32
EVA
T he van sped around another curve, and it sent me rolling roughly over the cargo space.
Bracing myself for impact was impossible. I clenched my jaw and tightened myself into the smallest ball possible as my back smacked into the opposite wall of metal.
“Fuck,” I gasped out. “Fuck you!” I yelled at the Petrovs in the front.
Irina turned around, scowling at me. “Quiet.”
The driver slammed on the brakes so quickly, finishing this whirlwind and fast race, that even she lurched forward with the instant break of momentum.
“You too, bitch,” the driver said before he backhanded her. “Just shut up and sit here until I get back.” He left, slamming his door shut.
“I can’t believe you’d do this. You goddamn?—”
“Shut up!” Irina hissed, rubbing her jaw. “Just go along with it and shut up.” Her blue eyes turned flinty as she tracked the progress of the Petrov soldier walking around the van.
“You’re helping them and just sitting there while they?—”
“Shut. Up.” She fumbled in her pockets, reaching for something. The redness on her cheek darkened from that man’s slap, but she seemed impervious to it.
I shouldn’t have expected any help from her. I should’ve been counting on her to fuck me over. We were princesses from rival families. We were enemies. We always would be on the basis of our surnames.
“I’ve never done anything to you,” I snapped, defiant and furious that she could just sit there and watch me?—
She thrust something at me, silencing me. A slim piece of metal slid into my pocket, but I couldn’t tell what it was. The other Petrov soldier who helped grab me from the parking lot had wrapped a zip tie around me after I was tossed in here. He hadn’t come to ride with us after he bound me, but I bet that wasn’t the last I’d see of him. If I could move my hands, I’d check what she gave me.
Irina narrowed her eyes, giving me a silent but stern expression to shut up.
The doors wrenched open behind me too soon. Irina turned to face forward, giving me her back.
“Come on,” the soldier snarled, reaching for my legs.
I kicked out at his hand, not giving him a chance to touch me. “I can walk.”
“Then move it!” He glowered at me until I climbed out. Once I was on my feet, he forced me to enter the depths of what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse. The old wooden walls were as nondescript as any other aged buildings in the city, and I couldn’t depend on marking my path and knowing where I was.
Please, Lev. Find me. He had to. I saw and heard him rushing after me. When he couldn’t get me before I was tossed in the van, he had to have gone to his car and raced for us.
My phone was still in my pocket, not that it would be of any help with my hands bound and being slumped into a chair.
“You stay right there, bitch.” The soldier pointed at me, as if adding that gesture would really drive in the emphasis.
I huffed, wincing at the hard and rigid back of the chair. Spokes of wood poked into my arm, but I didn’t waste an ounce of time fussing about my comfort. Nothing would be comfortable or okay in my world until Lev came to me. Until we were together again.
He would unleash hell on them. None of them would live, even breathe, until he’d wreaked havoc on their very existence.
“Fucking Petrovs,” I muttered as I tried to get the slim metal piece of out my pocket. I wasn’t sure if that was enough for me to forgive Irina. I would never forgive her family for kidnapping me like this. But she might be redeemable if she gave me something that could help me. Now wasn’t the time to figure out what her part—if any—was in my kidnapping. Or why she’d call me a target on campus. Or connect my individual name to the drugs being distributed here.
My fingertips just barely touched the sharp edge of the stiff metal strip. It was so narrow. I furrowed my brow, struggling to understand what she’d given me. When a door slammed outside this room, startling me, I dropped the faint grip I had on it in my pocket.
Dammit!
“Where is he?” a man demanded in Russian. It wasn’t the voice of the driver who’d brought me here.
“On his way.”
I narrowed my eyes, straining to funnel all my concentration on understanding what they were saying. I was fluent in Russian, but they weren’t close enough to fully understand over the drone of an exhaust fan on the ceiling.
“He’s dead. He is a dead man,” the gruffer voice said. “Anyone who dares to attack one of ours will know no mercy.”
“I heard you,” the Petrov said. “I heard you. Are we even now? Huh? You wanted to get Kvashnin for finishing that hit on Yusuf, and I’ve delivered him.”
Oh, shit. I was completely aware of what I was hearing. That gruff-sounding man had to be an Ilyin soldier. Because connecting the dots of what he said, they wanted retaliation for Lev killing their leader. The man he’d taken out on his last mission before becoming my bodyguard. He’d killed Yusuf Ilyin, and now they were going after him.
That was expected. It was often an eye for an eye in our world, and that cycle would never be broken. The shocker was that the Petrovs were helping the Ilyins. This Petrov soldier had me kidnapped, no doubt to lure Lev into the Ilyins’ hands.
No. No, no, no.
That asshole who’d snatched me out of the parking lot had spoken as though it was a done deal. “And I’ve delivered him.”
They had Lev. They’d used me to lure him away from the impenetrable apartment and the crowded campus where he always had Rurik, Marcus, and a team he’d organized as backup to keep me safe. But it wasn’t me who needed the direct protection now. It was him . They’d been plotting to get him.
