I let Kolya take Lia’s body only so I can come out of the water. My muscles ache from exertion and my bicep wound pulses with red-hot pain. However, as soon as I’m on solid ground, I yank the rope from around Lia and pull her fragile body to me. She’s still freezing as fuck and her lips are blue and…wrong.

“One of you give me a jacket,” I order in Russian.

Yan removes his and throws it over Lia’s body, not bothering to hide his malicious stare directed at me.

“The hospital, now!” I start climbing up the side of the cliff, keeping her as steady as possible.

Life is slowly leaving Lia, and soon, it’ll be all gone.

Everything about her will be only a part of my memories.

Not if I have a say in it.

She might have jumped from a cliff to escape me, but that won’t be happening in this life.

She’s my wife.

My son’s mother.

Fucking mine.

And I’ll go through hell itself if it means keeping her there.

2

Adrian

Lia’s condition is critical.

I haven’t been able to get over that piece of information ever since Dr. Putin said it. He’s on our payroll, but since I was the one who brought him to the Bratva, he knows when he should keep secrets for me.

He won’t tell a soul about Lia’s injury. Not even the Pakhan himself. That is, if he wants to protect his family from my wrath.

Lia’s abdomen wound was indeed deep and she needed stitches for it, and fortunately, no internal organs were harmed. Her freezing temperature has returned to normal, thanks to how quickly we got her here.

But the fact remains, she’s still not opening her eyes.

Dr. Putin said there’s no brain swelling, but she must’ve hit the water hard enough to cause a blackout.

That was yesterday.

It’s been a whole day since she threw herself off the cliff.

A whole day since she last opened her eyes.

A whole day of me pacing the length of her hospital room or holding her delicate hand in mine.

After I changed into dry clothes, I never left her side. Dr. Putin had to stitch my bicep wound while I was in her room.

I thumb the soft flesh of her wrist, gliding my finger over the visible blue veins. “What have you done, Lenochka? Why?”

If she hears me, she doesn’t show a sign of it. The question is useless, anyway, since I already know the answer. I know why she thought about giving up.

To leave me.

I was suffocating her, she said.

I was torturing her.

Those words dug a deep black hole into my soul, perhaps even worse than when she confirmed that she was cheating on me.

I’ve become insufferable in the past months. Every time I looked at her, I recalled that she let another man touch her, that she was protecting him from me, and my anger grew worse with each passing day.

It mounted and heightened and I took it out on her cunt, ass, and flesh. I marked her and hurt her to chase away the red mist.

But that wasn’t enough.

Whenever I finished, the mist returned with a vengeance, and all I could see was her opening her legs for another man. Her moaning and whimpering and crying in front of someone that’s not me.

My anger turned into rage and I had to take a step—or a few—back so I wouldn’t hurt her to the point of no return.

I hated what she had done.

I hated her sometimes.

And because of that, I apparently tortured her, smothered her, and drove her to the edge of a cliff where death was better than being with me.

“Fuck,” I curse under my breath, running a hand through my hair.

How will I be able to take a step in a different direction now? Because I have to or I will lose her for good.

The door slides open, then closed. I don’t lift my head as heavy footsteps echo on the floor.

Both Kolya and Yan stand in my peripheral vision, hands crossed in front of them. My two guards have been with me since I was young because my father groomed them to keep an eye on me. Kolya is my age while Yan is a few years younger than Lia. They’re both orphans and originate from the slums of Russia, which made them the perfect target for Dad’s schemes.

What he didn’t count on was that I would form a connection with them and that their loyalty would be absolute to me. Not him. Not the brotherhood. Me. Or at least Kolya’s is. Yan has been switching sides between my wife and me ever since she came into the picture.

The fact remains, I trust my men. Not only did we go through my father’s tyranny together, but also our military training. A bond formed between us after we saw each other at our worst, and that can’t be bought with material things.

“Who was it?” I ask with apathetic calm. “Who helped her?”

“We traced the signal to the Pakhan’s house before she headed to the forest,” Kolya says. “So she could’ve met anyone there.”

I tap my forefinger against my thigh. “Not Sergei since he dislikes her. If Vladimir was there, he wouldn’t have cared enough about her. That only leaves Rai.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Kolya asks. “If you attack her openly, everyone else might know about Mrs. Volkov’s accident.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“That’s not what’s important right now,” Yan snaps. “Lia almost died.”

My head tilts to the side to meet his harsh glare. “Watch your fucking tone if you don’t want your tongue cut out, and she’s Mrs. Volkov to you.”

“I don’t care if you cut my tongue or my limbs, but someone obviously needs to tell you this, Boss.”

“Yan,” Kolya warns.

“Shut the fuck up, Kolya. You should’ve told him this a long time ago, but you chose not to and blindly took his side.” Yan breathes harshly through his nostrils, his anger still directed at me. “She was suffering and you knew it, but you chose to believe she cheated on you and let her bear your ruthless wrath. When the fuck could she even cheat on you when we shadowed her every step? She lost her previous life and was adapting to yours. She never tried to escape after that one time, because deep down, she wanted to be with you and Jeremy, but you had to suffocate her.”

I release a long breath, choosing to ignore Yan’s insolence for now. “Are you done?”

“No.” He swallows, his voice losing some of the anger. “I don’t know why the fuck she said she cheated on you, but I’m guessing it was because she figured out you were using her for being Lazlo’s illegitimate daughter.”

I narrow my eyes. “She said that?”

“She didn’t have to. I could feel it.”

“So now you share a telepathic connection with her?”

“No…?” he asks, unsure. It’s the right choice of words. If he had said he did have that connection, I would’ve killed him.

I already hate that she shares an easy friendship with Yan. That she smiles at him more than she does at me lately. And while I’ve wanted to snuff it out since the beginning, even I realize how much she’s needed a friend. Kolya also said that it would be smarter to let her be friends with her guard rather than seeing him as a threat.

“Just talk to her without being closed off.” Yan sighs. “Then you can kill me.”