Chapter 18

NATALIA.

Tomas's eyes narrowed and my heart stopped. Before I could move or scream, he crashed into me, knocking me off my feet and onto the sand. The air whooshed out of my lungs with a grunt.

"Wha—"

But he was already up on his feet with a snake in his hands that he wrenched its neck. "Are you okay?" He tossed the snake aside.

He knelt next to me, pulling me into his arms and I realized I was shaking all over.

"It's okay, it's dead."

I took gulping breaths. "Thank you."

He nodded, but there was a pinch to the corners of his eyes like something bothered him.

Over the next couple of days even after he saved me from the viper, the distance that had grown between us, my omega managed to fill. Tomas spent his time on the radio, trying to figure out if there was any news, any way forward. And each time he came back with nothing.

“Three days left.” He sighed after we had another magical session in the bedroom. But our sessions weren’t the same as before, as if we were distant and not cherishing each other. It made sense seeing as we now knew what was at stake.

Both of our lives.

“I feel like going out for a walk.” I turned to face him, then sat up, not waiting for a reaction. It was clear by the sadness in his eyes.

“Good idea. Maybe we need a little time to focus. Whenever we’re together, we just get distracted.”

Part of me felt sad about the idea of him not fighting to stay with me, to protect me. But his observation of there only being three days left said it all.

He was thinking the same thing I was: if we didn’t leave the island soon, then Dad would find me, if he hadn’t done so already. The first day he told me about the meeting with Dad, he’d made spaghetti and then forced me to eat it. I couldn’t even consume anything back then. The more time I spent with Tomas, the more I could trust him. It had nothing to do with being stuck on an island, but he’d opened himself up to me.

“I think about my dad and realize with your own experience, we’re not that much different,” I said once we were off the bed and getting changed.

“Yours never physically hurt you. He treated you like a princess. I don’t see how we’re similar.”

The one time Dad did get physical was enough to let me know that if he saw me again he would quite happily kill me. I didn’t tell Tomas that part of the story. And as I got ready to go out, that was the reason I needed time to process what had happened over the last few days. I discovered Tomas was a wolf and that I was wanted dead. It had been so heavy on me that memories of the past had shifted to the back of my mind.

Once I had my dress on and faced him, I saw his concerned expression, as if he’d thought I was keeping something back from him.

“No. He never laid a hand on me because I was his perfect princess. I did everything he said I should do, so he had no reason to hurt me, until now.”

He inhaled sharply. “Why?”

“Because he probably thinks that I’ve ratted him out to others about what he did with his brother. Once word like that comes out, then we know what could happen.”

“Yes. A man who happily slaughters members of his family is a monster.”

It was stupid in the dark world called Bratva, which was full of selling and taking drugs, prostitution, arms dealing, and the rest of it. But there was some kind of code. Not with everything, but a few things were held sacred, and this was one of them.

“Like killing children too.”

“Some guys, like Ivan, think of men who kill women and children as devils.”

I chuckled, thinking we must be talking about different Ivans.

“Ivan Volkov?”

He nodded. “The same one.”

Wow, sometimes I think that nothing can surprise me, then something like that does.

He put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Dorogoy, don’t go too far.”

He was trying to smile and act like he wasn’t concerned, and failing miserably.

I craned my head up higher to try and reach his six-foot-two-inch frame, which was hard for me, unless I stood on a step or two above him.

“Here.” He pressed his lips against mine, stopping me from straining my neck.

As he pulled away, I smiled, but I was worried at the same time. I had to go out by myself, so I simply nodded to him as I left the room.

Tomas was right, I shouldn’t go too far, because as much as I was trying to act like a big girl and all that, I was scared. Frightened ever since he mentioned my dad. I’d lied to Tomas, but I knew if I told him the truth, he wouldn’t forgive himself for turning to my dad, and he wouldn’t forgive me for lying.

And for some reason, that bothered me more than anything ever had before. Funny. I had never cared what Tomas thought of me. Now, I wanted more than anything to please him and see him happy.

I put on my sandals and then headed through the door. I ran down the stairs and then, before I knew it, the sand started to run through my sandals. Usually, I would take them off as soon as I hit the stairs, but this time, my idea wasn’t to head to the beach but through the woods at the back. It didn’t take long for me to get tired from walking before I found myself drifting from the beach and into the woods. I didn’t want to go this far from the house, but the memories and thoughts I was fighting so hard made me feel restless and unable to make sense of anything.

“My baby girl is leaving me. Soon she’ll be in America with those wolves.” Dad smiled as he walked into his office with me trailing behind him.

I stood coldly by the door. I’d hoped not to see him. I’d hoped he wouldn’t turn up at my uncle’s funeral. But he did, and it made me hate him even more.

“Anywhere to be as far away from you as possible. The sight of you makes me sick.”

“Printsessa, why do you talk to me like that?”

I moved closer to him. There was so much hate and anger inside of me. I hated my uncle for staying, for knowing that his big brother could kill him, and for allowing him to do it.

