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With a soft kiss to her forehead, I urge her over to them. My father’s hand moves up to my shoulder, and he pulls me in.
“I’m proud of you, Son. I am sorry I have not said it before, but I am…”
The crack of a bullet echoes around us, and the hand on my shoulder falls as I watch my father crumple to the ground with a pained groan.
Then, utter chaos descends.
Chapter 43
Of all of the moments I’ve looked forward to telling Alexi ‘I told you so’, this isn’t one of them. I watch Boris fall beside Alexi as I pull Damien behind his mother’s headstone. Lev and Ivan dive behind theirs, and we crouch down as we click the clips into our guns.
“Alexi is going to kill us,” Damien shouts over the sound of bullets.
Pieces of the headstone chip off and fly around us as we duck below the line of fire. Thankfully, the hill gives us a slight advantage as they aren’t able to shoot at our feet from below.
“He’s going to have to get the fuck over it,” I say back as I stand up and fire a few shots down the hill. I can’t see where anyone is coming from, but I try not to worry.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Alexi pulls his father’s body behind his mother’s grave, and I curse internally.
Thankfully, I planned for this. As much as I wanted to respect Alexi’s boundary with today, I didn’t want us to be unprepared for a second in this war.
Damien and I stayed up late organizing a small crew to watch from strategic locations around the cemetery. I did my best to preserve Alexi’s image, and Havoc was able to tell the men he was planning an exercise, but that it could become an ambush and they needed to be prepared.
Damien helped him select the right men for the job, people he knew he could trust on this type of day. They were all hidden out of sight, so that if I was just being a drama queen about the whole event, no one would be the wiser to their presence.
Lev set up initial comms but wasn’t able to follow up this morning, so I thought I would do it. After all, a radio signal can’t be that difficult to set up. Damien took longer in the gym with Alexi to give me time to get it all organized.
I made sure to keep Alexi distracted during the drive here, just in case he recognized any of his guys, and it worked like a charm. I had Havoc hide out with a small team a few yards away on top of added security. We also planned for a bigger team to be on standby a mile or so away that could drive in if things escalated.
Havoc and his teams’ bullets start returning fire, enough that we can come out from behind the headstones and meet the enemy ourselves. Alexi glares at me knowingly.
You’re just mad I was right, Batman.
“Havoc,” I say into the comms. I kept trying to make sure Alexi didn’t look too closely at my ears and wore my hair down, but now I have to pull it up while Damien covers me.
“Here, E. Got you covered.”
“Thanks. Get Doc out here. Boris is down.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, a chuckle comes from over the comms, and instantly I know we’ve been hacked.
Dammit. I should have had Lev set up the feed.If he hadn’t gone to see his father this morning, I would have too.
“He’s not getting up from that shot, Little Warrior.”
I raise my gun when I see a familiar face in the distance. One that haunts my nightmares and invokes fear. His eyes connect with mine, looking more evil than I remembered. I’m not prepared for what comes next.
“Ryadom.”
Chapter 44
When the phrase ‘Ryadom’ comes over the comms, I freeze, watching as Evie’s knees buckle and her gun falls while she cries out in pain. The second I move to get to her, a bullet grazes my shoulder, and I curse as I toss an explosive where three men are posted. Rostya never wrote down her trigger word, but the moment I heard his voice, I knew.
Of course my father would use the same word one uses to train a dog in Russian in order to force her under his control.
I have just enough time to pick up my girl and tuck her behind a tree before the sound of an explosion rocks the air. Evie’s body is shaking, and her glazed-over eyes tell me she’s fully immersedin an episode. It will take a minute before I can use any words to calm her down.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
