38. Kristof

Drive.

I have to drive.

I have to get to Alena.

To Alena.

Ivan is dead. My brother. My baby brother.

We never spent enough time together. I should have made more of an effort. I should have paid more attention to the quiet way he lived his life, his unwavering love and loyalty.

I don't know shit about gardening. How am I going to keep his plants alive?

A dry, hollow laugh escapes me, and I tighten my hands on the steering wheel. They slip slightly from the wet blood coating my palms, and my stomach flips tightly.

I'm covered in blood.

Drenched in it.

Nastja's blood.

Her weight still sits like a ghost in my arms, a pressure I can't shake. Her warm blood turns cold on my clothes, sticky on my skin and dry on my neck.

Every time I blink, her face floats before me. Her wide, terrified eyes. The blood pulsing from her throat like a free-flowing hose. The death grip of her hands as she begged me to end it quickly and painlessly.

The wet shuck of the knife as it slid into her chest echoes in my ears with every heartbeat, and the flash of tired gratefulness in her eyes will stay with me for eternity. It does nothing to calm the guilt and anger raging like a storm in my chest.

Because she's dead.

My sister is dead. My brother is dead.

And it's all my fault.

I can't even fathom how I could have done things differently. Maybe I should have brought more men. Maybe I shouldn't have let Aleksander talk and shot him immediately. I was too cocky. Too selfish. Too blinded in my determination to show I was the top dog.

Now, my siblings lie cold in their graves, and I am alone.

Pain, like barbed wire closing over my heart, shoots through me, and I continue driving recklessly. The only thing I can do to hold the overwhelming wave of grief at bay is focus on Alena.

I have to get to her.

I have to get to her, see her, and then take her away from here before Aleksander can get his filthy hands on her.

I can't lose her too.

I can't.

Forcing my thoughts onto her, my body slowly grows numb and my soul cold. It's the only way I don't drown.

My thoughts muddle and my broken heart struggles for life.

Then there is nothing.

Nothing but a terrible silence as I race up the driveway toward the Manor, and utter carnage greets me.

Black SUVs are in various states of destruction, with several on fire near the garden fountain. One is upended into the rear hedge with its wheels slowly spinning. Bodies of men dressed in black litter the front lawn. Several end up under the wheels of my car as I screech to a halt and stare up in horror at my home.

The windows are dark, and the front door is broken off its hinges, clinging to life with the bottom lock.

What the fuck happened?

Slowly, I climb out of the car, my mind unable to process what I'm seeing.

I have to get to Alena.

I take several steps until my foot catches on the body of one of the men on the ground. I trip and stumble, sending gravel skittering in all directions, then I hunch down and grab the body by its shoulder and roll it over.

He's dead. Several gunshots to the chest can attest to that. There's a pin on the lapel of his jacket, a pin I recognize in an instant.

Aleksander.

He was here? No. Alexei would have warned me. He would have told me an attack was coming.

No. This has to be a mistake.

Leaving the body covered in bloody handprints, nausea flips my stomach upside down and I stumble forward toward the house. I wipe my hands on my jeans as I stumble forward, but for some reason, the blood doesn't come off. Nastja's blood continues to soak into me, and the more I try to clean my hands—I don't want to scare Alena—the more drenched I become.

I snatch up an assault rifle from the ground and check the ammo. There's enough in the gun to defend myself, and that's all I need. I run up the steps, then slide to a stop inside the main hallway and raise the weapon to my shoulder.

"Alena!" I yell, my voice booming around the empty halls.

No one replies.

Fuck.

Fucking fuck, fuck!

I sprint up the stairs, taking two at a time in my desperation to get up there as fast as possible. The bedroom. It's her space. Her room. She has to be there.

Please, please, please, please.

I race down the hall, my heart hammering wildly in my chest, and yet I barely register the beats through the cold numbness in my chest. I sprint up around the corner and then skid to a stop.

I need Alena.

Several bodies litter the hallway, with blood streaking up the walls and soaking into the carpet. There's a mix, I notice, between Aleksander's men and my own, but one body makes my heart stop. I run up to him, crouch down, and press two blood-stained fingers to his throat.

Chek.

His body is cold, his heart no longer beating.

Dead.

No, no, no!

"Chek?" I ask hoarsely, as if the fucker can answer me.

He's gone. Alena's personal bodyguard is dead.

I need Alena.

I surge up and crash through the door into Alena's bedroom. For a terrifying second, I'm certain I'm about to come face to face with a bloodbath that will be the final nail in my coffin.

By some sheer stroke of luck, there's nothing here.

No bodies.

No Alena.

Nothing.

I can't decide whether I'm relieved or more scared. I check the bathroom at a glance, but it's also empty, which renews my energy, and I sprint from the room to search the rest of the house.

I need Alena.

I check the safe rooms, the kitchen, and even yell myself hoarse in the garden, but there's no sign of Alena, or Andrev, for that matter. A cold silence greets me in every corner of the property, echoing through my mind as all attempts to call either of them result in a long dial tone and insufferable voicemail.

My search eventually takes me back to the bedroom, as if Alena will somehow have spawned in my absence.

She's not here.

Fuck.

Her fate tips in my mind like scales, unable to decipher what would be a kinder fate between death and ending up back in Aleksander's clutches.

At least she's not dead.

That single uncertain through floods around my mind as I trudge to the bed and very slowly sink down onto the mattress, utterly exhausted.

The rifle hangs down between my legs, and my head drops.

She's alive, I tell myself. I'd know if she were dead.

Something catches my eye. A twinkling under the dresser near the window. A twinkling I recognize.

I'm on my hands and knees in an instant, crawling toward the item, and the second I touch it, the tidal wave of grief I've held at bay becomes too intense and the dam bursts.

Something inside me snaps painfully, and my limbs go numb as I pick up pieces of Alena's diamond necklace.

No.

Her new collar.

No, no.

They twinkle pathetically at me in the light from the window.

Please.

A twinkle that gleams red through the blood splattered across the stones.

My brother and sister are dead.

The woman I love is missing, maybe even facing the same fate as my siblings.

My first curls around the gems, tightening until diamonds cut into my palm and my own blood spills to join that of my sister on my clothes.

Aleksander, I'm coming for you.

Hell will be a paradise compared to the horror I will rain down to get my girl back.