Someone pushed the door to this room open further. It had been cracked ajar, but no one stepped inside.
I tensed, going completely still and rigid as I stared at the panel of wood. Holding my breath, I mentally demanded that they show themselves.
Minutes dragged on with no one entering. The Ilyin and Petrov soldiers seemed to have walked off too, their voices carrying further away in the cavernous building.
Then, she came.
“Don’t speak,” Irina scolded quietly. She rushed toward me, looking over her shoulder. “Get the file in your hand. As soon as they bring him in, save him.”
I narrowed my eyes at her as she leaned over me, reaching into the coat pockets that were damnably too far away. Trust was earned. Her act of giving me a tool to aid my escape was a great way to earn it, but I was too guarded and skeptical to just listen to her.
“They are framing the Ilyins for the drugs,” she whispered, pushing the narrow metal file into my hands as she watched the door. “The drug arrangement that fell through, my family is behind it. They want to own the college and expand their territory.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So you can tell him.” She frowned down at me as she fumbled in her pockets again, then turned to glance at the door. “Tell your lover.”
I arched a brow.
“Don’t play stupid. He’s not just a guard. I’ve seen him watching you.” She pushed something else into my pocket, but this time, I caught a glance of the metal pieces. Keys.
“The Petrovs are framing the Ilyins for the drug trade breaking up. They led your uncle to believe it was the Ilyins’ fault.”
“Shit. And Lev being tasked to kill Yusuf has them going after him now.”
She nodded. “They’re staging it so the Ilyins will attack the best of the Baranovs.”
Crashes sounded outside the room. She flinched but didn’t scurry away before shooting me one more stern look. “Use the truck in the back. And tell him. Tell your uncle.”
“Why—” I slapped my lips shut, though, as she ran toward another door behind me. I craned my neck to twist and see her, but the ache in my back from being rolled in the van prevented me from fully pivoting to see her.
Men kicked the door open in front of me, and I nearly gave myself whiplash turning around to witness Lev’s arrival.
Ilyin soldiers dragged him in. They entered close enough to drop him to the floor at my feet.
“See how pretty your bodyguard is now,” one sneered in Russian.
I spat at his face. “Fuck you.”
He reared his arm back to slap me, but Lev proved that he was more than a ragged, breathing sack of pain. Kicking out fast, he dropped the man with his boot, striking the back of the man’s ankle.
That was all it took for commotion to settle in. He was tortured, so bloody and beaten, but I didn’t focus on his wounds. The other soldier lifted his gun to aim it at him as he fisted his hair and forced him to look at me.
“Watch, motherfucker,” he growled. “Watch us fuck your woman up. Watch us ruin her. And then you can meet your slow death.”
“The hell with this.” I gripped the file in my fingers, pressing against the zip ties with all the force I could muster. I shoved my hands apart so hard, aided by the serrated edge of the file, that my arms flung apart with more speed than I could’ve counted on. Rolling with the momentum of my left arm, I swung out at the Ilyin soldier who threatened my man’s life.
It wasn’t my dominant arm or hand, but my right side ached with too much pain from how I’d been tossed into the van. I landed a hit, though. It was clumsy, but enough to surprise them both. He staggered back enough that Lev could twist back and elbow him in the crotch.
Free of my binds, I jumped up, picked up the chair, and brought it down on the man’s head.
“Eva!”
Rurik was here. He’d come. Many more rushed into the warehouse room with him.
I sagged to the floor, crawling closer to Lev as he tried to get up on his knees. Chaos reigned as the Baranov soldiers took over. A single gunshot made me flinch, but Lev had his tired arms around me.
He tucked my head against his chest, but I’d seen enough. The Ilyin had shot himself, sending brain matter on the wall. He’d rather die than be tortured for information.
“I’ve got you.” Lev’s voice was rough and ragged as he held me, but I clutched him tighter, breathing in the scent of him until I felt sure that my heart would slow.
“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.” He kept murmuring it as I clung to him, embracing him with the fervent wish that I could protect him.
“No. I’ve got you.” I pulled back only far enough to kiss him. Ignoring the blood and the grime, I pressed my lips to his cheek again, petting my hand over the other side of his face. I would never forget the consuming relief of this moment, this sweet reunion that proved he was alive and with me. “I’ve got you.”
“Bashing a fucking chair on his head,” an older soldier said, chuckling as he helped take down the Ilyin. “And the Boss asked you to protect her?”
“Fuck you,” Lev growled lightly.
“I love you,” I whispered, tuning out the men in the room. All I concentrated on, all my mind and body could pay attention to, was the feel of his hard body, the strength of his arms holding me close, and the steadying breaths of his heartfelt sighs as he likely calmed himself with the fact that I was with him.
“I love you, too, baby,” he replied softly.
Beaten and spent, only able to sit up and hug each other, we caught our breath and knew it was over.
At least, this drama and danger were over.
Now we could only move forward with love.