Chapter 99

Keenan was sitting quietly in back as we drove, his hands in his lap. I was looking out of the window, but not really looking. I missed Marek. We were so close now that it hurt that much more.

“I think we broke him.” My brother leaned over and whispered to me.

I turned to him and sighed. “I mean, you being alive tends to break people.”

“Sure, but…like…look at him. He’s completely gone.”

Lorenzo looked in the mirror and I turned around. Keenan did look really lost. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I walked over to him and squatted down on the running board.

“You okay, fratellino?”

Behind me, I heard a chuckle. “He is really like a fratellino. Poor guy. Stuck being adopted into our shitty little family.”

“Shut up, Lor. Seriously.” I turned back to Keenan. “It’s been a lot for you today. Did you want to sleep? We still have an hour before we get there.”

Keenan shook his head. “No. I just…there is a lot I feel like I’m missing.”

I took his hands and Keenan finally looked up at me. “Ask anything. I will answer.”

“Marek knows you’re Kharon.”

Nodding, I smiled. “I didn’t know how to tell him at first. I was so worried. Every time I thought I could I chickened out. You were still in Russia and Aleksei was still alive. I finally broke down and told him. He still wanted me, still loved me. Somehow.” I felt my cheeks turn red.

As soon as I heard the gagging sound, I punched the back of Lorenzo’s wheelchair. “Hey!”

“He didn’t tell Vor, did he?” Keenan, thankfully, ignored my brother.

“He didn’t. Marek was worried that Juri might try to use me like my family had. It’s hard to know you have Kharon at your fingertips and not want to use them for your own families gain.”

Keenan rubbed his hand over his face. “But…Vor is going to know now. I mean, there is no way Zann or Boris aren’t going to tell Vor. Lec might not but it’s purely because he would want to wait for Marek.”

I nodded slowly. “I understood that the moment I walked in that room. Finding Marek made it worth it. There was no way that I could have gotten the information out that I needed without going there. I just tend to lose myself…”

“Lover boy pulled her back the last time.” Lorenzo jumped in.

Keenan looked from him to me. “Lover…boy? Marek? When you guys were downstairs with the mercenary?”

Nodding again, I sighed. “Lor, for the last time, shut the hell up.”

“Okay, okay. Cranky much. Go get laid or something.”

I growled at him. “I’ve had to deal with Enzo for two straight weeks. I’d like to see you do that.”

Lorenzo knocked on his chair. “He’s done enough damage to me, thanks.”

“Enzo was the one that tried to kill you?” Keenan asked my brother.

“Yeah. Nearly succeeded too if it wasn’t for Ria. She saved me. She used some of her torture techniques to mitigate as much damage as possible before getting me to the hospital. Then she ensured that I was dead.” He glanced back at us in the mirror. “Ria is the only reason I’m alive today. It’s why I give her such a steep discount on my services.”

I rolled my eyes but Keenan finally let out a chuckle. “You two are something else. You remind me of my girlfriend’s siblings.”

“She’s cheating on you, by the way.”

Groaning, I punched Lorenzo in the head. “Lor! Fucking…shut the fuck up. You can’t just say that shit!”

“I mean, he should know now before it gets any deeper. He was looking at rings the other day. I’m just saving him…”

I wanted to strangle my brother. Keenan let out a heavy sigh.

“Keenan, he…”

“He’s not wrong, is he?” Keenan looked up at me. “I mean, I kind of suspected it while I was in Russia, but…I just thought if we got married maybe she would stop. Maybe we could be just as happy.”

My brother shook his head. “Sorry, fratellino, it wouldn’t have. It was way before you went to Russia. Like, two years ago is when it started. You just paid for her school and everything. She didn’t want to lose that because the other asshole is a married man with kids.”

“Lorenzo, there are times where I wonder why I saved you.”

“It’s okay, Atamansha.”

Shaking my head, I took his hands. “It’s not okay. Don’t make excuses for him. Now is not the appropriate time to be talking about this.”

