Page 79 of The Tsar's Obsession
Making a split-second decision, I hauled Polina onto my shoulder and tugged on Mia's hand, dragging her out of the apartment and into my car.
Time stood fucking still as I floored it to the nearest emergency room, knowing full well that tonight's attack was premeditated, well-planned, and caught me completely off-guard.
Who was I if I couldn't foresee this? Who was I if myown homewas infiltrated? When my closest partner was hung in my fucking safe house!
Someone was a traitor. Someone close, someonedearto me.
"Where is she?!" Dmitry rushed into the waiting room of the emergency department, his eyes bloodshot and his shirt untucked. Holding his tears back, he paced the waiting room back and forth, while Mia rested on my lap, her eyes closed, her hands no longer bloodied.
As if switching personalities, Mia kicked into high gear and fielded all the doctors’ questions about how it all happened, making up lies on the spot.
Polina was alive but unconscious. A few more minutes and she wouldn't have survived. A few more minutes. God was looking out for us.
"I'm going to stay." Dmitry nodded. "I'm going to stay with her until she wakes up.” He looked frazzled and confused, his black hair longer than ever, tossed around in different directions.
"No.” My answer was absolute, and he didn't dare argue. "Yuri’s on his way. We're all going to Mia's old apartment, and both you and he better lay it the fuck out for me."
But neither Dmitry nor Yuri had any answers as we sat around Mia's dining table hours later while she locked herself in the shower.
No one knew what happened, how, or who was responsible. The front door camera at my apartment went offline that afternoon, and I never received a notification. The alarm system had been disabled. The concierge saw no one. The building’s video footage was corrupted. There was no trail. There were no details. There wasnothing.
Whoever was responsible cleared all the tracks. They knewa lot.Too much.
"It's the fucking Italians, gotta be." Dmitry provided his opinion, his clean-shaved jaw clenching every few seconds. "Domenic has been restless. He decided to act, thinking Polina was your woman. I fuckingtoldyou to act first, Kirill!" He raised his voice slightly and stared through me. "How the fuck is this going to look now? The Skhodka is in a few weeks. This will trickle down so fast, we won't be able to control it–”
"Then shut your mouth and tell no one,” I growled back, my patience non-existent. "It's your fucking job to make sure this shit never happens, Dima! Don't fucking read me lectures." Where was the betrayal? I had no idea. It was staring me right in my eyes, but clearly, I had lost all vision.
Why was he so sure it was Domenic? I knew, Iknewit wasn’t. Bringing Mia to that wine club was not accidental. I was well aware that he would be there that night, and I showed up with Mia to declare that we both had too much to lose if we played the dirty game. I had a woman just like him. He didn’t touch what was mine, and I wouldn’t either.
Dmitry leaned back on the chair and dropped his cigarettes on the table. "You can't smoke here, and also, what the fuck happened to your apartment?" I asked, still thinking about Domenic but eager to finally find out the details that he still hadn’t revealed.
"It went up in fucking flames. I came home to ashes. All of it, fucking gone." His voice quiet, he closed his eyes and dropped his bulky shoulders. He had no place to stay, but he sure as hell wasn’t staying on Mia's couch.
"Get our guys to surround the perimeter of this building. Anyone suspicious in and out, report to me immediately," I spat out instructions, not having any idea if it would do anything. "I want Francesco removed, his family contacted, and him buried according to his will." My poor old man, he served so diligently. What a fucked-up way to go.
"Lastly, I need twenty-four-hour security around Polina. As soon as she opens her eyes, I need to know, no matter the time."
Yuri nodded, taking out his phone to carry out my instructions. Unnervingly, he stayed quiet almost the entire time. This conversation led to nothing, and while Dmitry left a few minutes later, Yuri remained, evidently waiting for us to be alone.
"What?" I asked, knowing he had something on his mind.
"I don't know." That didn’t mean much. Yuri always said he didn’t know, even when he was one hundred percent certain. "Why was Polina at the safe house? My keys are right here." He jingled his keys. "Where are hers? Where are Dima's?" I didn't think any of those answers would bring any clarity.
“Have you been seeing anything out of place?Anyindication that this was on the horizon?”
Yuri pursed his lips and shook his head. “No. Everything is business as usual.” Fucking great, Yuri had no fucking leads. “I’m going to go to the safe house now and check it out. See if I can find anything. I got my seasoned guys downstairs.” Yuri followed Dmitry, leaving me with my own rotten thoughts.
With everyone gone, I found my girl in the shower, fully clothed, her eyes aimlessly staring at the wall. I opened the door, but she didn’t even flinch. I sat down beside her, the lukewarm water pelting us both.
Slowly, she rubbed her hands together. Scrubbing. She was trying to scrub the blood off, even though it was long gone.
"Sunshine, you can't spend so much time in the water; it will damage your–"
"There was so much blood, Kirill," she interrupted me quietly, still staring at the wall. "Did he suffer? Does it hurt when– when you die like that?"
This. This heartbreak in her voice, the uncertainty, the trauma—this wasexactlywhat I was desperate to avoid. "And what about Polina? Is she going to survive? Are we next?" She chuckled without any humor, her wet hair plastered against her neck and cheeks.
I pulled her onto my lap, cradling her face in my hands. "No one will ever take you from me, Sunshine. No one." My lips found her wet cheeks, pressing against the traces of her tears, steadying the red haze raging inside me. "If anyone so much as touches you with even a finger, I will cut them apart, piece by fucking piece. Do you understand?" I held her gaze, her beautiful eyes glistening with fresh tears. "I will annihilate anyone who dares to threaten you, baby. I swear to God. I’ll burn the whole fucking world to the ground, but I will never let anyone hurt you.”
