Chapter 52: Mikhail

I see Ivan hustling Natalia away with a gun held to her head, and I run.

I run with all the strength I can summon.

I don’t know where it comes from, because God knows my body is still weak, but I’m sprinting. I’m moving with one goal in mind. I need to get my wife back.

Eric and the men from our combined brotherhoods follow behind me, clearing the path through Ivan’s men and covering me as I rush down the hallway. So are the cartel men below who swore their allegiance to me.

I watch Ivan hurry Natalia outside, and I follow.

They’re far ahead of me, which places me at a direct disadvantage.

I leap over the stairs and continue running, chasing them across the grass. He’s heading for the waterfall.

He takes a set of stairs, and I can see why he went that way. There’s a bridge there. Across it waits a truck.

He turns back to me and fires several shots I manage to dodge. Only just.

I’m massively off my game.

Natalia screams and stumbles, but he yanks her up and drags her. If I could just get a clear shot, I could kill him, but it’s too risky with her next to him.

I shoot ahead at the path he’s aiming for, but he continues.

Bastard. He knows I won’t risk hitting her. That’s why he’s still running, practically shielding his ass with her.

“Stop, Ivan!” I call out, but it’s to no fucking avail.

It’s only when he notices Aiden running up toward the other side of the bridge where he was heading that he stops abruptly.

I watch confusion set in, and the motherfucker decides to head for the water instead. He’s fleeing to the fucking river.

He ends up on a dusty path that leads to a dead end. He can’t go any further beside what looks like a two-hundred-foot drop into jagged rock and rough waters.

They’ll die if they fall in. No question about it.

Ivan stops at the end of the track, whirls around, then holds the gun to Natalia’s head.

I stop when I notice the wicked smirk on his face.

He glances at the water and smiles wider. “Us and water don’t agree, brother. Remember when I tried to drown you in the river?”

“So, you finally admit it,” I reply, baring my teeth.

“I do. The people who matter can’t hear my confession, though. They’re all dead.”

“They are. It didn’t have to be like this.” I’m talking but looking at Natalia.

She’s terrified and shaking. Her eyes are wide with terror. There are bruises on her face that look like someone hit her. I can’t imagine that person being anyone other than my bastard brother.

“It had to be exactly like this, because you shouldn’t exist,” Ivan sneers. “You should never have been born and never have been my competition. It was a disgrace. All of it. You, your whore mother, and your sister.”

“Let my wife go, Ivan.” I’m not interested in talking to him about the past. I had nothing to do with it.

I sympathize because he got a raw deal, but it doesn’t give him the right to fuck me and everybody I love over.

“No, I’m not letting her go. If you kill me, she dies,” he threatens.

“Let her go, you fucking prick. This is between you and me.”

“I don’t think so.”

Natalia’s eyes shift to the right in a suggestive way, and I catch her meaning. She’s going to move to the right to give me a clear shot.

Fuck. It’s risky. They’re too close to the edge. Much too close. This could go wrong, but it’s either that or allowing Ivan to kill her.

I decide to continue talking to him to give her the chance she needs and create my own diversion.

“Ivan, let her go!” I shout, and on realizing my words for the distraction they are, Natalia kicks Ivan hard in his shin and moves to the right.

That small window gives me a clear shot, but I only fucking manage to shoot him in his shoulder.

The impact makes him release her, and he falls over the edge, but not before pulling Natalia over with him.

She screams, and I bolt forward, thinking she’s gone.

I thank God in heaven when I see her clutching a thicket of roots jutting out of the side. Ivan is just below her, holding on to more roots, and the motherfucker is tugging on her leg, trying to make her fall.

That’s not going to happen.

I raise my gun, and as he looks at me, I fire one bullet into his forehead, the same way he had my mother killed.

In an instant, he falls, his cold eyes on me, hating me with his last breath.

I rush to Natalia as she slips and lean over to reach for her. I need to get her up here fast, because that root she’s holding on to is going to break free any second.

“Baby, reach up to me. Take my hand,” I call to her.

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared. You have to trust me. Please trust me. Give me your hand.”

She gazes up at me with her beautiful eyes, and I try to lower myself some more. I get to a point where if I lean any further, I’ll go over the side.

“Come on, Natalia.”

She reaches up but slips, and the hope dies in her eyes.

“Thank you for coming for me. Thank you for trying to save me. I can’t do it Mikhail. I can’t reach you.”

“No, don’t you dare give up!”

“I love you.”

The branch breaks, and she screams. In that split of a second her hand flies out, I grab her, keeping my vow to myself to never let go.

I roar as I pull her up, lifting myself, too, and crawling backward with her in my arms.

She holds on to me as I press her to my heart, never letting go.

I won’t.

Not ever.

The nightmare is over.