“I’m going,” I replied coldly. My father slowly sat down on the sofa.
I hadn’t seen him since that day in the gym when he’d seen me training. When I’d arrived back here from the Hamptons last week, he was away on business. This evening I found him waiting at my door. He was here to discuss tonight’s plan to take out Levan Jakhua. We’d finally got a tip-off for where the Georgian bastard was hiding from our insider. I’d been given permission for this sting from the Pakhan in my father’s absence.
It seemed he was now here to hear about it in person.
Refocusing on the here and now, I watched my father cross his legs, reflecting the calm demeanor he always wore, as his eyes fell upon me. “And you’re going to kill him? You?”
My jaw clenched as I anticipated the argument that was going to come. I walked to my papa and sat down on the seat before him. “My byki will go in to where he’s hiding. I promised you I wouldn’t fight, and I won’t. They’ll bring Jakhua out to me.” I looked up at my father. “Then I’ll slit his fucking throat.”
My father’s hand rubbed over his short graying beard, and he nodded. “And Kisa knows you’re doing this?”
“She understands what I have to do to avenge Anri,” I replied vaguely. He nodded again.
We sat in silence until I asked, “Papa? Why don’t you want me to fight?”
My father’s hand stopped on his face, his brown eyes looked into mine. “Luka, you will never understand this until you have children, but the day you were taken from me”—he patted his chest—“something within me died.”
A hollow pit formed in my stomach. My father rarely showed emotion. Since I’d gotten back to Brooklyn after being freed from the gulag, he hadn’t really known how to treat me. I supposed that was because he no longer knew me. I’d left him a boy, and I’d returned a damaged man. Fourteen years of raising me had been lost. I’d never really thought about it that way before. Maybe he was just as lost as I was.
He sat forward. “When Kisa told me you were back, when she stood in our private box in the Dungeon and told me my son, my lost son, was the man killing Alik Durov in the cage, I couldn’t believe it.” His eyes lost focus. “You were savage, wild, but highly effective. You slaughtered Alik Durov. You slaughtered anyone that came into your path. You were unstoppable, the most effective killer I’d seen, well, since Alik.”
I stiffened at the mention of Alik Durov, but my father’s expression softened. I was looking at my real father. Not the Bratva boss, but Ivan Tolstoi, my father.
“I watched that boy slowly go insane, Luka. I watched it happen before my very eyes. With each kill, he thirsted for blood, the bloodlust slowly took control. And as for all the fucked-up things he did in private? I had no idea. But that boy lived for the kill. Sought out our enemies and tortured them. Killed them in the most sadistic ways imaginable.” He sighed. I thought he looked tired. “We may kill in this life, Luka, but we’re not beasts. We adhere to a code, even when it comes to the death of our rivals.”
“Papa—” I went to speak, but my father held up his hand.
“When I saw you kill Durov, you no longer resembled my serious and respectful son I’d known as a child.” His eyes met mine. “You looked like Durov. That same need for the kill was in your eyes.” He sat back and dragged his hand down his tired aging face. “It still is, Luka. That look. That look is still there. Every single day.” Silence hung in the air, and he added, “You’re going to be the pakhan, Luka. Of that, we are certain. But I refuse to watch my son become like Durov. I’ve just got you back. I won’t lose you again. Especially to the demons you hold inside. I won’t lose you to yourself.”
My chest tightened at the flash of vulnerability in my father’s eyes. I stood and walked toward him. I kneeled at his feet. “Papa, I’m back. And I’m not Alik Durov. I’m your heir, and I won’t let you down. You have my word on that.”
Water built in my father’s eyes. He lifted his hand and tapped it on my cheek. “You’re my life, Luka. My legacy,” he said through a tight throat. “I lived with a void in my heart when you were gone. I thought that thinking you were dead all those years was the hardest part of losing you.” He shrugged. “Turns out it wasn’t. Because living with the knowledge that I could lose you all over again? All because you crave to be in the fight? I fear, this time, would kill me.”
