Wicked Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance, #2)(67)

My hands are shaking too much to shoot.

“You peeled my fingers from your arms. I was so scared, Viktor. Not about the gorge, but to be without your love. You glared at me with the eyes of a stranger! I loved you so much! We were all each other had. You peeled my fingers from your arms like I was an urchin! And then you shoved me back!”

“I know!” Blood drips down the side of his face. “I know—I know what I did! Tanechka, if I could take it back—”

“You looked into my eyes and shoved me into the gorge like I was a piece of trash. Predatel!”

“I deserve to die a thousand times over for what I did. But I’m getting you out of here first.” A shot rings past.

Rage flows through me. Who the f*ck is shooting at us?

Like a woman possessed, I shove in the magazine and roll down the window. I hit the front tire of the pursuing car, and it spins out. I take another shot, and then I turn back.

He concentrates on the chase.

“Predatel?! Predatel?!” More cars are behind us. I turn and shoot, annoyed. I hit the engine block, the tires. My aim is as sharp as cut glass, even through my tears.

“I’ll do anything—”

I turn back around. “Sergei kidnapped my mother. I had to fool everyone. I couldn’t tell.”

“You never betrayed us, I know! I betrayed you. I betrayed us. It was me who should’ve gone into the gorge. A million times I thought it.”

I freeze. “Viktor—my mother—is she…” I brace myself as he does a U-turn and then another, shooting down the sidewalk.

“Alive? Yes. I got her out.”

My blood races. “She’s safe?”

“I went in and f*cking grabbed her.”

“How?”

“You’d be amazed what a man can do when he no longer cares for his life. I would’ve done anything. I still would. When I realized what I’d done, I knew saving your mother wouldn’t bring you back, but I knew it’s what you’d want.”

“She’s okay? You promise?”

“She’s still in her little flat. Still complaining about the loud TV downstairs. Wearing the flowered scarves.”

My pulse drums in my ears. Rage. “How she must have suffered, thinking I was dead.”

“When she sees you, when she learns you’re alive…you can’t imagine the joy…”

“Thank you for saving her,” I grate through the rage in my heart.

“The debt I have to you will never be repaid.”

“Konstantin—”

“Dead.” One clipped word. His face is stone.

I suck in a breath. “Mne ochen zhal.”

“Thank you.”

I gaze out the window. A passing strip mall. All the American brands with their colors and confidence.

He slows. Our pursuers are nowhere in sight. We’ve lost them.

Lost everything.





Chapter Twenty-Five




Viktor


Words will never be enough. I wish I could rip my heart from my chest and show her the scars, the hours of agony I suffered. The agony I’m willing to suffer in whatever way she pleases if that’s what she wants. “Tanechka?”

She stares out the window. Maybe she’s frightened of me. Maybe she hates me.

In a strange voice, she says, “Bring me to the brothel. We will free those women now.”

I tell her we’re working on it, almost ready to pounce, but we have to concentrate on Kiro.

She frowns. “Bring me to Nikki.”

“Why? Why Nikki?”

“You said you’d do anything. Bring me to Nikki.”

I call Aleksio. I tell him I have Tanechka.

“Good.” He lowers his voice. “And it’s good you aren’t here. Cops everywhere wanting identification, statements. A few reporters. Best to keep you out of it.” He says Tito is there. Tito is helping. I ask him to pass the phone to Tito. Tito tells me Nikki is staying at his place.

We hang up. I start to say something, but she holds up a hand.

Fair enough. I head for Tito’s.

Tanechka’s silence is worse than her recriminations. “Say something.”

“I’m sorry about Konstantin. He was like a father to you, I know.”

“Mostly to Aleksio,” I say. “I knew him only a year.”

“A year can run deep.”



Tito’s place is a brownstone on the North Side. Nikki’s already expecting us—she’s the only one around, except for the P.I.’s large black-and-white dog. I wash and bandage my head wound in the bathroom. The wound stings. Perversely, I’m glad.

I go back to Tito’s kitchen and call Aleksio again. I need to hear his voice, to know he’s okay. I don’t like that he’s out in the open while he’s grieving. This is a dangerous time. He assures me Tito’s on the fringes managing security.

Tanechka is back with a duffel bag. “Sit.” She sets it on the floor.

I sit. “What’s in there?”

“A surprise.” She gives me a kind look.

The kind look makes me stupid, and I sit.

In a flash, she grabs my arms and cuffs them to the metal chair back. I stand, chair and all, swinging wildly, trying to wrench free. I succeed only in smashing cupboards. She and Nikki grab the chair. They anchor me to the floor with their combined weight. Nikki cuffs each of my ankles to each leg as the dog barks. Then she tapes me.