There was a small silence. Blythe could hear her heart beating, telling her she was still alive, when for so long, she didn't want to be. It was these five women who had made her strong again, made her want to live again. She loved them fiercely. Was proud of them and their accomplishments.
Little Lexi, kidnapped at a young age, her family killed in retaliation for her escape. She was more daughter sometimes than sister, although she would never say that. Airiana, a brilliant, sweet woman, her mother had been an alcoholic, but she'd tried to take care of her daughter and been murdered for a project Airiana had been working on.
There was Lissa, whose entire family had been massacred by a ruthless uncle. Her world had turned upside down recently when she'd discovered that the uncle who raised her had been behind the killings of her family. Rikki had been stalked by a mentally unbalanced firestarter, one who killed her parents, and then ultimately burned down fosters' homes. And Judith--sweet, wonderful, talented Judith--whose brother was murdered by a man she thought she could love. All of them understood loss and guilt even if they weren't guilty.
They all nodded, understanding what she couldn't articulate very well, and she was grateful. Just seeing Viktor had been a blow; now talking about the things that had happened in the aftermath of his leaving sickened her. She suddenly wanted to be alone, and yet, at the same time, she was a little afraid. She'd been scary depressed after her daughter died. Those days had been so dark, she feared what she might do from one hour to the next.
"Jonas and Jackson will come here to question me," she said. "There's no stopping them." She glanced at Rikki. It was no secret that her husband, Lev Prakenskii, hadn't saved Elle Drake when he was undercover, trying to stop the same human trafficking ring that she'd been after. Elle's capture and suffering at the hands of Stavros Gratsos had been horrendous. Jackson was furious when he learned Lev hadn't blown his cover in order to save Elle.
Blythe leaned toward her autistic sister. Rikki had established a good life for herself. She loved what she did and felt able to cope. If Jackson and the Drakes made it difficult for Lev, it would mean all of them relocating. Lexi would be uprooted from her farm and Rikki from where she finally felt comfortable. They would do it, of course, all of them had agreed, but no one wanted to go.
"I'll talk to Jackson about Lev, tell him what a good man he is. Ilya will talk to him as well if we ask him to. I don't think there will be a problem." She hoped there wouldn't be a problem, but one never knew with Jackson. He was very quiet, but he could be extremely violent. She had no problem imagining him in a biker club rather than law enforcement.
Rikki shook her head. "You have enough on your plate with your husband coming back to town."
Blythe winced. Husband. She didn't want anyone referring to Viktor Prakenskii as her husband, not even Rikki. She opened her mouth to protest, but Rikki squared her shoulders and made her announcement.
"I'm going to talk to Jackson and Elle. I've already called Elle and asked to see them. She said I could go over tonight. Lev doesn't know, or he'd never let me go on his behalf. Of course I'll tell him afterward," she explained hastily.
Blythe watched as Rikki twirled her fingers nervously, a habit she couldn't quite break. She could see stark fear on Rikki's face, but also determination. Rikki had a difficult time talking to people she didn't know well and anything out of her comfort zone could throw her into a bad place. She could disappear inside her own head for hours if she was upset.
"I think that's wonderful that you took that initiative, honey," Blythe said quickly. "Maybe I'll just go with you. It would get my mind off of all of this. Of course, if you prefer to go alone, I'll totally understand."
Rikki looked relieved. "I'd like that." She glanced at her watch. "I'm supposed to be there in an hour. The timing worked out great. Lev wasn't happy with me coming here, so it would have been really difficult to just leave this evening. I can go straight from here with you."
Blythe knew Jackson would never ask her personal questions as long as Rikki or anyone else was around; he was too good of a law enforcement officer. She'd be safe at least until tomorrow morning, and maybe she'd get up early, pack a bag and leave town just for a little while. She owned the local gym, was a personal trainer as well as a physical therapist. It wouldn't be easy to reschedule her clients, but it was doable and in her opinion necessary. She felt better with a plan.
