Chapter 29

29

Lyric

“ B e careful, she’s pregnant,” Max tells one of the EMTs.

We’re outside the field office now. I’m sitting in the back of an ambulance, with a full view of a mass arrest in progress. There are about six emergency crews present, along with two coroner vans and a slew of black SUVs. Quantico descended upon this place with its full and unforgiving force. Max sits next to me, getting his bruises and cuts treated by another paramedic.

Artur and Ivan are just a few steps to our left, giving their statements directly to the Deputy Director of the FBI, who is flanked by two supervisory agents and two internal affairs supervisors. This entire situation is a giant stain on the Bureau, and I have no idea how they’ll manage to clean it all up.

“Pulse is good,” the EMT tells me. “Blood pressure’s a little high, but that’s likely from the shock. You’re going to be okay, but I’d still like to take you to the hospital for a full checkup, just to make sure.”

“Okay.”

“How’s it looking?” Max asks him.

My cheeks burn as I feel his gaze searing a hole into my very soul. He knows I’m pregnant now, and I reckon he’s got questions, concerns, things he wants to say to me. Artur and Ivan too. They keep stealing glances my way, but there is so much going on, all of it at once, that we can barely focus, let alone process anything.

“It’s a goddamn mess,” the EMT says. “I haven’t gone in yet but I heard it through the radio. Lots of casualties.”

“Where’s Director Smith?” Max calls out to the Deputy Director.

“In custody. They’re bringing him out now,” he replies, then continues to take Ivan’s statement.

I give Max a curious look. “How did you know I’d be here? How’d you get Quantico involved?”

He chuckles softly, then winces when the paramedic applies disinfectant to a small gash above his eyebrow. “Fucking hell.”

“Sorry, man.”

“It’s alright,” he sighs and looks at me. “I told you we were doing things by the book. That meant taking Bowman and Smith out the legit way, too. Your friend Shelby was instrumental in all of this. She really came through for us.”

“She did?” I can’t help but smile, thankful to know that Shelby picked the right side.

Commotion erupts among the police officers and federal agents present outside the field office building as Director Smith is brought out in cuffs, roughly handled by his own colleagues. They look angry while Smith keeps staring into the ground, his lip bruised and his left eye gradually reddening and swelling. I guess they smacked him around a bit before they put the cuffs on.

“There he is, that piece of shit,” one man says.

“We were lucky they got here in time,” Max says, then gives me a subtle nudge with his shoulder. “And you did the right thing.”

“I killed a man,” I reply, a knot still tightening in the back of my throat. “I know I had no choice. I know. But it doesn’t change the facts.”

“You’re going to have to process all of this one day at a time. You’ll have to forgive yourself, baby,” he says, keeping his voice down while our attending paramedics go over to other injured agents to check and make sure they’re good to go. It got surprisingly messy in there. I’d have thought that the crooked Feds would surrender upon seeing their colleagues, but one too many of them chose to go down swinging, unable to cope with the shame of having been exposed. “Lyric,” Max pulls me back into the present. “You’re going to be okay, I promise.”

“I’m already okay,” I tell him. “We’re alive. It’s all that matters.”

“There will be congressional hearings,” the Deputy Director tells Artur and Ivan once he’s done with their statements. “I hope the three of you will attend.”

“Only if you keep your end of the bargain,” Max politely cuts in.

“I gave you my word. Full immunity,” the Deputy Director begrudgingly replies. That means about a dozen active investigations will be coming to an abrupt end, but given the shitstorm that they’ll be dealing with, I think they’re better off not bothering with the Bratva for a while.

Ivan comes over and plants a kiss on my forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now,” I say, giving him a weak smile.

“They’re going to run some tests at the hospital,” Max tells him. “Just to be sure.”

“Good,” Artur says.

“It’s been quite the ride,” I say, once Max and the guys are done bringing me up to speed with how we got to this point in the first place.

But they were true to their word. They swore they’d turn the Bratva’s businesses legit, and they used an iron fist to get the job done.

“We still have a long way to go,” Max says. “But from what I can tell, the other families are on board. For real this time.”

“And the Larionov’s?” I ask.

Max shakes his head. “They have no choice.”

“We’ll be having some conversations with the Chinese and the Japanese and anyone else who was at that meeting with Bowman,” Artur adds. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. We expect some retaliation as a consequence of our decisions but we’ll deal with it as it comes.”

The coroner comes out while his assistants push Bowman’s gurney through the open doors. The mere sight of that black bag fills me with dread and a peculiar sickness of the soul. I’m responsible for that, and like Max said, it’s going to take a while for me to deal with it.

“Lyric!” Shelby cries out while two officers try to hold her back from breaching their line. But she manages to slip past them. She runs right at me, while Artur motions for the cops to leave her be. “Oh, Lyric, I’m so sorry!” she says as she throws her arms around me. “I was worried sick about you.”