“Papa, I’m not going anywhere,” I assured. “And I won’t ever let you down. I swear it to you. I swear it on our family name. I’ll”—I fought back a lump in my throat—“I’ll make you proud, Papa. Just give me a chance.”
My father reached forward and took me in his arms. Pressing a kiss to my head, he rasped, “You already do make me proud, Luka. You already do.”
He held me for several seconds before he pulled back. Getting to his feet, he fixed his tie and walked to the door. Before he stopped, he asked, “How is Talia? She’s seemed distracted the few times we’ve talked.”
My head lifted, and I caught the concern on his face. “She’s good,” I replied, leaving any mention of Zaal from the conversation.
He nodded. “Good. She needed this rest.”
With that he walked out the door, and out of my house. I sat on the floor, replaying the conversation, until a throat cleared behind me. I looked back and Mikhail, my personal byki, was behind me.
“You ready?” I asked. “Do we have a location for the cunt?”
Mikhail nodded. “He’s hiding out near the docks.”
I got off the floor, and walked past Mikhail. We got in the town car, the van filled with byki up ahead.
Twenty minutes later, we rolled up to the docks and the warehouse Jakhua was meant to be hiding in. I glanced around the dark and run-down area; the place was desolate.
Mikhail looked at me in the rearview mirror. I lifted my hand and Mikhail gave the order to send in the byki. They filed out of the van and into the warehouse.
I waited for the gunfire.
I waited for the screams, but there was only silence.
Something came through on Mikhail’s earpiece. His pale blue eyes met mine in the mirror. My blood ran cold.
“What?” I asked.
“There’s something inside.”
In seconds I was out of the car and striding across to the warehouse. I burst through the door, only to be met with a huge empty space.
My eyes drifted up to the rafters. Two bodies hung by their necks, their stomachs gutted and their throats slit. I walked closer, my feet walking straight through the pooling blood.
I looked at the men, trying to place them.
“Fuck!” Mikhail hissed from behind me.
I whipped my head around. “What?” I asked, my pulse beginning to slam in my neck.
Mikhail paled.
“What?” I thundered. Mikhail held his head high.
“These were two of my men.”
I frowned and walked toward him. “Why would Jakhua kill them? Why would he set us up just to see two fucking corpses?”
Mikhail shifted on his feet. “These two men were brought back to Brooklyn today. They switched protection detail. They had families, and they’d been away for weeks. I decided to bring them home and have them patrol on home turf.”
I shook my head and opened my mouth. Mikhail spoke before I could. “They were at the house in the Hamptons. They’ve been patrolling up there. They were assigned to the Kostava, to your sister.”
I tensed, every muscle in my body filling with scalding blood. I looked up at the corpses and my stomach instantly sank.
Talia.
Zaal.
“Who informed you of tonight? Who gave you the tip-off?” I asked Mikhail. He paled and looked up to one of the fucks swinging from the roof.
“Andrei,” he replied, and pointed to a corpse.
My hands shook with rage. It was a setup, a motherfucking setup! Ripping a knife from my jacket, I launched it into the heart of the betrayer hanging from the ceiling. The byki stepped back as I fumed with
rage.
“Give me your phone!” I ordered Mikhail. He passed it over and I called the house in the Hamptons. All I got was a dead tone.
“The line’s dead,” I said. The byki shifted uncomfortably. Shaking with red-hot anger, I roared and threw the phone against the wall, smashing the fucking thing to pieces. I ran toward the door, the byki following behind.
“Get to the Hamptons! That motherfucker’s set us up. Fucking betrayed by one of our own. Jakhua’s gone back for Zaal! That bastard’s gone back for his man.”
As I ran out the door, fear, real fear, surged through my blood. Talia … that fucker was going to kill my sister.
My mind locked down. My blood ran cold. Only one thing ran through my mind.
Jakhua’s imminent death.
17
TALIA
Waves crashed on the shore, the sound lulling me into half sleep. Zaal laid his head on my lap, and I stroked through his long hair with my fingers.