Her sisters kept up small talk, mostly about the puppies. Lexi and Gavriil had the breeding pair. Gavriil had brought them with him from Russia. Each household got one puppy. They had regular puppy playdates scheduled, and the children went from house to house spending time with the puppies so they'd be used to kids. Gavriil was going to help train them, and he'd already given them all valuable advice. Her own little Maya already sat before her meals and was becoming familiar with Blythe's routine. She took the pup to work with her, and she was very good there as well.
Blythe sat back in her chair, allowing the talk to swirl around her while she stared out the window and wondered if Maya was miracle enough to get her through the next few weeks.
6
VIKTOR stood very, very still, afraid if he moved, he might shatter. He'd seen children die. He'd watched them die. Children he'd felt responsible for, but nothing got to him the way this did. Blythe's voice when she told her sisters about his leaving her. About their child. A daughter. He'd had a daughter and she was dead. Murdered by a drunken madwoman.
Bile rose. His legs turned to rubber. He went down on one knee right there at the top of the stairs. Everything said after that was merely a buzzing in his head. Inside his chest, his heart shattered. Her revelation had gutted him. Gutted him. His mind went from chaos to red. Rage rose, swift and terrible, a volcanic eruption imminent.
Rage was there to protect him, to keep him from shutting down completely. He knew that, but it didn't help. Nothing helped. For a moment the world narrowed to a place of pain and suffering, where torture was physical, emotional and even sexual. Where he was helpless, a mere child trying to survive, trying to find a way for the younger boys and girls to survive. He'd done that at a great cost to all of them, but he hadn't found a way to save his own child.
A girl. A daughter. Viktoria. He collapsed completely, sitting down hard, but even that didn't bring him out of it. He was afraid he was going to vomit, and the pain in his throat, in his chest, behind his eyes was so bad he couldn't breathe. There was no air. No way to find air. "This can't be happening." He whispered the plea to Reaper.
Reaper's hand clamped on his shoulder hard, steadying him, or he might have gone all the way down. "We have to go."
He stared up at his best friend without comprehension. Reaper got an arm around him and urged him up. Once his legs were under him, he went with Reaper through the hallway back to the master bedroom. He wasn't certain he could manage getting through the window, so he just collapsed on the bed.
Reaper went down in a crouch in front of the man who had been an absolute rock his entire life. The man who had single-handedly saved seventeen children from certain death. He'd helped, but it had all been Czar's brains, his plans, his calm and steady leadership. For one moment panic welled up. He hadn't felt panic since he was a four-year-old child looking to the ten-year-old to save him.
Czar was the rock. The absolute rock all of them counted on. They were trained to lie with conviction. To con with ease. To seduce as an art. To stalk and kill without feeling. Czar taught them how not to do those things. How to channel rage and resentment, hatred and bitterness into something else. Something good.
Reaper took a breath and let it out. His job was always to watch over Czar whether the man liked it or not. He didn't like it most times, and in the beginning they'd clashed a lot, but over time, Czar realized there was no stopping Reaper. He'd do what he thought best. What he thought best was keeping Czar alive.
"Let's get you out of here," he said softly, afraid Czar was in shock. His skin was almost gray beneath the dark tan
from so many years out in the weather.
Viktor shook his head. "Can't leave her again, Reaper. If I go now, I won't come back, and I won't survive without her."
"You can come back." Reaper tried to be reasonable. He wanted to throw Viktor over his shoulder and haul him out of there. Czar was too shaken to think reasonably. Any moment one of the women could come upstairs. They'd scream bloody murder and call the cops. He hadn't liked the look of either sheriff. They hadn't postured or blustered, and although they were aware they were outnumbered and surrounded, they hadn't so much as flinched. Men like that weren't easy to kill.
Viktor shook his head. It hurt to even move that much. He had to fight not to vomit. "If I leave now, I wouldn't know how to approach her, how to ask her to take me back. How can she forgive me after the loss of our child? She's been through so much. I had all of you, she had no one."
Reaper shook his head. "She can't blame you for what her bitch of a mother did."
