I noticed Sevastyan stiffen beside me. Because he was surprised? Pissed? What?

Paxán, of course, beamed. “You mean that?” Then he slanted Sevastyan an expression that looked a lot like I told you so.

I nodded firmly. Over the long hours of the previous night, I’d grasped how much my indecision and hesitancy were limiting my life. I’d done a postmortem on my past and concluded that I needed to be bolder in my future. Yes, I’d acclimated to the new things Sevastyan and I had done with a certain cheek, but rolling with the punches was not the same as swinging first.

The utter joy on Paxán’s face wrecked me. One thing I’d learned about him? It took so very little to make him happy. “This is good,” he said simply, getting a little misty-eyed.

I glanced over at Sevastyan to gauge his reaction. Even more tension roiled from him. Which I didn’t care about.

“This is cause for celebration!” Paxán said. “A true welcome, a permanent one, to your home. And we have some good news for you as well . . .” He trailed off, turning his head toward the entrance.

Sevastyan was already on his feet, peering in the same direction. I followed their gazes, spied Filip in the doorway.

The man’s angelic face was crumpled in misery. His left hand was bandaged, seeping blood. In his other hand, he carried a machine gun—pointed at us. “Well, isn’t this touching?”

Chapter 25

“What are you doing, Filip?” Paxán paled as he and I stood. “That’s not a weapon you want to aim in close quarters.” The gun was heavy for Filip, and he only had one hand to hold it. His arm was already quaking. “Much less with the safety off.”

When Filip glanced down at the gun, it swayed in his grip. My heart lurched as the barrel’s aim swept from me to Sevastyan to Paxán. “I’m taking you from here,” he said to Paxán. “For the bounty from Travkin.”

What?? Filip was working for that bastard? And there was a bounty? That was the heightened security risk no one would tell me about! Travkin had put money on my father’s life.

“Just set the gun down and talk to me,” Paxán said, his tone deceptively calm.

“No time to talk.” Filip raised his bandaged hand, his voice breaking as he said, “The next go-round, my creditors won’t be as merciful as three fingers.”

They’d . . . maimed him? I covered my mouth, fearing I’d be sick. He had pawned his watch and car, and it still hadn’t been enough. I’d wondered how deep in he was. I’d never imagined this.

Sevastyan grated, “Let Natalie leave.”

Paxán added, “She’s not involved in this in any way.” He was all coolness on the surface, but I sensed his dread.

“She is!” Filip waved that machine gun toward me, making Paxán hiss in a breath and filling me with fear. “Natalie is the reason I’m in this situation. I was an heir! Then word got out that you were leaving her everything.” Tears began to spill down his blotchy cheeks. “But when my creditors got wind of my courting her, they knew I could win over any woman. Suddenly they couldn’t give me enough money.” He aimed at Sevastyan. “Until they heard that the heiress is with the enforcer. They called in their debts.”

“We spoke about this just two days ago,” Paxán said. “I asked if you needed help.”

That was what they’d met about?

“And I didn’t need it”—he nearly spat at Sevastyan—“until he made his move the same day!”

“Then let’s fix the situation,” Paxán said, drawing Filip’s attention away from Sevastyan. “Money is no object. For the memory of your father, I pledge to settle anything you owe.”

“You don’t understand. I need more.” Tears continued to spill; the gun shook erratically as his fingers seemed to cramp. “The bounty Travkin posted is more money than I could ever see.”

“Take me.” Sevastyan’s expression was filled with menace. “I’m a valuable prize for an enemy.”

“I’m here for the old man.”

Paxán swallowed. “Take your finger off the trigger, Filip, and I’ll go with you.”

“I give the orders! You send the bulldog away, then we’ll talk about your long-lost daughter.”

Sevastyan grated, “That won’t happen.”

“You don’t give a damn about yourself, do you? But what if I threaten your precious Natalie?” Filip aimed—directly at me.

I was staring into the barrel of a gun—too terrified to keep my eyes open, too terrified to close them.

