Page 42 of The Bratva's Innocent Pregnant Bride
Now that I was actually doing the research I’d been putting off, I wanted to keep going, certain I was close to gaining valuable information that would give us some sure answers about who was leading the Collective these days. But Paisley was sure to be down there helping out and the prospect of getting her under a sprig of mistletoe had me heading toward the stairs.
I was halfway down when I spotted the tree, blazing under thousands of lights. The huge fir took six of my cousins to get it inside and it reached almost to the top of the thirty foot ceiling in the massive entry hall. It was a dazzling sight, infusing me with a fresh burst of holiday cheer.
The kids were dancing around, thrilled they’d won the fight over the color of the lights, then scattered toward the door where all the packages of ornaments were gathered. How could anyone care about things like work and enemies when there were little children excited to decorate a Christmas tree?
And when had I grown so soft hearted? My eyes found Paisley and the warmth in my chest increased, a smile nearly splitting my face. Until I noticed she was as pale as the fluffy fake snow piled under the tree, and her eyes were wide. Not with wonder at the lights, she wasn’t even looking at them. That was fear, as she hurried toward the table full of presents at the bottom of the stairs.
Something gripped me and made me move faster. Paisley was in trouble. I would have bet everything I owned on that. How? I had no idea, only knew I had to get to her and protecther somehow. Skipping the last three steps, I flung myself over the curving bannister and threw myself in her path. There was a powerful noise as my body connected with hers and a great force tossed us as I wrapped my arms around her and tried to shield her.
We landed in a heap, skidding several feet on the highly polished wood floor, the sound of shouting and hysterical children muffled by the ringing in my ears. The back of my neck and my arms stung and the acrid smell of smoke filled my ears. Keeping my arms locked around Paisley, I surveyed the damage.
The debris was oddly festive, with shreds of metallic and brightly colored paper drifting through the air. The table the presents were on was obliterated and small fires burned all around it. The women were hurrying the children out front, away from the flames and smoke, and Mat and Rurik jumped onto the chaotic scene with fire extinguishers.
“We don’t know if there’s another bomb,” Aleks said, a cut on his face where some exploded gift had hit him.
“Bomb?” Paisley whimpered beneath me.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said by force of habit. But Aleks was right. We were still in danger inside the house.
I picked Paisley up and carried her outside where the women were trying to calm the little ones down. Settling her on a bench, I looked her over to see if she was hurt. Thankfully I was able to shield her in time, and there were no scratches or cuts on her pale face.
“Stay here,” I said, turning away to help search for any more incendiary devices and make sure it was safe to return indoors.
She grabbed my wrist, holding on tight, her blue eyes wild with fear. “The present,” she said, short of breath.
She looked like she wanted to say something else but clamped her lips together into a white line. Her whole body trembled and I squeezed her shoulder, trying to impart some sense of comfort, even though I had no idea if this was the end of the attack or not. Still shaking, she got up to help out with the kids, walking like someone who’d seen a ghost.
I couldn’t blame her. She’d never had to deal with something like this before. Attacks were frightening for those of us who were used to them. I watched her for a moment, ready to spring forward if she crumbled, but she only knelt down beside a sobbing Pavel and gathered him into her arms.
Inside the lodge, the entry hall, which had been so majestic with the towering, glittering tree only moments before, was now a mess of scattered papers and other bits of everything that had been wrapped up before. I paused when I stepped on something hard, kicking aside a diamond encrusted bracelet. A charred silk scarf fluttered down from one of the branches when I helped my cousin Lev inspect the tree, still miraculously standing.
“Someone figured out where we are,” he said.
I nodded grimly. It was the only explanation. Lev had been as close as Paisley and I, but he hadn’t noticed Paisley’s oddly terrified face. It was only my premonition and overpowering urge to protect her that kept us from being badly hurt. Lev had a cut at his hairline that dripped blood down the side of his face, and Nik had been thrown and was limping slightly.
“Were any of the women hurt?” I asked. I only had eyes for Paisley when I took her outside. “Or the kids?”
Aleks strode past, picking some kind of glittery shrapnel out of the side of his neck. “No, thankfully the little ones were by the door when it happened. I think Masha has a few scratches but nothing too bad. Just a damn mess.”
“We can’t let this lie,” I said, fury growing. “Now that the Collective knows where we’re at, we need to strike back immediately.”
Aleks sighed. “We don’t know it was the Collective. We don’t know anything yet. It’s less than a week until Christmas.”
“And?” I asked. “I have an entire list of companies I’m linking to them. We need to show them we won’t take this lying down.”
He gave me a hard look, as equally outraged, but older and wiser. He shook his head once. “When we know exactly who to strike back at, we’ll strike. Until then, we’re going to salvage Christmas for the kids.”
That settled that, and I went back to clearing the area and continuing the sweep for more explosives. Pretty soon we determined there was nothing else to fear in the house, and let everyone back inside. Katie brought everyone in through the back door so the kids wouldn’t see the carnage and get upset all over again. I tried to get a glimpse of Paisley, but was sidetracked by the new effort to comb through the wreckage for any salvageable gifts.
My cousins’ dedication to saving Christmas was admirable, but all I wanted to do was fight. Paisley’s pale face, so full of terror, kept flashing through my eyes. If I had been a couple minutes later, she would have been right in front of the table when it exploded.
But why was she hurrying toward it in the first place, and why did she look so scared even before the bomb wentoff? Was it an unlucky coincidence, or maybe the same kind of premonition that had me leaping over the banister? But surely I wouldn’t have felt the need to do that if I hadn’t seen that look on her face.
Then it hit me like a thunderbolt where I heard about Axon before. Paisley used to work there.
Maybe she still did. I was already crouched under the tree, trying to pull a tattered doll from the lower branches, and the shock of that sudden realization made me sit down hard. Did she know what was about to happen? And if so, why hurry forward in that direction?
Was she trying to stop it or was she the one who set it off somehow?
