Deadly Oath

33. Kian

33

KIAN

T he easiest thing would be to take her back out to the car, send her home with strict instructions for her to be carefully watched, and forget about all of this. I don’t owe her answers. This is about my revenge , I think as I stand there looking at her, at the fierce gleam in her eye and the hard set of her mouth, an expression that I’ve never seen on her face before. And I think of what she said to me, just a few minutes ago, as I had her pinned up against the lockers.

Is that what you want? To become the same thing you’re trying to get vengeance over?

It isn’t. I never intended to become them, but looking at Sabrina, I’m struck by that feeling again—the feeling that I’m not so sure I haven’t already.

“Fine,” I tell her sharply. “Wait here, and we’ll go back to the mansion. I’ll show you the proof.”

She looks startled, as if she didn’t believe I’d actually give in. But if I’m being honest, I want to see what she does with the proof. If she tries to fight it, tries to excuse it—or if she realizes the kind of man her father really is .

If it’s the latter—maybe I really was wrong about her. Maybe I have been all along.

“I’ll find you if you run, princess,” I warn her. “You stay right there, while I clean up.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Sabrina sits down on the bench, her arms crossed. “Feel free to do whatever you need to.”

I smirk at her. “You’re welcome to join me in the shower if you want.”

She looks away quickly, but her cheeks flush. “I’ll pass,” she says tartly, and I chuckle.

The laugh fades almost immediately, though, as I turn to go to the showers. The banter between us has come back easily, in this moment of semi-truce. Too easily. We fit together too well, even in the moments when we’re angry, and in the moments when we’re not?—

She’s nothing like I thought she was. I was wrong.

The thought stays with me, stuck in my mind, nagging at me as I shower off the blood and sweat from the fight. When I’ve cleaned up, I step out of the shower, and I towel off, bare naked across the room from Sabrina. And I can see, out of the corner of my eye, that she steals a glance before she looks sharply away.

As angry as she is, as betrayed as she feels, she can’t pretend that she still doesn’t want me. It should make me feel victorious, the way it used to, the ultimate sign that I’ve won, that I seduced her so thoroughly, made her mine so completely, that she can’t help but want me.

But now, all I feel is guilty. Guilty, tired, and a different, sharp feeling that almost feels like longing.

We had something, in between all the machinations of my plan. And I’m finding, now that it’s lost, that I miss it.

Right now, what I think I miss most of all is how her hands felt on me, that night I came home from the fight, after the wedding. When she came into the bathroom and cleaned me up. I can’t recall a woman ever touching me that way before—gently, soothingly, as if she wanted to care for me.

But I miss more than that, too. I don’t mind it when she yells, but I miss hearing her laugh. I miss the way she wrinkles her nose when she’s annoyed with me. I miss the way she curls into me when she’s falling asleep. All things that I never thought to care about, that I noticed without meaning to—and that suddenly, I feel as if losing has punched holes in me that I won’t ever be able to fill.

When I’ve dressed, Sabrina stands up, following me out of the locker room without a word. I talk to Sean briefly, telling him something has come up at home, and promising him a proper introduction to my wife another time. I tell him to set my winnings for the night aside, and I’ll come pick them up later, and then I escort Sabrina out to the waiting car, my hand firmly on her back.

“Don’t punish the driver,” she whispers, as we approach the car. “Ailin can be very convincing. He really believed her.”

“He should have listened to my orders. And what did I tell you about telling me what to do, princess?” I open the door, pushing her forward, and she slides inside as I follow. I have every intention of making certain the driver knows just how big of a mistake he made, but I’ll deal with that later. I want to get back to the mansion, and find out how Sabrina will react to the truth about her father.

She’s silent on the drive back. She stays firmly on her side of the car, looking out of the window, until the car finally pulls up in front of the mansion. Then she opens her door herself, without waiting for me, and steps out of the car, walking up the stone steps to the front door as I stride behind her to catch up.

“We’ll go to my office,” I tell her, my hand on her back as I step up next to her. “My files are in there. I’ll show you.”

“Fine.” Her voice is tight, her entire bearing tense, as if she’s ready for a fight. And I can understand that. I can only imagine how I’d feel if I was going to be given news about my father that could change everything I thought about him. How I felt about him—who he was to me.

