Part One Hundred and Seventeen

Part One Hundred and Seventeen
Hunter looked at Nikita’s face as the phone dropped from his hand and he started running down the hallway. Yana was asleep and she looked at the little girl’s face again. Volkov lifted his head as Hunter stood up.
“Stay with Yana, Volkov,” she said and started running after Nikita.
She knew the dog would obey. He’d taken a strong liking to Hunter and when he’d started following her around the compound, Lev had been disgusted with the dog. The dog obeyed her every order and she knew nobody would touch Yana with Volkov next to her.
Nikita was either ignoring her or he wasn’t in a state to actually realize that she was yelling his name but she knew where he was going. Only his apartment led down this hallway and she had no idea what the phone call had been about.
Nikita looked like a crazed man. His hands were all over the walls, feeling for something and Hunter grabbed his arm. “Nikita! What the fuck is going on?”
“Sabrina!” he yelled and his eyes widened as he felt something. He took a step back and started kicking the wall. The second kick had a doorway splinter open as the wallpaper tore and now Hunter could see the seams of the door.
Nikita turned the flashlight on and then he was running. Hunter didn’t wait and followed inside the walls of the compound. She could make out Nikita’s bulk in front of her and the faint light in front of him.
It felt like hours and miles but Hunter kept following him. Hunter felt like she’d run the length of the compound when Nikita finally stopped and he kicked in another door. His bulk came to a stop just inside the door and Hunter gasped loudly.
There was a three quarter bed pushed against one wall with a camping lantern on a small wooden table. Nikita was screaming as he went down to his knees. The smell in the room was musty and the bed sheets were stained.
“Fuck, Sabrina,” Nikita said as his hands covered his face and the big man started to sob.
Hunter knelt next to him and wrapped herself around him. Nikita’s arms lowered and he grabbed her tightly. He was crushing her ribs, but she didn’t let go of him. She’d pieced it together. On the bed were the skeletal remains of Sabrina Sobol, Nikita’s wife.
The remains still had a dress on and some hair clung to the skull. The sick fuck, Timo, had slept next to her rotting body and then her skeleton for a year in this room, with Nikita living upstairs with his daughter, wondering why his wife had left him.
Hunter cried with Nikita and for him as well. His pain became her pain and she thought about little Yana’s fear of the man that had taken her mother. She knew she was capable of murder as she sat with Nikita on that dusty floor.
“Fuck,” Lev said as he appeared in the doorway.
“Nikita,” Jasha whispered and put his arm on Nikita’s shoulder. “Come on, big buy, let’s get you out of here. Gedeon will bring Sabrina. We’ll bury her with respect, brother.”
Nikita looked up into Hunter’s eyes and she flung herself forward and hugged him. His arms had never left her and now she squeezed the life out of him. “Dominic will make sure he suffers, I promise you.”
Hunter had stayed, no matter how much Lev had begged her to leave the room, she’d refused. She watched Gedeon as he and Sasha carried Sabrina out on the blanket she’d been on. Her bones rattled and Hunter had to swallow down the bile.
“Come on, baby, it’s over now. The men will clear this room out and erase all traces of Timo. Yana is safe and Nikita can mourn his wife,” Lev said gently.
“He slept next to her corpse, Lev,” Hunter whispered and closed her eyes.
“He’s being eaten by rats as we speak,” Lev said and cupped her face.
Hunter took Lev’s hand and let him lead her out of the room and back into Nikita’s apartment. Over the coming weeks they would scope out the whole of the interior tunnels in the walls of the compound.
Volkov growled the moment Lev stepped into their bedroom and Hunter had to smile. “Easy, Volkov.” The dog’s tail began to wag and he ran toward Hunter and rubbed his large body against her legs.
“I swear that dog only listens to you,” Lev said.
A knock on their bedroom door had Lev pulling it open. Nikita stood there, looking better than he had earlier. “I’m okay. I will not break, I will be strong for Yana.”
“I’ve got her, Nikita. She’s safe with me too, I promise,” Hunter said.
“I know, VP, I appreciate you looking out for her, but she is my daughter and I will never stop being her father,” Nikita said.
Hunter stepped aside and Nikita walked over to the bed and picked Yana up gently. He kissed her head and cradled her against his big body. She sighed in her sleep and snuggled in closer to him and a faint smile appeared on Nikita’s lips.
“Goodnight, Lev, VP,” Nikita said and walked out of their bedroom with his daughter.
Hunter sat down on the ottoman in front of the bed and lowered her head to her hands. She felt so overwhelmed with all the emotions going through her that she hadn’t realized she’d been crying until Lev wiped the tears from her face.
“I don’t appreciate you following Nikita down to that room but I do appreciate you not leaving him alone,” Lev said and kissed her hands.
“When he screamed her name … it was so gut wrenching, Lev,” she said softly.
“You will always be bonded by that. Nikita will always remember who was there with him in his time of need. I’m glad it was you, I’m glad he had someone with him when he found her,” Lev said.
“I want to know that bastard suffered,” she said, her voice full of conviction.
“Your brother cut his balls open and left him in a container bound for Serbia with a few hungry rats,” Lev said and smiled.
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring his liver back for Volkov.”
Volkov started wagging his tail again and Hunter huffed out a laugh as Lev gave her a grin. “He knows that word and now he’s going to want meat.”