88

Anatoli
“Leif…”
A creak sounds outside the door. Another follows, and another.
It’s footsteps on the floorboards. Since it’s not coming from the front entrance, I know it’s not Zakh or Malik, so it must be someone else who’s already here.
Readying my gun, I get up and charge through the door. Whoever the fuck is here, and isn’t supposed to be, is going to die a very painful death.
I move out into the hallway, looking around frantically to see who it is but find nothing.
When I turn around, something sharp enters my neck; then there’s a tinging pain that feels like I’m being stung by a bee.
I touch the spot and feel… a fucking dart?
I pull it out and look at the sharp needle at the end, quickly realizing when spots speckle my vision that it’s a tranquilizer. Like the kind our enforcers use when they want to bring people in for interrogation. Before my mind can truly register what’s happening, my arms go numb then limp at my side.
This can’t be an ordinary tranq. I’d be out like a light by now if it were.
This is something else. Something worse.
Ice spreads from my neck to my shoulders then shoots up and down my body.
The gun falls from my hand, along with the dart, and I drop to my knees on the hardwood floor.
Seconds later, I’m completely on the ground and my vision blurs.
Those footsteps sound again, but they sound different this time. Like heels click- clacking against the floorboards.
At first, I’m not sure if I’m thinking that because my brain has turned to mush, but when Mira comes into my view wearing six-inch heels and a white fur coat, I know what I heard was right.
The smile on her face suggests I’m about to receive more answers I won’t like.
But that smile… that sinister smile painted on her thin red lips as she watches what might be my last moments tells me everything I need to know.
It’s like a punch to my gut and truth without words slapping me in the face like the hostile wave of a tsunami. One that devastates my mind when I think of Avrora. She’s supposed to be with Mira.
We both look at the dart, and that smile of hers grows wider, becoming the kind of triumphant a conqueror of nations would wear.
“It’s a special blend I had the labs concoct for me.” Her accented voice is dripping with power. It’s no longer meek like it was months ago when we met and she appeared to be the grieving wife. “I got them to mix Deadly Night Shade along with a lower dose of etorphine and a phenothiazine, just so I could speak to you. I didn’t want you to just hear me, I wanted you to listen.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I can barely speak. My mouth is hardly moving as the words spill out.
“Yes. It was me, dear boy. I am the Mark.” She laughs.
“You’re the Mark?” A pang of shock slams into my chest. I thought she was going to say she worked for the Mark. I never expected it to be her.
“Consider yourself lucky. Only a handful of people in my establishment, like Uther, know that. Everyone else assumes I’m a man. A powerful mafia boss with all sorts of wicked ideas up his sleeves. They never expect the psychiatrist, or the woman who does bake sales at her local church, or the organizer of the floral arrangement club at the country club. They certainly would never expect it to be Mira Scarfoni, wife of the recently departed Evgeni Scarfoni.”
Fucking hell. I don’t know how I missed this. During my entire time here, I never went soft, not once, but she blindsided me.
“Why would you need to become the Mark? Your family is wealthy.” I can’t understand why she’d need to build an establishment based on shit like human and sex trafficking.
“That wealth was never for me. It was for my husband. The same husband who only married me to please his parents and fulfill his duty to the Knights.” She grinds her teeth, and the vein in her neck tightens. “I sound like I hated him, but I didn’t. Not the way you think. The poison I slipped him wasn’t supposed to kill him either, but Mikhail gave him too much. I just wanted Evgeni out of the picture so Mikhail could take over. We needed the wealth from the Scarfoni empire after losing millions in a deal that went wrong.”
“You fucking bitch.” Her, the bitch, and her son. At least my instincts were right about Mikhail. He was involved, and she just covered his tracks so everything looked legit and switched the focus to Uther.
