AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Except that any moment, I might fuck this up and lose the person I love more than anyone on Earth. Bile surges up my throat. At this very instant, it dawns on me that I love her more than I love revenge.
My gaze burns into Crina, who’s anxiously looking at me for guidance. I shake my head, telling her not to fight. To not doanything. Don’t move an inch. I grab my knife from the sheath strapped to my ankle, assessing the comforting weight of it in my hand.
Time abruptly speeds up, crashing into me. Abruptly, Lucian, Anton, and I sprint to the terrace. Anton pauses long enough to kick the bodyguard and confirm that he’s dead.
“I can take him,” growls Lucian.
“Lasa?i-l,” I warn him, warning them both.Leave it.
Leave it because nothing matters beyond Crina’s safety. If anything happens to her, I’ll kill myself. This time I won’t hesitate. Those visions of the future are mine. Hers. Ours. I won’t risk them for anyone, not even Cristian.
I’m certainly not risking them for this bastard. I should’ve never risked her at all. I was an idiot to put her in this danger. I felt it in my gut, in my bones. I didn’t like it one bit but I let the lure of revenge sway me. Well, fuck me for thinking anything mattered but her. This was a colossal mistake. Cristian’s death was a tragedy I couldn’t stop, but I had created this potential disaster in the making. Panic rips through me.
Anton takes a shot; it whizzes past Alexei’s head. Another wave of sheer panic assaults me and I sway in place. Alexei yanks Crina by the hair, ripping her head back. With his gun leveled at her head, he backs away with her in tow, using her as a shield. She stumbles as he drags her along, his eyes flicker right and left as he considers his chance for an escape. “Don’t fucking move an inch or she’s dead.”
We halt in our tracks.
“You wouldn’t kill your own daughter,” I shout to him. “She’s your blood.”
He pets her hair lovingly, his mouth a leering grin. “She is a beauty, is she not? I contemplated taking her for myself.” Disgust convulses through Crina and she cringes away from him. He yanks her roughly by the hair. “Such a pretty toy.” His hard eyes drill into me. “But toys don’t last, do they?” He pets her again. “Some are meant to be broken.”
He wrenches her head back at an unnatural angle and cocks the handgun at her temple. “Drop the guns.”
Our guns clatter to the ground.
Alexei eyes my knife and growls, “Drop it.”
“You fucking coward,” I grind out. “Using agirlas a shield.”
“You think I’d be in this position if it wasn’t for this bitch.” He rips her hair viciously. Anyone else would’ve cried out in pain, but not my Crina. My brave girl doesn’t make a peep, refuses to give him the satisfaction of hearing her pain. “That and my lust, but I will never make the same mistake again.”
In anger, he jams the muzzle of his gun beneath her jaw. Ice trickles down into my heart. My skin chills, frostbite spreading in a crisscross pattern across my body. If he so much as twitches his finger, he’ll blow her brains out.
We edge around him, ever so slowly fanning out. To distract Alexei, Lucian taunts him, “You’re going down, Alexei. The girl can’t save you. Today you die, like the mangy dog you are.”
Alexei bares his teeth as he inches along the back of the fence, dragging Crina with him as he makes his way toward a gate. “I’ll take my chances with tomorrow.”
He reaches the gate and throws it open, hauling Crina along with him. She disappears from my sight and my stomach drops. At the last second, her fingers grasp the side of the fence. She fights against his pull, clinging on for dear life.
“No, Crina, no,” I roar.
Alexei struggles with her. She lets out a desperate, high-pitched screech, clutching at the post of the fence. We sprint toward them. Anton steps on a wooden plank, emitting a loud creak. Realizing we’re approaching, Alexei cuts his losses and throws Crina to the ground. Shouting in Russian, he breaks into a run. A black car drives up, wheels screeching to a stop. The passenger door flies open. Alexei dives inside.
Anton plunges into the alleyway, Lucian right behind him. Shots rip through the air. I fall on Crina, protecting her. There’s a briefrat-tat-tatof gunfire and then the sound of squealing wheels.
In the echoing silence, I haul Crina to me, covering her with kisses, licking her tears. My hands coast down her body, checking for wounds even though I rationally know there are no bullet holes.
“Brave girl,” I murmur gently. “So fearless. Thank fuck you fought back, baby. Thank God.” I caress her hair and claim her mouth. Anything to taste her, feel her, breathe her in. Her mouth is tangy from the lemonade she was drinking at the table and I dive in, desperate to drink her flavor.
She’s shaking in my arms.
“Chuckie, Chuckie, Chuckie,” I repeat as a mantra as I swoop her onto my lap, cradling her and covering her with my body again. Even though the danger’s passed, I’m desperate to protect her. She could’ve died. If she hadn’t fought him, hadn’t been a pain in his ass, like she is with mine, he would’ve dragged her into the car.
She wouldn’t have lasted the morning. I’d have discovered her broken, ravaged body on a street corner of Queens Boulevard, an example to anyone who dared fuck with him. And there was no doubt that she had betrayed him. For me.
Today, I learned a lesson I’ll never forget. I will never let her down again. I will always put her first. If I had lost her, nothing else would’ve mattered. Nothing.
“You didn’t kill him.” Crina glares up at me accusingly and says, “You had the chance. Why didn’t you take it?”
