, effectively immobilizing me. I kick and twist as if I might be able to get free. I can’t.
“Officer, I’m with her,” Kir says when he catches up. He seizes hold of the hair on the back of my head “Goddammit, Charleigh, stop,” he yells.
The cop’s eyes widen when he sees Kir’s rough treatment, but when I go limp, like a kitten picked up by her scruff, he lets me go. I crumble to the ground, screaming and sobbing.
“Officer, how many people in the car? How many?” Kir yells over the noise of all the chaos.
“One, we’re pretty sure. Why? Do you think there were more?”
Kir nods as I wail. I can’t stop myself.
“We’re looking for a teenager who might have been in the car. Have you seen a teenager?” he asks.
The cop stands and surveys the crazy scene. “Sir, there’s one over there, on the curb, talking to two other officers.”
I turn to look, hoping against hope. The sledgehammer driving into my chest lifts, and for a moment I can breathe, think, and see again. My sister, that little shit who is going to be the end of me, is sitting with her head in her hands, being questioned by two cops.
I scream her name with more force than a violent volcano could muster, and almost everyone at the accident scene hears me, but when the most important one of all does, she starts running for me.
* * *