“The fucking bitch is what you have to become when you live in a world of villains and monsters who own you. I was promised to your father from birth. Just like Avrora, my parents bread me to love him. But the difference between us was, I was madly in love with your father. Madly and deeply. That was never a lie.” A tear runs down her cheek, and she quickly wipes it away. “It hurt me to no end that he never loved me, not even when I thought things were good between us. He never stopped loving your mother and grieved for her, and you, his bastard son, right up until he slipped into that coma. I found him looking at these mere hours before. I didn’t even know he had them.”
She reaches into her bag, pulls out a stack of pictures, and throws them down beside me so they scatter.
They’re all of my mother and me. Pictures Mom must have given my father. There are some of her holding me on a chair when I was too young to remember, and some of me as a baby. The others are a mixture of me when I was older and a bunch of my parents when they must have been teenagers.
My insides twist on seeing more evidence of how wrong and mistaken I was.
My father truly loved my mother and me. Both Leif and I were led down a misguided path of revenge on an innocent man. But Leif was still right to keep me a secret because this woman here is the real devil.
“I always knew about the cheating.” She regains her former strength. “That day I came to see you, I was only there to see what I was up against. When you took the fall for the meek little wife, obviously under Leif’s instructions, I knew I had you right where I wanted you.”
My lips move, but I can’t talk any more.
“I always knew Evgeni never stopped being with your mother even when she was with other people. She moved to Russia because she couldn’t stand seeing him with me. But he took every chance he could to be with her. Then the day came when I overheard your mother telling him about you. That changed everything for him. He was going to leave me, so I sent the men to kill you and your mother. I thought my loyal dog, Uther, did everything right. Imagine my surprise when you turned up at my son’s wedding and stole his bride.”
I grunt, and she frowns.
“I didn’t know what shocked me more-that or knowing Leif saved you. But poor Leif has finally met his end. Things are back on track now.”
“Ca… mille,” I garble. My voice sounds like it’s being chewed up by a shredder.
“Don’t worry about Avrora. Uther and I have a long-standing arrangement for his faux daughter. I scratched his back and helped him climb the Bratva ranks. Now it’s time for him to pay his dues.” She laughs again, and I have no voice left to ask any more questions about Avrora. “You sent your wife right into my trap. All these long years, we watched her, making sure she didn’t remember what happened to her and her family. The goal was to get her back, and now we have her far, far away from anyone who can take her from us. I’ll get the oil company, and Mikhail will get the girl he loves.”
No. No. No.
She reaches into her bag once more and pulls out a black block with wires attached to it. My heart gallops when I realize it’s a bomb.
“One last parting gift, Anatoli Scarfoni. Sometimes you have to do things yourself to make sure it gets done.” She sets the bomb down right beside my face. On the front of it is a picture of my mother. Dead. Just like how I last saw her. She’s lying on the floor with her neck broken and her eyes wide. “That picture is mine, but you can have it.”
She gives me one last smile and then taps the top of the bomb, activating it to give her two minutes to get out.
The clock starts ticking, counting down in tandem with her steps as she walks away, never looking back.
The clock ticks, and as I watch my mother’s face, my body continues to shut down.
Then I think of her-Avrora.
My wife.
My Valkyrie.
My love.
She needs me.
I remember what Xiou said. That the Mark would get rid of her when they had no use for her. That’s what Mira plans to do.
I can’t let that happen.
I can’t abandon my wife to such a fate. To death.
The thought makes me move my legs. God, there’s still some life left in my legs.
Behind me is a window. If I can just get to it, I might be able to escape and land in the garden.
I can already feel the ice working down my body, and I have one minute left before the bomb goes off.
Summoning every strength left inside me, I move my body, wiggling at first, then I manage to get back up onto my knees without using my hands.
I push myself forward, slipping and sliding, my vision snapping in and out as the shit Mira gave me continues taking effect. But I fight, fight, fight, moving myself forward.
I reach the window, use my head, and ram it open. Then I push myself through just as the bomb goes off, exploding.
I’m falling. But I don’t even know if I make it out alive.