I unlock my office, switching on the light as I lead her inside. It’s a relatively small room, compared to the rest of the house, with a large bookshelf on one wall and my desk near the window. I go to the filing cabinet next to it, unlock it as well, and Sabrina sinks down into one of the leather chairs on the opposite side of the desk, and take out a file and a small leather pouch.

I set them both down on the desk in front of her. She looks at them both warily. “What is this?”

“Proof.” I sink down in my own chair. “Open it up.”

She goes for the pouch first, as I thought she might. There’s a recorder inside, and she stares at it for a long moment. “How did you get this?”

“Dima Kariyev has gone to prison,” I tell her. “His oldest son will go there with him. Two of his sons are dead. His fourth one, the bastard, fell in love with some woman and tore a hole through the family. Led the FBI right to them when they threatened her.”

“Sounds romantic.” Sabrina bites her lip. “What does that have to do with my father? And this?” She taps a nail against the recorder.

I look at her for a moment, startled by her poise. This isn’t Sabrina Miller, the frightened woman in witness protection that I seduced in Rivershade, I realize. This is Sabrina Petrova, daughter of Yuri Petrov, the only daughter of a Bratva pakhan . This is the woman I had expected to find—and yet, she’s still not what I expected at all.

“Connections,” I say finally. “By the time all of this happened, I wanted more information on what went down with that deal. And I got this.” I nod to the recorder and file. “Listen to it.”

Sabrina draws in a slow breath, looking at the recorder as if it were a snake that might bite her. And it very well might.

She stares at it for a long moment, letting the seconds tick by, and then she reaches out decisively, pushing the play button.

Two men’s voices fill the air. One, I know, is Dima Kariyev, so the other must be Yuri. Sabrina stiffens when she hears her father’s voice.

“Your territory can be taken easily, Yuri, if I want it. That I’ve allowed you as much as I have all these years has been a boon. Now, I’ve had enough of your pride. I can take your territory back, or I can take something else.”

“What? Money?” Yuri snorts, the sound fuzzy on the recording. “I have money. Name your price. We’ll go from there.”

“My price is your daughter. ”

That snort again. “ You have a wife. Or has something happened to her that I haven’t heard about?”

“Not to marry. To sell.”

“You fucking insult me, Dima.” Yuri’s voice rises, and I see Sabrina’s shoulders relax a fraction. Something tightens in my chest, because I know what comes next. And I shouldn’t care about how this will make her feel, not after everything—but I do.

“You insult me,” he repeats. “ My daughter is not for sale. I know what business you run, Dima. I hear the rumors. And you will not ? —”

“I will, or I will take your territory. Your place as pakhan . Your influence. Choose, Yuri. I’ve had enough of your insolence over the years. Your daughter will fetch a high price. An impressive prize to sell. Answer me, yes or no.”

There’s silence on the recording for several seconds. Sabrina is staring at it, white-faced, her mouth tight, as if she’s willing the answer her father gives to be the one that she needs it to be. And then Yuri speaks again.

“Fine. But I want a portion of the sale. Fifty percent.”

“Ten.”

“Fifteen.”

“Thirteen.”

There’s silence again, and then Yuri speaks once more.

“Done .”

There’s more talk after that, discussions of Dima’s bastard son taking Sabrina to a gala where she’ll be handed over—the night that I know the FBI got their hands on her. But I don’t think she hears it. She’s sitting stiffly in her chair, her face pale as death, a thin line of tears trickling down each cheek. I’m not even sure that she’s aware she’s started crying. She reaches for the file, opening it, and stares at what’s inside for a long moment.

I know what’s in there already. A glossy photo of her. The bill of sale from her auction. A photocopy of a check for her father’s portion of the five million dollars. And the contract Yuri signed with Dima, agreeing to his daughter’s sale in exchange for the territory he occupied .

Sabrina doesn’t move as she looks at it. Her eyes flick back and forth, still dripping tears, and I’m seized with the urge to go to her. To cross the room, wrap my arms around her, and hold her. It’s in that moment, that I know that I’ve been wrong about everything. Not just about Sabrina herself, but about what I feel for her.

I’ve lied not only to her, but to myself as well. And it’s too late to make any of it right. To take any of it back.