Zaal’s hand traced down my stomach, his beautiful jade eyes looking at me with complete adoration.
He was getting better. He looked better. Several days of rest, since finding out about his family, had brought the color back to his cheeks. And he was talking more, remembering more.
“Tell me about them, zolotse,” I said quietly, not wanting to disturb the heady peace we had found in this room.
Zaal glanced up at me, and swallowed. I leaned down and pressed a kiss to his head. “Tell me about your family.”
“I only remember some things,” he replied, his accent becoming thicker as emotion took hold. “I remember only certain things about each one of them, about me as a child.”
“Tell me,” I pushed again, and linked my hand through his for comfort.
Zaal closed his eyes. I could see them moving behind his eyelids. His hand tightened in mine and I knew he was pulling images, fractured memories, from his mind. He’d told me he saw only pictures. Only felt certain feelings when remembering them.
But it was something. I feared with the drugs he’d been subjected to for years that he’d have no memories at all. We still weren’t sure about the damage to his body, his mind, but just having something to hold on to, it was a blessing straight from God.
Zaal’s eyes opened. He fixed his gaze on mine. “I remember I liked to lie in the sun,” he rasped, a small curl of his lip gracing his mouth. “I remember my brother coming to sit beside me.” His hand suddenly squeezed mine and his brow furrowed. “I remember us always being together. He was always at my side, I think. Papa’s two boys.”
I fought back the lump chasing up my throat. This man. This six foot six, 250-pound man spoke with such reverie about his lost brother. With such softness and affection in his husky deep voice.
“What else, baby?” I asked, still stroking through his hair.
His eyes crinkled at the corners as he pushed himself to remember. “I had a sister Zoya.” He sucked in a deep breath and his body tensed. “She … she followed me everywhere, called me her sykhaara.”
“What does that mean?” I asked soothingly.
Zaal’s lip lifted in a fond smile. “My sweetness.”
Adoration filled his eyes when he said, “She was five. She had long black hair, and such dark eyes they almost matched. A brown so dark it looked like coal. She would always be with me. Told me I would protect her when she was older, when me and my brother led the family.”
My soul splintered when the tiniest tear slipped from the corner of his left eye. His haunted stare searched for mine, and when it connected, he said, “They ripped her from my arms, Talia. The guards, our own traitor guard, ripped her from my neck.” He took a shuddering breath. “She cried my name, her hand reached out for me to save her.” More tears fell, and his hand trembled. “And when they fired their guns, and Jakhua forced me to watch, Zoya’s dark eyes were still watching me, like … like she expected me to save her.”
His voice broke. I shuffled down the sofa to take his face in my hands. “You were eight, Zaal. A child.”
He tried to breathe, his chest rapidly rising and falling. Then he added, “When their bodies were piled up, they were like slaughtered cattle. When they had all been killed and left outside to rot in the hot sun, I saw her arm on the ground. Zoya was trapped under my grandmama, her little dead body was hiding from view. But her hand was still reaching out for me. She’d wanted me to save her, expected me to, right until the end.”
Tears tumbled down his cheeks, but his face was unchanged. He looked up at me and the devastated expression in his eyes destroyed me. “I let her down,” he whispered. “I couldn’t save her. And I have to live with that forever.”
I wrapped my arms around his chest, squeezing him tightly. Zaal held on tight. He always held on tight. Like he was the Earth, and I was his sun.
“He killed them all, Talia. Killed them like they were pigs. My family.”
“I know, Zaal,” I soothed, and just held him in my arms.
A few minutes later, with Zaal’s fingers wrapped in my hair, I felt his chest move. I looked up to see a whisper of a smile on his lips.
I melted.
I stared at him waiting for him to speak, when he murmured, “Sykhaara.”
“My sweetness,” I said, remembering the translation.
“She did not even understand what it meant.”
“Then why did she call you it?” I questioned.
“My grandmama called me and Anri it. We were her favorites. Her Georgian princes, she would say.”