"I wasn't there. I didn't even know she was pregnant." Viktor pushed a hand through his hair. "She didn't send for me. She should have sent word to me. I would have come. I would have walked away from the assignment." In a heartbeat, he would have rushed to her side. Had she just once told him she needed him, he would have dropped everything and gone to her, risking his life, risking the lives of everyone he cared for. For her. He would have done that without weighing the consequences, because she was Blythe--his everything. Where the hell were his birth brothers? Why hadn't they told him?
"She didn't even know who you were, Czar," Reaper pointed out.
Viktor lifted his head and looked the man he called brother in the eye. "For her I risked everything, even my younger brothers' lives. For her. We had a system to contact each other in an emergency. Sorbacov would have killed for that information. If he got it, he would have hunted every one of them down and killed them. You know he would have. Still, I left her the code. I needed to know she was safe. I gave her the priest's code in case she needed to get word to me as well. I risked him, my brothers, all of you, just to make certain she was safe, and she didn't use it."
Reaper frowned and stroked his chin with his long fingers. "You know, Czar, it's looking more and more as if she didn't get that letter. She was genuinely shocked to see you, and she had no idea you were married. I was watching her face, watching her closely; she didn't know."
Viktor sucked in air to keep the room from spinning. When he inhaled, the scent of her, peaches and cream, slipped inside, deep into his lungs. She was everywhere in this room. The girly shit she liked was everywhere. He had always loved to watch her as she got ready for an outing. His favorite had been to lie on the bed and just drink her in. She was practical, but she surrounded herself with things women deemed necessary in their lives. Her hairbrush was ornate, a beautiful carved wooden handle, the bristles embedded in a thick rectangle. He'd chased her around the bedroom once threatening to spank her with it when she'd teased him unmercifully about the beard he'd worn back then.
His life was so fucked-up. How could he have made such a mess of the only thing that was going to keep him alive? That mattered to him? He was drowning, and it was Blythe who could give him the air he needed.
"I left the letter right in the middle of our bed." Viktor smoothed the lacy comforter as if he could bring the letter back. Even if she hadn't gotten the letter, why hadn't one of his brothers told him what was going on? That didn't make sense. None of this made sense.
"You heard what she told those women. After you shot her stepfather, her mother went crazy."
"Sharon had been drinking. She was always drunk. Ray just pretended to drink, but he kept her glass full at all times."
"Her mother was given a sedative and taken upstairs to the master bedroom. The bedroom where you left the letter right in the middle of the bed. It didn't sound as if Blythe went up with the medics. She stayed downstairs with the cops."
Viktor closed his eyes briefly. Of course Sharon would have taken the letter. She would have read it and destroyed it out of malice. The woman was so jealous of her daughter, she detested her. She would never want Blythe to know a man wanted her, loved her beyond anything. She'd spent a lifetime jealous of her sisters and then jealous of her daughter. But that didn't tell him why one of his brothers hadn't reached out to him. They must have checked on her.
Downstairs there was a lot of movement. Reaper went to the door of the bedroom to listen. "They're leaving," he reported. "Blythe is going out with the one they call Rikki."
That was so like her. She'd go with Rikki in spite of the fact that she was hurting--and he knew she was. Just that small thing told him she was everything he remembered. She was the one his extended family needed. She was the one he needed.
"You don't have to stay, Reaper. I'm going to wait until she comes back, and then I'm going to talk to her. If she needs to yell at me, or hit me, no one will be around and she'll feel like she can."
"And if she wants to shoot you? Women are unpredictable. And lethal. You should know that. Alena and Lana would take you down in a second." Reaper made his way back to stand in front of Viktor.
Viktor allowed a small humorless smile to escape. "They'd try. Blythe might try to hit me, but I doubt it. She's not prone to violence like we are. Get going, Reaper, I'll be fine. It isn't like I'm going to get hurt here." If she wanted to shoot him, he'd let her. It wouldn't happen, but if she needed that, he would oblige. Reaper couldn't be there for that. He'd retaliate.