The weapon jogged in his weakening arm . . . only a matter of time . . .

“Harm her and your life ends today,” Sevastyan vowed in a chilling tone. “I’m giving you one chance to leave this room alive.”

Filip’s bravado began to dissipate. “I-I don’t have a choice.” He lifted his free hand toward his forehead, then sniveled at the reminder that he’d lost his fingers. In a wheedling voice, he said, “Just let me take him, Sevastyan.”

“Never.” Had Sevastyan eased toward Filip? “This won’t end the way you anticipated. The news hasn’t had time to reach you, but there will be no bounty.”

“What are you talking about? Of course there is! Why wouldn’t there be?”

“Because just hours ago, I shot Travkin.”

I did a double take at Sevastyan. Travkin was dead? That was the good news Paxán had mentioned?

“You’re lying!” Filip’s gaze darted. “Lying!”

Panicked, I said, “Filip, don’t do this. It’s not too late. We can still fix this.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Sevastyan inching even closer to Filip, until he stood between me and Paxán.

“Freeze, Sevastyan!” Filip cried. “I’ll shoot, I swear to God I will!” Another shaky wave of that gun—

Sevastyan lunged at me just as bullets sprayed the room from wall to wall. Clocks exploded, glass shattering, chimes tolling like church bells. I screamed, the sound cut off when I hit the ground; Sevastyan was atop me, hand cupping my head. In his other hand, a pistol smoked.

Plaster dust clouded the air, but I could see Filip on his back across the room. He was shot in the belly, twisting in pain. Though my ears rang as if a siren was in my head, I could still hear his cries. And something else . . .

Paxán’s breaths. They sounded thick. No, no, no! I struggled to rise, but Sevastyan had me pinned down.

“Are you hit?” he demanded of me.

When I shook my head, he lunged to his feet, charging for Filip.

As Sevastyan disarmed him, I scrambled to reach Paxán. He lay on the floor, blood gushing from a wound in his chest.

Sevastyan snatched the machine gun from Filip, then stalked around the room, checking the perimeter. “Natalie, put pressure on that!” He slammed the office doors closed, bolting them shut.

Kneeling beside Paxán, I pressed both of my hands over his wound. “You’re going to be okay, you’re going to be okay.” Shock—I was going into shock. And then how could I help my father?

In between grimaces of pain, Paxán looked sheepish. “This is . . . not how I planned things.”

“Don’t talk, please don’t talk.” Blood skimmed past my fingers. Lifeblood. He can’t lose any more. “You have to save your strength!”

Sevastyan dropped to his knees on Paxán’s other side. He put his hands on top of mine, knotting our fingers to bear down with even more force. Sevastyan’s expression was so hard, like granite under pressure. About to crack.

Paxán’s wound wasn’t fatal. It couldn’t be. So why were they both acting like it?

What did Sevastyan and Paxán know about shootings that I didn’t?

Everything.

Paxán cast Sevastyan a weak smile. “You know I couldn’t have borne it if you’d saved me instead of her. Proud of you, Son.”

The hazy scene replayed in my head. Sevastyan had been directly between Paxán and me when the bullets had flown. He’d made a choice, tackling me to the ground—instead of Paxán. “Stop this, both of you! Paxán, you have to hold on. You’re going to make it!”

“Be at ease, dorogaya moya.” With effort, he reached for me, brushing my face before his arm collapsed.

Then his eyes went to Sevastyan. “You are bound to her,” he told him in Russian. “Her life is in your care, Son. Yours alone.” He covered our bloody knot of fingers with his hand. “She belongs to you.”

One sharp nod from Sevastyan. More pressure on granite.

With difficulty, Paxán turned his head back to me. “Aleksei will protect you. He is yours now too.” I stared down at our interlaced fingers, awash in crimson—it was like a blood oath. “My brave daughter.”

My eyes filled with tears, drops spilling. “Don’t do this! Bátja, please, just hold on.”

