Chapter 29

Headlights flashthrough the windows of the bedroom.

The garage door opening below my feet vibrates the floor. A minute later a door slams.

“Jimmy! What the hell is going on? I told you not to come around here. Uncle Michael told you not to come around here no more,” a woman yells. I think it’s his sister.

His nephew hasn’t been back in the room since the first time.

There’s a muffled response. Maybe Jimmy’s trying to calm her down before she calls Michael. Having their uncle here wouldn’t really be in Jimmy’s best interest.

“Ma, I told him. I swear I didn’t realize what he was doing.” Robby’s voice gets closer as he keeps talking.

The door flies open a second later and there’s a female figure standing in the doorway. She’s shrouded by the lights in the hallway, so I can’t really make her out other than she has her hair in a ponytail and she’s wearing a dress.

“Fucking lights,” she mutters and slaps at the wall until she finds the switch and the lights blind me instantly.

“Theresa. I have it handled.” Jimmy shoves her into the room and rushes over to me, standing in front of me. If she were the enemy, I’d think he was protecting me. But she’s not. He’s just trying to keep her from untying me.

“Holy shit, Jimmy. Are you serious?” She looks at me like she’s witnessing a ghost flying into the room. “Marlena Schmitt? This is who you have tied up in my son’s bedroom?” Her voice raises more with each word.

“Jimmy,” I say softly. If she’s not happy about me being here, maybe I can get her to help me convince him to let me go.

“Shut the fuck up.” He points a shaking finger at me then turns on his sister. “Theresa, I don’t have a fucking choice. I have a problem and she’s gonna solve it for me.”

“No way, Jimmy. Whatever you’ve got going on, Michael is gonna be pissed.”

“How do you know your favorite uncle isn’t behind all this?” I wonder how long he’s hated Michael. I knew he was angry about being left in jail, but I hadn’t realized how deep his hatred for his uncle really went.

“You know damn well he wouldn’t sanction this.” She jerks a hand at me. “And you bring this bullshit into my house? You involve my son?” Rage shakes her words.

Jimmy pulls out his gun from the back of his jeans and aims it at his sister.

“Fuck, Jimmy.” She glares at him. “Put that shit away.”

“Uncle Jimmy, enough!” Robby’s in the doorway now.

“Robby, go! Go downstairs!” I yell at him.

“I swear to god, Jimmy. I’m calling Michael!” She pulls out her phone and swipes her thumb across the screen.

“Do it and he dies, Theresa. I swear to god.” Jimmy swings his aim to his nephew.

Theresa’s eyes slowly make their way to her son. Robby’s face pales. I doubt he’s ever looked down the barrel of a gun before.

“Jimmy, stop. Just stop.” I wiggle in my bindings. He’s deranged, aiming a gun at his nephew?

Jimmy pulls back the slide on the gun, chambering a bullet.

Theresa screams and lunges at her brother.

Jimmy jumps away. The gun fires. Twice.

Robby hits the floor and I turn away. I can’t. I can’t see a young boy lose his life because of his deadbeat uncle.

“Ma? Ma!” Robby’s up in the next second scrambling to his mother who is fighting with Jimmy for the weapon. He doesn’t seem to be hurt.

Downstairs all hell breaks loose.

Doors slam and heavy feet pummel up the stairs.

“Marlena!” Viktor’s battle cry reaches me before he even turns the corner into the hallway.

“I’m here! Viktor, I’m here!” I scream.

Theresa gets her hands on Jimmy’s gun and scrambles up to her feet, pointing it at her little brother while he cowers with his arm over his face on the floor.

Viktor appears in the doorway, quickly assesses the scene, and steps over Jimmy to get to me. Andrei and Sergei are right behind him.

“Are you hurt?” Victor grabs my face and turns it to the side, then the other. “You have been bleeding.” His dark expression gets even more black.

“Please, just get me out of here. Please.” I tug. “The ropes hurt.”

He looks down at where the ropes have rubbed my skin raw. After grabbing the knife he keeps strapped to his ankle, he tears through the ropes on my ankles and wrists.

Immediate relief flushes through my system.

“Thank you,” I whimper. “Thank you for coming for me.”

He frowns. “You didn’t think I would?”

I have no idea how to answer him. The past several hours have been a swirling of emotions. Anger that he went to Michael without me. Fury for going back on his word. Then wanting nothing more than to be in his arms again.

“I knew you would.” I’m confident of that, I’m just not positive about his motive.

“Do you have any other injuries?” he asks, reaching to scoop me out of the chair.

“I don’t think so.” I say, then immediately realize how wrong I am when my side hits his torso. I cry out in pain and his entire body tenses.

“You’ll feel better soon,” he says.

“Viktor.” Andrei calls him as he reaches the door. Viktor turns back.

Andrei has Jimmy up against the wall, his pants soaked from his own piss. Robby is huddled with Theresa on the bed. She’s glaring at her brother while making sure her son wasn’t hurt by the bullet that grazed him.

“Not that it matters, but Michael gave the okay.” Andrei looks at Theresa. She clenches her jaw and lifts it.

“Theresa, do something. Call him!” Jimmy yells from where he’s pinned. “Call Michael!”

“You went after his daughter, Jimmy. No one can help you now.” She gets up from the bed and leads Robby out.

She stops in front of Viktor, looks up at him with so much pain and disappointment in her eyes. “Just not here,” she says, then gently nudges Robby to keep walking.

Viktor turns to the other men in the room. “Take him to the room at the docks and wait for me.” He doesn’t wait. He just turns back around and carries me down the stairs, taking each step slow so as not to jostle my ribs.

“Viktor, you can’t—I mean, are you going to kill him?” I ask.

He looks down at me, but there’s a coldness there. It shakes me, the immense severity of his stare. There’s a weight to it; I can feel his anger, his rage.

“Don’t ask me to let him go, moy sladkiy voin. He hurt you. He touched you.” His voice is low and raw, like the words themselves scratch along his throat as he says them. If I ask him to let Jimmy go, he will. I can sense it just as much as I can feel the hurt inside him at seeing the injuries on my face.

“I just…” I let the words fade because I have none.

I know how this works. Michael will do it himself if Viktor doesn’t. He’s giving Viktor a chance to get revenge for what Jimmy did to me.

He carries me to the last SUV sitting in the driveway, carefully puts me in the backseat, and straps me in. I wince but try to relax against the cool leather. My heart continues to hammer in my chest and the adrenaline from the past hours drains from my system.

“I don’t want to go to a hospital,” I say as I roll my head back and close my eyes. “I just want to go home.”

“I’m taking you home. Don’t worry, moy sladkiy voin. I’m taking you home.”