“Because you killed the one man I ever loved! You put him in his grave and then you come to his funeral with your crocodile tears. Acting as if you’re sad that he’s dead. I didn’t want him dead. I wanted it to be you!”

With my last word, he struck me. We moved closer with every word and then he lashed out at me.

I held on to my cheek and asked the question that I regretted from the moment the words left my lips.

“Was that how you killed him? Hit him? Tortured him? Just like you’re about to do me?”

“Shhh, they can hear you out there!” Mom warned as she came into Dad’s office and closed the door. I cut my eyes to her, ignoring her words, as I wanted him to answer.

“I took my gun. This gun in my hand, and I did this…”

He undid the safety and pointed it to the temple of my head. Our eyes were locked, and I could see he wanted to do the same to me as he did to his brother.

“Vladimir, what are you doing? What are you saying?” Mom asked as she pulled me away from his gun. My eyes were closed, as I thought he was about to kill me. I could see it in the way he looked at me; the idea of his little girl no longer thinking he was king was probably worth removing me from the world. He wanted his girl back, but as I tugged away from Mom and left them both standing there, I turned and headed to the door with tears streaming from my eyes. I moved swiftly, partly out of fear and shock about the trail of events.

This time he pretended his hand was a pistol. It was a warning to me, and the last time I’d see him.

I knew the next time I did, no more would he be using his hand to pretend to kill me.

T

omas had told me about obeying his dad and having to do everything he said to survive. I only had one bad encounter with Dad brought on by not being his perfect little girl and following his rules. I’d turned a blind eye to any hint of murder or the type of person he had been until then. No more could I do it when Uncle Maxim died, though.

I had to go back to the house and confess it all to Tomas, but I was too tired and I sat down and rested for a bit. He had been good to me, he didn’t have to tell me about my dad, especially when he’d told me about the beatings and tortures he’d faced at the hands of his father. If we did have a future together, then it needed to be built on honesty.

The sound of crunching leaves interrupted my thoughts. There was only one person who had footsteps and could be trudging through the woods the way he was, and that was Tomas.

“Privyazannost, I’m over here…” I shouted as I waved at him. I hadn’t spoken Russian for a while, so it was weird being able to speak and hear it with him. I felt like once I left there, everything about the place I once knew as home had died, but it was in my blood, as much as my time in America had tried to erase it.

He started to pick up his pace, but with the way he ran with such heavy footsteps, I had a feeling something was wrong. We were on an island and he was slightly tanned, but it was as if all the blood had drained from his face and he looked like a cold sheet of white.

“Tomas, what is it? Why do you look like that?”

He was sweating, and he wasn’t running that long to have built up such a sweat. There was only one thing that made a man look this way, and that was fear.

He was scaring me with his silence. His lips moved, but they were forming no words, and he was avoiding my stare, so I got up to face him. He looked as though he’d seen a ghost.

“He’s here.”

Who?

I was about to ask, but then realized the one person we’d been speaking about. The one I’d had a flashback about was on this island almost like I had a premonition, a warning.

No, he couldn’t be. Tomas said he didn’t know where I was. Had he lied and told him?

Bile burned the back of my throat and I took a step backward. “How?”

If Tomas had told him, he wouldn’t be looking the way he was right now. He would be more confident in his actions and not act like a scared little boy.

Tomas shrugged. “I don’t know. This is so fucked-up. I fucked up. I wanted to protect you, and now I worry that I’ve brought you to harm. If he found us so easily, then the other guys could too.”

He lifted his hands to his hair and ran his fingers through it. While he was doing that, I noticed his eyes were full of sorrow.

“After you left the house, I wanted to make sure you were safe. I need to protect you, Natalia. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Immediately, I checked in with my men. There was no response. I remember thinking maybe they left their posts, they’ve gone to the bathroom or to get something to eat, that they cannot be on watch all the time. So, I went to the balcony and saw the boat was gone too. No, it was too much. It could only mean one thing.”

They were dead, and Dad had killed them. I clamped my arms over my stomach, trying not to be sick. All this time away, I’d forgotten about the bloodshed that I never batted an eye at before. Now my uncle’s gentle smile haunted me. Those men probably had families, people who loved them, and because of me, they were dead.

“I was trying to figure out a way for us to get off the island, trying to do it all. Then he was on the boat, driving up to the dock, and he said he came in peace. I asked him about my men…”

I lifted my hand, thinking he should spare me the details. I didn’t want to hear about his men, his friends who had been slaughtered at the hand of my father.

“And he told you to get me.”

He nodded. “He said he wanted to talk to the both of us. Then he would talk to you alone.”

I got up and ignored Tomas’s hand as he tried to help me up. I had to be strong to face my father, and Tomas thought all it had to do with was my uncle. If we made it out of here alive, then I would tell him everything. He deserved it. If we were going to be together forever, then I had to be honest with him. But now wasn’t the time.