“No…”

“Lenochka, look at me.”

I can’t resist him when he calls me by that nickname or when he lowers his voice to that coaxing range.

Not releasing him, I pull back so I can stare at him through my blurry vision. Adrian wipes my tears with the pad of his thumb even as fresh ones fall. “When I was ten, my mother betrayed my father by talking to other crime organizations behind his back. She was so power-hungry that she singlehandedly plotted a coup against the Pakhan at the time with the intention of making my father the number one man in the Bratva. When he found out, he chased her, forced her to her knees and shot her between the eyes right in front of me. That’s how traitors are treated in the brotherhood, no matter who they are or what their rank.”

I whimper, shaking all over in his hold, but it’s not because of his underlying threat, it’s the fact that he witnessed his mother’s execution as a kid. My heart aches for him, even if he’s planning to do the same to me. I guess this is what it means to love. It’s to feel the pain of the one you love in spite of what he’s plotting for you.

“Are you…are you going to kill me now?”

“Never.” No hesitation. No second thoughts.

“I-isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

“Maybe. But like you, I’m unable to hurt you, Lenochka, even if my own life is on the line.”

“What…what do you mean that your life is on the line?” I don’t like the sound of that. In fact, I hate it so much that I’m shivering and quivering for a reason entirely different from the cold.

“Remember when you asked me if I ever loved you?”

I nod, fresh tears surging to my eyes.

“I didn’t understand my emotions at the time, but I do now. I do love you, Lia. I always have. But my form of love isn’t sweetness or softness. It’s nothing noble or delicate. My love is selfish and villainous. My love is the type where I will kill people to protect you and erase others to avenge you. My love is possessive, obsessive, and knows no boundaries, not when I first met you and certainly not now.”

A helpless noise tears from my throat. Even though his words are everything I’ve wished to hear, the circumstances he’s saying them under fill me with a raw agony.

“And because my love is selfish, I will put you ahead of everything else.”

“Adrian…”

Before I can organize my thoughts, he picks me up, carrying me bridal style, and heads back through the blurry snowstorm to the house. There’s a car waiting outside, in front of which all the guards who came with us are standing.

Kolya stares at me with his stoic expression and Yan doesn’t meet my gaze.

“Boris and Yan, you will stay here to protect Lia and Jeremy with your lives,” Adrian announces. “The rest will come with me.”

“Go with you where?” I whisper in a spooked voice.

He puts me to my feet, stroking my hair behind my ear. “I wish it could’ve been different between the two of us. I wish I were the man you deserve instead of the villain you’ve got.”

“What are you talking about? Why are you saying things like that?”

“Raise Jeremy well. My men will be able to ensure your safety.”

“Why not you? Why would your men do it?”

“I told you, Lia. The punishment of betrayal is death.”

“No…no…” I grab his hand in a helpless attempt to stop him. The thought of where he’s going and the fate that awaits him cause me to gasp and blubber at the same time, “Don’t go to Sergei.”

“If I don’t, he’ll come here.”

“Then…then let me talk to him, let me tell him about Richard and—”

“That will get you killed.”

“But—”

“No. It’s final.”

“Adrian, please.” I dig my fingers into his arm.

He kisses the top of my head and removes my hand from around him, then heads to the car without a look back.

At first, I’m frozen in place, hot tears tingling on my cheeks. It isn’t until he’s driving away that I snap out of it.

The knowledge that he’s going to his death burns me like a thousand flames in the midst of the freezing cold.

“Adrian!” I shriek, running after him. “Adrian, no! Don’t leave me…don’t!”

My foot gets stuck in the snow and I stumble, but I continue hobbling after the car as it slowly disappears. “No, no…”

Loud, haunted sobs echo in the air and I realize they’re mine when my lungs burn with the need to catch up to him, to prevent him from walking to his own death.

“Adrian! Adrian!!” I scream at the top of my lungs. My feet give out and I fall to my knees in the middle of the snow.

I get up again, my chest quaking with the force of my cries and shrieks as I run after the car.

Strong arms grab me, preventing me from going any farther. I think I hear Yan’s and Boris’s voices, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.

All I’m focused on is the dot of black that’s slowly vanishing into the white.

And with it, my life vanishes, too.

22

Adrian

A weight has been pressing on my chest since I left Russia.

Or more accurately, since I left Lia.

The view of her running after me, crying and screaming in the middle of the freezing snow, still plays at the back of my head on repeat.

I run a hand over my face to dispel those images. If I think of her, I won’t be able to get on with my plan.

I won’t be able to save her and our son.

While finding out she’s been meeting with Luca behind my back was like being stabbed with a thousand blunt knives, I believed every word she said.

If it were the old me, I wouldn’t have. If anything, my trust issues would have gotten the better of me and I would’ve taken it out on her. But that’s not the case now. Not only do I trust her, but everything she said made sense, filling in the missing puzzle pieces.

After the assassination attempt, her mental health took a sharp decline and her descent to rock bottom was fast. At the time, I thought it was due to witnessing the assassination attempt since she was always stressed about that side of my life. However, knowing that she killed someone with her own hands explains how she often went into a trance.

And she did it for me.

Lia, who used to tremble in front of a gun, killed someone to protect me.

I probably shouldn’t be proud of that fact, but I am.

Even if I want to strangle her accomplice with my bare hands.

“Find Luca and kill him,” I tell Kolya who’s sitting beside me in the back seat as Fedor and another guard occupy the front.

We’re heading straight from the airport to Sergei. I haven’t stopped by the house, merely calling Ogla to inform her about the course of action to take once I’m gone, just as I’ve spent the entire flight telling Kolya what he’ll do from here on out.

“With all due respect, sir. Luca is not the problem now.”

“He is. Since he’s so invested in her and knows that she’s Lazlo’s daughter, his roots run deeper than I thought. He wants to hurt her and has manipulated her all along, which means he’s most likely one of the Rozettis. He was probably assigned to keep an eye on her and he’s used her ever since. Remember the guard who betrayed their secret about hiding Lia from Lazlo after we tortured him? He said that Lia is their trump card against the Lucianos and they’ll use it whenever they see fit. They kidnapped her mother while she was pregnant with her and married her off to one of their own to keep her under their thumbs.”