"Don't be an ass. I'm not leaving. She comes back, I'll sit on the roof and wait for you." He looked around the room. "This is nice. Wide open. I like that."
"My woman always liked space." Which was a good thing. Viktor still didn't like walls surrounding him. The more space, the better.
"They have a pretty piece of land here. Never thought I'd be thinking about buying land for myself or for us. We're nomads. No roots."
"I'm staying," Viktor said decisively. "I have no intentions of leaving her again."
"She could come with us."
Viktor shook his head. "I want a home. We need one, Reaper. All of us. We'll ride when we want the open road, but we need a base. We talked about this." He'd made up his mind, told the others and left it up to them whether or not they wanted to come with him. The vote had been unanimous. They wanted to buy land, build a clubhouse and set up their legitimate businesses. Sorbacov was gone, and they were going to live openly, not hide in the shadows anymore.
"So we'll stay here. Nothing's changed, Czar. I've got your back, same as always. Your woman will either accept us or she won't."
Reaper's tone said there wasn't a chance in hell Blythe would accept their club, but Viktor knew he was wrong. Blythe wasn't at all the way Reaper thought she was. She had too much compassion in her. She knew fun and laughter, and she gave that magic to everyone around her. How, with her shrew of a mother, he didn't know, but there really was something magical about Blythe. She shone from the inside out.
Sharon had been eaten up with jealousy that her youngest sister had inherited the Drake estate and that her daughters had carried out the legacy of the Drake family. He didn't know much about it other than they all had very strong psychic gifts. He believed everyone did to some extent, although Sharon's gift seemed to be to make everyone around her miserable.
Ray had researched her carefully. She'd been the perfect cover--a woman who presented one face to the world, and was another behind closed doors. Blythe's records at the hospital made it very clear all the broken bones she'd suffered hadn't been from being clumsy. Viktor knew child abuse firsthand. He'd lived in a secret school with no one to help him but himself. Blythe had lived out in the open. She had an extended family, doctors, teachers, neighbors, and yet she'd still been subjected to abuse. That didn't make sense to him.
Reaper's hand suddenly went to the inside of his jacket, his body already beginning the turn toward the window. Viktor leapt at him, covering his hand with his own, preventing him from drawing
the knife he kept there. He could draw and throw in one smooth motion, and he was deadly accurate.
"Keep your hands where I can see them."
"Put down the gun," Viktor said. "Seriously, put it down. I'm your brother. You're not going to shoot me, but I can guarantee you that there's another brother outside somewhere on that roof and he's got you in his crosshairs. Am I right, Reaper? Did Savage follow us?"
"You're right, Czar, and you know my brother. He's unpredictable."
Reaper seemed relaxed beneath Viktor's hand, not a tense muscle, but that didn't matter. His entire being, mind and body, was a weapon. He was fast and deadly and he never hesitated. Savage was arguably worse. Reaper was correct; he was unpredictable and as mean as a snake.
"Which one are you?" Viktor kept his tone casual. He couldn't see the intruder, but he had no doubt Savage could see him.
"Lev."
"You were just a toddler. You don't remember me."
"Not much."
"You're going to have to trust that I would never harm you or yours. Keep your gun and step into the room. Get away from the window." He wasn't a praying man, but nevertheless, he sent up a small prayer that the kid believed him. He raised his voice just to be on the safe side. "Stand down, Savage. He's my brother." Just for safety's sake he kept his hand over Reaper's. Reaper's fist was around the hilt of the knife, but Viktor prevented him from drawing it. They stood that way, waiting.
Lev moved into the room, slipping his gun inside his jacket. Viktor let go of Reaper, but didn't attempt to step around him. It wouldn't do any good. He knew from experience that no matter what he said or did, Reaper would keep his body between Viktor and a perceived threat until it was clear there was no threat. Still, he feasted his eyes on his younger brother.
He looked good. A man. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Confident. He wasn't afraid even knowing there were three against him. Viktor found himself a little shaken. He'd never really believed this day would come.