“Bátja?” He smiled through his pain, somehow still evincing contentment. “I knew you would call me Dad.” But the twinkling blue of his eyes was ebbing. Replaced by sightlessness? “I only wish I’d had more time with the two of you. I love you both.”

To Sevastyan, he said, “Make her life better . . . for my having been in it.”

Blood bubbled from his lips. His eyes went blank, his chest . . . still.

“No, don’t go!” I sobbed. But it was too late.

Pavel Kovalev, my father, was dead.

Chapter 26

“Natalie, get up!”

The siren in my head was back. Sevastyan was standing beside me, but his words sounded distant.

He grabbed one of my blood-coated hands and hauled me to my feet.

“This isn’t happening,” I muttered as I stumbled along, glass from Paxán’s beloved clocks crunching beneath my heels. “This isn’t happening.” My father couldn’t be dead.

Sevastyan dragged me over to where Filip squirmed in pain, blood pooling from his gut wound.

In a broken voice, Filip told me, “I-I didn’t want this. I came tonight . . . because others were already . . . on their way. It was going to happen. No matter . . . what I did. The bounty is . . . unthinkable.”

Hatred welled up inside me, drying my tears. “Goddamn you! How could you do this?”

“Swear to you, I only came for Paxán.” He reached his mutilated hand toward me. “If I didn’t know about Travkin . . . others won’t have heard yet either. They’ll . . . be coming.”

“What does that mean?”

“Travkin also wanted . . . your head.”

With a furious yell, Sevastyan yanked me behind him, drilling a bullet into Filip’s skull.

Two dead. Two. Slain before my eyes.

I couldn’t catch my breath, my lungs seeming to constrict. I felt like the whole world around me was on fire, flames crackling ever closer. Like if I screamed, no one would hear. I was hyperventilating by the time Sevastyan snatched my upper arm in his punishing grip and started dragging me away. “Come on, Natalie!” Gun raised, he led me toward a door at the back of the office.

“We can’t leave Paxán like this.” I gazed back at his still body. His lifeless eyes. Why hadn’t I closed them? Stupid, stupid. “We have to care for him!”

Sevastyan just yanked me along harder. “I’m taking you from Berezka. We don’t know who can be trusted here.”

I was speechless. As the siren in my head amped up, he shoved me into a garage I’d never seen, then tossed me into a dark sedan.

Haze.

A car ride down the wet shell drive, rain pouring from the night sky.

Sevastyan’s bloody rings digging into the steering wheel.

Mud slashing over the windshield, wipers gritty.

The back of the car fishtailed; I remained frozen.

Sevastyan didn’t slow until we neared the river, then slammed to a stop in front of the boathouse. “You’re going to stay here and lock the doors behind me,” he ordered as he reached across me toward the glove box. “The glass is bulletproof. You do not open these doors.” He took out a pistol, cocked it, flicked off the safety, then held it out to me. When I made no move to take it, he laid it on the console. “If someone gets in anyway, you use the gun. Aim for the chest and pull the trigger.”

Sevastyan was heading out into danger? Already the entire world was on fire; if I lost him too . . . “Where are you going? Don’t leave! Can’t we just stay in this car and drive away?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know who’s controlling the gates. Or who’s waiting outside them. We need to leave by water.” In the Casino Royale boat? “I’ll clear the boathouse, then return for you.”

When he opened the door, his own gun raised, I cried, “Please be careful.”

He cast me an odd look. “Don’t worry, your protection will return.” He slipped out into the rain, swiftly closing in on the boathouse—

I spied a muzzle flash out of the corner of my vision. Heard a sharp pop, like a lightning bolt cut short.

Half of Sevastyan’s upper body was wrenched back, as if he’d been punched in the shoulder.

Not punched. Shot.

Lightning flashed as I screamed. By the time my eyes adjusted, Sevastyan and another man were grappling for a gun.

In the headlights’ beams, I could see it was the brigadier Gleb. Sevastyan struck with one of his anvil fists, connecting with the man’s face. Gleb tottered, overpowered.