Page 81 of Born into Chaos

I nearly weep at the sound of Vitya’s voice. He steps out from where he’d been hiding in the shadows, gun drawn and aimed right at Shane’s head.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot her,” Shane yells.

Vitya stops a few feet from us, and when he meets my eyes, my knees threaten to buckle. It’s a quick look, but it holds so much. He gives me a lifetime’s worth of love in those few precious seconds.

Putting his focus back on Shane, he says, “You’re surrounded, and you’re not getting out of this alive. Put the gun down, and I give you my word it’ll be a quick death. Keep pointing that gun at my girls, and I’ll make sure you die a very slow death.”

Time stills as Shane looks between me and Vitya. He’s not the brightest man on a good day, and this is really testing his limits. I can see movement in my peripheral vision, but I can’t look away from the man who’s pointing a gun at me. I hear Samantha’s soft cry behind me seconds before I know Shane’s made his decision. I have just enough time to look at Vitya once more before everything goes to shit.

I wait for the pain that I know is coming, for the force of the bullet to knock me back, but instead I hear Vitya yell my name, and then his body is in front of mine right as the loud crack of the gunshot echos through the dark alley. His arms wrap around me, cradling me so his larger body is completely protecting mine. I hear his deep grunt when the bullet that was meant for me hits him instead. More shots go off as the car seat slips from my fingers and the weight of Vitya’s body pulls me down.

Samantha screams while the wet heat of Vitya’s blood covers my chest. I roll him over as gently as I can while also desperately looking around to make sure Samantha is okay.

“I’ve got her, Sveta,” I hear Luka say right before he grabs the car seat and gets her out of the way. “She’s okay.”

A sob tears from my throat when I look down at Vitya. The exitwound on his upper chest is bleeding freely, and when I press my hands to it, he groans as his eyes start to roll back.

“Don’t you dare leave me,” I sob, feeling like I’m living in some sort of hellish déjà vu that I’ll never be able to escape from.

Pyotr kneels beside us, taking over as I cup Vitya’s face and force him to look at me. I’ve never seen him look so sad before, and I hate it because I know what he’s thinking. He’s looking at me like he’s trying to say goodbye, and I’m not fucking having it. I shake my head and kiss him before resting my forehead against his.

“Don’t leave us,” I beg him. “I love you so much.”

I’m crying so hard that the tears are dripping onto him, but all he does is rest his hand on mine. The movement is sluggish, like it’s taking all his strength to do it.

His eyes look glazed when he looks into mine, and his next words destroy me.

“Thank you for saving my life.”

He’s never thanked me for that night, and even though it’s annoyed me at times, it’s also one of the things I love most about him. It’s a long-standing joke between us, and the only reason he’s saying it now is because he thinks he’s dying.

“I wanted more time to love you,” he whispers. “Both of you.”

“You’re not leaving us, Vitya. Do you hear me?”

His eyes start to close while Pyotr tells me they need to get him in a car. When I’m too slow to move, he yells, “Sveta, we need to move him now!”

I fall back on my heels while they carry him to a waiting SUV. I try to get to my feet to go after them, but a pair of hands stop me. Dazed, I look up into my dad’s face, and seeing his familiar brown eyes is when I completely lose it. He catches me as I collapse, and then he holds me while I sob against him. I hear the SUV speed off, taking my heart with it as my dad’s hand cups the back of my head and he holds me tightly, just like he used to do when I was little and scared from a nightmare. He tells me over and over again that he loves me and that everything is going to be all right, but I’m no longer a child. I’m old enough to knowthat bad things do happen and that happy endings aren’t always guaranteed.

When I’ve sobbed myself into a numb state where my body still gives the occasional shudder but my eyes have no more tears to give, he cups my face and pulls me back just enough so he can see me. Worry fills my dad’s eyes as he studies me, making sure I’m okay, but his face hardens when he sees the bruise that Shane left on my cheek.

“He hit you?”

“I’m fine. It was just one hit.” My words sound hollow, all the fight gone right out of me, and I think that scares my dad more than anything.

“Did he do anything else?”

“No,” I quickly tell him. “Nothing else.”

He lets out a relieved sigh before saying, “They’re taking Vitya to Dominic’s. His doctors are ready and waiting. They’re going to do everything they can for him.” He keeps searching my face, watching to see how I’m handling the news so far. When I don’t pass out, he says, “Do you want me to take you there, or would you rather go home and we can wait until we hear something?”

I’m already shaking my head at the idea of being anywhere other than with Vitya. My home is with him, and there’s nowhere else I want to be. My dad sighs, seeing the determination on my face.

“Okay, I’ll drive you there. We can call your mom on the way and let her know you’re okay. We’ve been worried sick about you.”

My dad is always the first one to make a joke, always so quick to smile and laugh, and I’ve never seen him look like this before. His voice cracks when he tells me he loves me and pulls me in for another hug.

“I love you too, Dad,” I tell him. When he lets me go, I look around for Luka. He’s standing near his car, holding a bundled up Samantha while my brother digs around in the diaper bag for one of her bottles. As soon as I see her, my eyes start to fill again. Overcome with the urge to hold her, I break away from my dad and run over to them. My brother grabs me before I can get to her, pulling me in for a tight hug.

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