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“I appreciate you doing this,” I said when we got in his Range Rover.
“I would do anything for you. You know that.”
“I don’t know why,” I muttered, fastening my seat belt.
He rolled his eyes at me and reached for my hand, intertwining our fingers in my lap. “Don’t start.”
“I’m sure playing chauffeur to me and my idiot brother is not what you had in mind for tonight.”
“It’s not but as long as I’m with you, I don’t care what we’re doing.”
“Are you always so easy to please?”
“Easier than you.” He shot me a wry grin.
I couldn’t even pretend to be mad, because it was true. I might have been half his age but I was definitely the grumpy old man in the relationship. Although Misha was more of a homebody than you’d think just by looking at him. I guess when you’d already traveled the world and made your living killing people, there really was no place like home.
As soon as we rolled onto the same street as the Stop-and-Shop, my stomach dropped like a rock.
Police were everywhere. Flashing red and blue lights lit up the night, like Colomb’s own fucked-up version of Christmas lights, along with yellow crime scene tape bobbing in the winter breeze.
“Oh shit.” I scanned the crowd for Axel. “Do you see him anywhere? His dumb ass better not be involved. I will fucking kill him, I swear to God.”
“Involved?” Misha asked, shifting the SUV into park.
“My money’s on another robbery.” I rolled my eyes. “This place gets robbed all the damn time. I hope he gave them whatever the fuck they wanted and didn’t try to do something stupid.”
We got out of the car and approached the crowd. A couple of cops were talking to witnesses, scribbling things down on notepads and nodding now and again. An ambulance was parked down the street, its backdoors open and the stretcher missing. From the bullet holes in the windows of the store, it was safe to assume someone was injured. Shitty as it was, I hoped it was the clerk or some other crackhead and not my brother.
A detective walked out of the store carrying a very familiar-looking duffel bag, an evidence tag fluttering from the handle.
“Axel?” I pushed past a cluster of people, searching each squad car and uniform I could find. “Axel!”
Panic swelled inside me. Where the fuck was he?!
The crowd of first responders shifted. The medics who’d been crouched on the ground finally stood, making way for the detectives hovering nearby.
I only saw a glimpse of the victim sprawled on the sidewalk but a glimpse was all I needed.
“Axel!” I elbowed a gawking neighbor out of the way and ducked under the stupid police tape, bolting for my brother.
People started shouting from both sides of me.
Cops ran forward, their hands outstretched.
Axel wasn’t moving.
One of the detectives moved, though. He knelt next to my brother and threw a sheet over him, stealing a wide-eyed glance at me.
A pair of arms wrapped me from behind, crushing me and yanking me backward before the cops could get to me. The world blurred as I was spun in a sharp circle, facing the flashing red and blue lights and the horrified faces of the onlookers, fucking camera lenses snapping away, blinding me.
I thrashed against the restraint but my arms were trapped at my sides, limiting how much I could do. “Let me go!”
“You don’t need to see him like that,” Misha said, his mouth pressed to my ear.
“Get the fuck off of me, Misha!”
He ignored me and held on. He kept holding on, even when the thrashing stopped and the sobbing began, when I couldn’t see straight and I couldn’t breathe. He held me through the fucking rollercoaster of emotions. Fury. Grief. Guilt. I felt it all, as crushing as an avalanche.