“Has anything happened to my father?” Her voice sounds remote, as if she’s speaking from far away. “You said Dima Kariyev is going to prison. What about my father?”

I shake my head. “Dima’s son informed on him. I have this information, but I haven’t been sure of what to do with it. It should go to the FBI, but?—”

“But you were too busy stalking and trapping me to do it. To turn the man in who actually tried to facilitate my sale. Who was—indirectly, I will still add—responsible for what happened to your sister. Instead, you came after me. I wasn’t responsible for any of it. I’m still not.” She looks at me evenly, never moving to wipe away the tears. Her chin is tilted up, her blue eyes angry. Angry, hurt, and filled with a depth of grief that tears at my heart to see.

But I don’t have any right to comfort her. Not now.

“With my own criminal connections, it can be—tricky, to work with the FBI. I moved quickly on our marriage before Caldwell could dig too deeply into me, once he found out I helped with the mafia that was stalking you in Kentucky. Once he found out who I really was, that would have been the end for my plan.”

“So my FBI agent is at fault. Good to know.” Sabrina’s voice is crisp, curt. It’s barely a voice that I recognize at all—hollow in a way that I’ve never heard her before.

“No. But—” I draw in a slow breath. “I haven’t been able to think of a way to get this information to the FBI in a way that won’t open me up to a line of questioning that could put me in danger. Local police can be paid off, but the FBI—” I chuckle darkly. “That’s another matter.”

“I’ll do it. ”

It takes me a moment to reconcile what she’s said with the words coming out of her mouth. “You’ll—what?” I stare at her, sure that I’m interpreting her incorrectly.

“I’ll take it to the FBI. I’ll tell them the truth about what my father did.” She slides the small recorder back into the pouch, the tears on her cheeks drying in streaks on her skin. “I’m his daughter. I have no criminal record. They’ll believe me, and he’ll go to prison. Which is what he deserves, right? For what he did to me. For what he did to Ailin.”

Her gaze burns into me, and I wonder for a moment if she’s going to go further, to say that I deserve the same. That she’s going to turn me in as well. But she simply closes the file, and sits there, straight in her chair.

I frown. “What’s in this for you, Sabrina? Revenge, maybe, now that you know the truth. But what else? What do you want?”

“You let me go.” She says it evenly, without hesitation. “I turn my father in, and you let me leave. Me, and the baby.” She presses a hand to her stomach as she says it. “We part ways, and put this in the past.”

She pauses, still looking at me, her gaze never wavering. “You hurt me beyond anything I could have imagined. My father will go to prison. That’s revenge, right? The revenge you wanted for your sister—on me, on him. You’ll have it. And I’ll leave.”

It should be that simple. But something in me resists the idea of letting her go. Not for more revenge, not to continue to torment her—but for another reason, one that I’ve been pretending didn’t exist all this time.

I don’t want to be without her. And now that I’ve realized my mistake, the terrible thing I’ve done—I want a chance to make it right. To earn her forgiveness.

But she doesn’t owe me that.

“What about the baby?” I sit up straighter, looking down to where her hand is still pressed against her stomach. “That’s my heir, Sabrina.”

She tenses, and her expression turns hard. “If you think you’re going to take my child away from me, Kian—if you really think you want to try to do that, this is going to be a very different conversation.”

My child. Not ours . The difference hurts, more than I thought it would. I should tell her that she can’t leave, not with my heir. Not with our baby. But I can’t truly take the baby away from her, not the way I’d planned to. Not now—not when I’ve realized how wrong I was this entire time.

And I can’t force her to stay, either.

“Alright,” I say quietly, turning my palms up in surrender, even as I feel a sharp, stabbing pain in my chest at the thought. “You turn your father in, and you can leave. I’ll agree to that.”

Sabrina nods once, sharply. She puts her hand out, across the desk, and I take it, shaking it once. A formal, businesslike gesture. But the touch sends a jolt through me, all the same.

This is the end of it , I think, looking at her from across the desk. My revenge. All of my plans. I got what I wanted in the end—and Sabrina is the instrument of her father’s destruction. There’s something poetic in that, isn’t there?

I should be happy. Happier , at least. Satisfied. But even as she stands up, turning away from me to go to the door, I know one thing with absolute certainty.

I don’t want to let her go.