“It’s fine, Shel. I’m okay, I promise,” I reply, softening in her embrace.

The strange comfort she gives me is something I didn’t even know I needed until now. Her warmth, her familiar face, her unending kindness—it all prevailed against my father’s wretched charms.

“I heard what happened,” Shelby says, her eyes searching my face. “Are you hurt?”

“More like sore,” I sigh deeply. “And still shaking.”

She glances down at my trembling hands, a pained flash dancing in her gaze. “That’s the adrenaline wearing off, babe. You’ll be okay.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“And Bowman?”

I shake my head slowly. “He didn’t make it.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumble, and Shelby is quick to catch on. Besides, the worried looks on Max, Ivan, and Artur’s faces speak volumes. Just enough to give her a rough sketch of what happened. “What matters most is that it’s over.”

“More or less, yeah,” Shelby replies. “Your father won’t fare well.”

“I guess not.”

I don’t enjoy the thought of what’s to come. My father will pay for his share in these egregious crimes. It’s been a long time coming. But it’s one thing to suspect him of being dirty and corrupt, it’s a whole other thing to have concrete evidence about it. It’s downright heartbreaking. My worst nightmares coming true, one after the other, in the span of a single day. I’ll need a year’s worth of sleep to recover from this madness.

“I’m sorry, Shelby,” I tell my best friend. “I’m sorry you found yourself in this situation. I’m sorry you had to choose between me and my dad.”

“Don’t even go there,” she says. “The choice was obvious. I learned a lot from you over the years. I’m the one who’s sorry. For what it’s worth, I lost myself and I forgot about us. I was so focused on your father and his attention, affection, theatrics, whatever you want to call it. I was so drawn into him that I wasn’t being a good friend to you.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out the hard way that he only cares about himself.”

“Well, let’s see him care about himself in prison, ‘cause that’s where he’s headed,” she grumbles, but I can sense the hurt in her voice. He broke her heart, and she will need time to mend it. However, I’m glad she’s free of him. “I already told your guys that they can count on me to testify against him. They’re all going down, Shelby. Matthew Phelps can kiss his political career goodbye.”

Artur lets out a dry chuckle. “You do realize that you’ll be like active uranium in the political world, right Shelby? No senator or congressman will want to work with you after you bury Phelps.”

“That’s okay. I’m getting my master’s in political science. It doesn’t mean I have to pursue a political career,” she replies with a casual shrug. “I will have plenty of other opportunities.”

“Analysts make a ton of money through TV appearances,” Max suggests.

Shelby thinks about it for a second, then glances back at the swelling mass of reporters clamoring beyond the police line. “You know what? You’re absolutely right. If you’ll excuse me, I should go introduce myself.” She kisses me on the cheek and casually walks away, eager to take the media head on.

“I’m gob smacked,” I laugh lightly. “I’ve never seen anyone landing so gracefully on their feet. Shelby is amazing.”

“That, she most certainly is,” Max says. “But we still need to talk about the proverbial elephant in the room.” He moves closer and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in. “You’re pregnant?”

“I… yeah,” I sigh. “I was working up the courage to tell you. I just wasn’t sure when it would’ve been the right time. You were dealing with all of this.”

“So we’re going to be dads,” Artur concludes, amusement twinkling in his grey eyes.

“If you want to be,” I mumble.

Ivan frowns. “What do you mean, if we want to? Of course we want to be dads. We almost got ourselves killed to get you back, Lyric.”

“I never would’ve forgiven myself if anything happened to you.”

“And I couldn’t possibly live with myself if we didn’t take this thing between us to the next level,” Max says. “Through thick and thin, Lyric. We’re stuck together, you hear me? You, me, Ivan, Artur, the little one here,” he adds, gently cupping my lower belly. “We’re stuck together.”

“It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” I quip, smiling as a golden kind of warmth fills my heart and spills into my chest, my muscles gradually relaxing against Max’s hard, strong body.

Artur chuckles, carefully looking around to make sure that nobody can hear. “I wonder which one of us did it.”

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“It doesn’t matter to us either,” Ivan says. “Unless it’s for medical reasons, I’m fine with never knowing which of us is the biological father.”

Max kisses my temple. I wish I could just lose myself in their arms right here, without a care in the world. But there are too many people around us. Too much law enforcement. Too much press. Too many eyes watching. We must be careful. We may have prevailed against Bowman and Smith, we may have survived one hellish nightmare, but we can’t risk getting ourselves embroiled in another scandal that could yield unwanted consequences.

“I love you,” I tell my men out of the sweetest, nocturnal blue.

“We love you too, Lyric,” Max promptly replies. “More than you can imagine.”

Artur smiles. “More than we ever imagined we could.”