It made me smile. Zaal noticed. He tipped his head to the side in question. “Like I was close to my babushka, you were close to yours.”
“How did she die?” he asked.
I inhaled and explained, “Heart attack. We found her one day in her chair, it was the anniversary of my dedushka’s death.” I shook my head, the pain of that day still strong. “My mama always said she died of a broken heart.”
Zaal was quiet as he contemplated my words, no doubt thinking about who was responsible for my dedushka’s death. With a sigh, Zaal said quietly, “I do not remember my papa well, Talia. I wear the name Kostava, though I find, apart from a few strong memories that seem set on repeat, I do not know the man at all.” Zaal patted his chest. “But know that I am not my papa. I am not vengeful toward your family.”
I held Zaal tighter. My affection for this man swelled to fill my every cell. He was perfect for me. In every single way.
“She would make me dance,” Zaal suddenly rasped, breaking the heavy silence, and turning the direction of the tense topic.
I lifted my head and asked, “Who?”
His eyes narrowed as he thought something over in his head and he answered, “My grandmama.” His eyes then widened. “She is how I know English. She had lived in America before she married my grandpapa.”
A smile broke on my face. “I always wondered how you knew English.”
“It was her. She said to lead the family we should know English. And Russian.”
My chin rested on Zaal’s packed stomach, and I asked, “She taught you to dance?”
I could see Zaal searching his mind for more memories, when he said, “Yes. She said we needed to be real gentlemen.” He exhaled like the memory took effort to remember. “We would dance to her favorite song, a song she heard in America.”
“What was it? The song?” I pushed eagerly.
He racked his brain and said, “I’ll Walk … I’ll Walk…” His lips pursed and his forehead creased as he pushed the memory. Then his beautiful green eyes lit up. “Alone,” he said. “‘I’ll Walk … Alone.’”
My breathing paused in disbelief.
“What?” Zaal asked, my face obviously showing my surprise.
“It was one of my babushka’s favorites. It’s by Dinah Shore.”
I lifted myself from Zaal’s arms and reached for my phone on the coffee table. I scrolled to my music and found the track. Zaal sat up in interest, and as I turned my head, I just had to pause
.
He was so damn beautiful.
My heart raced as he sat there in black sweats and a white T-shirt. His olive-skinned muscles stood out against the paleness of the white and his long hair hung in front of his face. I loved his hair, I really did, but I loved his face more.
Zaal was staring at me. “What?” he asked.
“You’re so handsome,” I said quietly, and felt the blush build on my cheeks. “Takoy krasivyy.”
Zaal regarded me strangely, as if he had no idea why another person would ever regard someone as handsome. I sat with that thought for a second, and realized, he probably didn’t.
Getting to my feet, I walked toward him. Zaal sat up looking at me. His sitting down was almost the same height as me standing.
Reaching up to my hair, I pulled on the band keeping it in a ponytail. My long hair fell down over my shoulders and I held it in my hand.
Zaal frowned. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Can I do something?” I asked. Zaal regarded me warily. I leaned down and ran the back of my hand across his face. “I love your long hair, Zaal, but I want to see your face.”
The frown never moved, but when I raked my hands through his hair, his hands laid on my thighs, his eyes closed, and a low hum sounded in his chest.
I smiled at him and gathered his hair to a knot at the top of his skull. Finished, and wanting to survey my work, I stepped back, and all the air escaped my lungs.
Zaal was looking up at me, and I felt like I was seeing him for the first time. With his long black hair brushed off his face, his regally beautiful face—high cheekbones, dark eyebrows, full lips—staring up at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the world, a stark reality hit home.
I’d more than fallen for Zaal. He now completely owned me. In every possible way. He was in my every cell, my every breath, my every heartbeat.
Zaal rose to his feet, and with his newly visible face, I stared up at him, struck mute and lost for words.
Zaal leaned down, and giving me exactly what I needed, met my lips with his. It was soft, gentle, and more meaningful than any rushed, passionate embrace could be; it told me everything I needed to know. I owned him, too.