57. Matvey

57

MATVEY

At first, I think I'm dreaming.

There's a hand combing through my hair. There aren't many people I would give that privilege to, either in this world or the next, and right now, I'm unsure which one I'm in.

But then her scent reaches me. Not like snow and crackling firewood, but like flowers. Battered and bruised, but still stubbornly growing out of the cracks in the concrete.

April.

Her fingers skirt around the edges of my wound carefully, a nasty bump at the back of my head. I can't have bled much, but I can still feel a matted clump of hair there, even as she does her best to avoid it. Her warmth surrounds me. When I move, my cheekbone grazes the exposed part of her knees.

If this is heaven, you can leave me right here.

"Dummy," April snorts. "Heaven can wait. I still need you on planet Earth."

It's the one request I can't deny.

I drag myself upright, already mourning the warmth of April's lap, and scan my surroundings. It's not very bright, but I'm used to the darkness by now. In a handful of seconds, my eyes have adjusted, and I can make out the place I've been tossed into.

A cold, damp cell.

"Rise and shine, solnyshko. "

Yep. Definitely not heaven. "I take it our fathers couldn't splurge on separate cells?" I mutter, head pounding like crazy.

"Nope. Stingy motherfuckers."

"How are you feeling?" April asks me, all concern. I finally take in her face: soot-stained, hair sticking to the sweat on her brow, her smudged makeup turning her into a raccoon.

She's never been more beautiful to me.

"I should be asking that." I take her hands in mine and squeeze. Her fingers are cold as ice, as if she'd been holding on to the iron bars for hours before I joined her. Guilt pierces me at the thought: once again, I've done too little, too late. "If they did something to you, I swear?—"

"They didn't," she quickly reassures me. "Well, except give me a nasty bump to the head. But that just makes us twinsies, right?"

How can she crack jokes at a time like this? Any other civilian would be screaming their head off in this situation. Taken by the mafia and the Bratva? Even on the best of days, that's not something ordinary people can handle. It's just not.

But April's always been different: a soldier in everything but name. A fighter. And today, we're going to need that more than ever.

I pull her into my arms. Once we're close enough, I whisper in her ear, "Guards?"

"Two," April murmurs back. "Both at the entrance of the tunnel."

Hm. That's fewer than I expected. Guess Carmine's feeling a little too confident, then. "May?"

"Carmine has her," she rasps. "We can't fail, Matvey. If we do…"

There's no telling what he'll do to her.

"I know."

It's taking everything I have to keep my boiling blood at bay. The old me would've started pounding the bars the second he woke up, barking threats for everyone to hear. He would've yanked the fucking things off their hinges, then gotten shot for his trouble.

Or maybe he'd have died surrounded by Vlad's men, with no one to take his side.

But now, after everything that's happened… I finally understand.

What it truly means to be a leader.

Until now, I thought going it alone was the only way. Getting angry, getting even: that was my creed. As pakhan and as a man.

But that's not it. "Angry" doesn't equal "right"; "alone" doesn't equal "strong." That recipe for misery and an untimely death—I'm done following its instructions. I'm done fighting for the sake of fighting.

Now, I finally have something worth fighting for. Someone worth fighting for. Someone who will fight with me, for me, in return.

My family.

"Okay," I say. "Let's make a plan."

A grin blooms on April's face. "Yes, pakhan. "

"Look at you. You finally learned how to say it."

She flips her hair, preening at the praise. "Of course I did. I'm your future piranha . "

" Pakhansha. "

"Details."

God, I love her. It's absurd how often the thought keeps blindsiding me. In the smallest of things, the most insignificant moments: I love her. I never want to let her go.

Once this nightmare is over, I'm putting a ring on her finger. I don't care if I have to drag her to the courthouse in her pajamas—I'm not waiting a fucking month. I'm not waiting another minute.

But first, we have to get out of here.

"We need to do something about the cuffs."