“I mean, I didn’t know if I would see him again. We all could die in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Yes, we could. And then it wouldn’t have fucking mattered if his girlfriend cheated on him because he would have died never knowing. Stupidi pazzi insensibili.”

Lorenzo gasped over-exaggeratedly. “You did not just call me numb nuts.”

I growled at him. “I’m not fucking wrong am I? Or have you miraculously started to feel your junk? Cause if so, let me kick them.”

Keenan threw his head back and laughed, shaking his head. “I can’t with you two. You’re so serious all the time, even with Marek. But with him, you’re like an actual nineteen year old.”

Smiling, I let out a deep sigh. “I am sorry about him.”

“It’s really okay. I knew, for the most part. I just thought I loved her enough to put on blinders. That one day she would see that and change. But seeing how you and pakhan were, it made me realize that maybe I never loved her to begin with.”

“It is pretty gross, isn’t it?”

I cracked my knuckles. “You never said if you got feeling back.”

“I didn’t! Jesus! I come help you personally and this is what I get! Sibling abuse!”

Sitting back against the side of the van, I sighed and rifled around the cabinets until I found the one that was a cooler. It had some water bottles in it. Holding out one for Keenan, he took it and nodded to me. Grabbing another one, I opened the top and then replaced the empty soda can next to the drivers seat.

“Thanks, idiota emotivamente stentato.” [Thanks, emotionally stunted idiot.]

I chose to not clap back at Lorenzo and sat down across from Keenan again. The pain in my legs was starting to get worse and everything in my body was tell me I’d already gone well past my limit. Pulling out two pulls from the bag in my pocket, I threw them in my mouth and took a couple swigs of water.

“Be careful with those. They are untested with...”

Before he could say anything else, I cut him off. “It doesn’t matter, Lor.”

He glanced at me in the mirror before nodding. “Just be careful.”

“What did you bring me to work with?”

“Well, I have a drone with some mounted guns I can use. Perfect for infiltration.”

My fingers pinched the bridge of my nose. “I literally said for me. Not you.”

Lorenzo grumbled but pointed to the far side of the van. “The ones marked with a triangle. That is for this section of our crusade.”

Moving over a little, I leaned forward and opened up the cabinets. Inside there were a multitude of guns, smoke bombs, ammunition, flash bangs, knives and of course the drone was packed in some foam next to them. Looking up, I opened up one of the longer cabinets and pulled out one of the bulletproof vests.

Throwing one to Keenan, I pulled one on myself. He moved over to grab a few things from the box and his eyes widened.

“These are…some of these aren’t even on the black market yet.”

“If there is anything Lorenzo is good at, it’s getting things that no one else should have.”

Lorenzo cleared his throat. “Damn right. I’m the best at my job.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I hate to admit it, but he’s right.”

“I just leave the killing to my little sis. She’s the expert. That and apparently giving her heart away to the first man who accepts her as Kharon.”

“Lor, don’t push it.”

He huffed. “I’m just saying. You never even let me talk to him. How do I know he’s good enough for you? You didn’t even run the marriage by me.”

“I’m not having this conversation again with you. When you found out, you probably dug so deep in his background that Marek wouldn’t even remember half the shit you know. If you really were against him, you would have set me up with an escape route when I messaged you the first time.”

“Yeah, well…he seemed…decent.”

Keenan chuckled. “Only decent? You let your sister go with just a decent guy?”

Lorenzo let out a huge exaggerated groaned. “Okay. He was fucking perfect for her. Alright. But I’m not happy about not being consulted or included.”

Loading up two pistols and slipping them into their respective holsters at my side, I sighed. “How about this? I’ll ask Marek that the next place we move, you can have your own hidey-hole in it. All to yourself. After you meet him officially.”

“Really?”

“If we survive this…really. Prometto.” [Promise.] I grabbed another gun and put it in another holster on my thigh. 

Lorenzo nodded. “Then I guess we have to make sure we survive this.”

“Damn right. Plus, we are going to kill my father too.”

Keenan sat up straight in his seat. “Wait…we are doing what?”