"I might have a solution to that," April murmurs. "But we'll need a distraction."

"Excuse me?" Petra interjects, irritated. "Care to loop me in?"

We both turn to look at her at the same time. I'm no psychic. I don't even believe that shit. But when I lock eyes with April again, I can practically see her thoughts.

Because they're exactly like mine.

"Uhh…" Petra says, uncomfortable. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Petra…" April pipes up, her pitch an octave higher. "How would you feel about another heist?"

"This is stupid," Petra mutters.

"No, it's not," April retorts. "It's our only play."

"They're never gonna fall for it."

"You're seriously overestimating these guys' IQ."

"But—"

"Stop fucking around," I hiss through my teeth from my position on the floor, trying to move my lips as little as possible. "You wanna be vor ? This is your audition."

"That's discriminatory," she grumbles. "I was gonna make vor before I got pregnant. I didn't need an audition."

"I'll be sure to let HR know of your complaints."

"Alright, enough sass," April whispers. "Let's get this show on the road."

With one final huff, Petra obeys. "AAAAAHHHHH!!! MY BABY!!!"

I grimace. When we said for her to "scream like a gutted pig," I wasn't expecting this level of a performance.

Oh, well. The louder the better.

"Help!" April rushes to the bars. "She's bleeding!"

I crack an eye open just in time to catch the guards exchanging a look. If it were me, I'd have told them not to get close for any reason, especially after April managed to dupe the previous shift exactly like this.

But this isn't April. This is a different hostage.

A hostage who matters to their boss.

"Hurry!" April insists. "What are you waiting for?!"

"W-we…" one of the guards stutters. His eyes clearly fix on me. But like this, bathed in darkness as I am, he can only glimpse my frame.

"He's knocked out; he can't do anything!" April sighs in frustration. "Look, if it's me you're worried about, you can cuff me to the bars. Just?—"

"AAAHHH! IT HURTS TOO MUCH! JUST KILL ME, PLEASE!"

"Tone it down, Cameron Diaz," I mumble out of the side of my mouth. "There's no Oscar on the table for you."

She gives me a half-shrug as if to say, You never know.

Then she proceeds to mimic a seizure.

"Cuff her!" the second guard shouts to his colleague before rushing to the door. "I'll get the other one out!"

April obediently sticks out her already-cuffed hands. Her guard fumbles with the keys for a second, trying to figure out how to uncuff her and cuff her back around the bars with the smallest delay possible. He's been warned; he thinks he needs to worry about her.

He's wrong.

He needs to worry about me.

While the first guard's busy with April, the second one kneels by Petra's side. He has his gun drawn, seemingly under some mistaken notion that it's going to save his ass.

It's not.

" BLYAT' !"

Petra gives the signal, and I sprint into action.

I launch myself out of the shadows and kick the guard's gun out of his grip. The second he's disarmed, Petra stops screaming and elbows him right in the ribs, then at the back of the head.

One down, one to go.

I steal the gun and glance up to see how April's doing…

"OW! YOU BITCH!"

… just in time to watch her yank her target face-first into the bars.

"Well," April comments. "That was easy."

"That was awful," Petra complains. "My throat's gonna be sore for days."

"I'm sure the company will sponsor your honey and tea," I deadpan.

We put our handcuffs on the guards. It'll take a while for them to come to, but one can never be too careful.

Speaking of…

I take off my socks, ball them up, and stuff them in the first guy's mouth. "That's for disrespecting my fiancée, mudak. "

If it were up to me, I'd have kicked him and shot him, risks be damned. But we've already made too much noise—a gunshot would summon Carmine's entire army in a heartbeat.

Besides, April's here. And I don't want to expose her to any more bloodshed than she needs to see.

Petra frowns. "Fiancée?"

I toss her the second gun. "Right," I reply. "I forgot to tell you."

She catches it out of the air. "Tell me what?"

I grin. "I want a divorce."