Chapter 175 175

Chapter 175 175
I’ll do it for Jo. For my baby girl. I’ll do what I’ve done once before: leave her behind so that she can have a better life than the one I’m able to offer.

Even if we can’t ever be a family, at least she’ll have her father. At least Isaak will have her.

It’s the most I can give either one of them now.

“You don’t want her, Maxim,” I tell him. “We’d have to leave the country, and you don’t want to be saddled with another man’s child, do you?”

That seems to get through to him. He nods crisply like a business decision has been made. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll leave the kid, and you help to get us out of here.”

I nod.

Satisfied, he opens the door and gestures for me to lead the way. His men part to let me go out ahead of all of them.

Maxim joins me at the threshold of the door. I can hear the sounds of Isaak’s troops amassing on the other side.

“I have your wife, Isaak,” Maxim calls out. “I have your daughter.”

Jo’s head jerks up towards me. “Mommy, what is he saying?”

I lift her up in my arms. “Nothing, baby. Don’t listen to him.”

She buries her head in my shoulder. I cling hard to her, trying to internalize this moment before I have to let her go. Is it possible that this will be the last time I see her?

It’s a cruel end to the journey I’ve been on these past several years, but—

I freeze as I remember what I have in my pocket right now. Something Nikita gave me on our way out of the compound to come here. The last words she ever spoke directly to me.

A woman should never be without a way out, she told me when she pressed it into my hand.

The knowledge of what’s in my pocket gives me renewed courage. Fresh hope.

Maybe there’s a way I can save Jo, as well as myself.

Maybe there’s an alternate ending to this tragedy.

Maybe we can all make it out together.

“I want a vehicle,” Maxim yells. “Right fucking now, or I’m going to be handing you a pair of bodies.”

He grabs my arm and pulls me out of the house. My eyes land on Isaak, who’s frozen in place a few feet away. Bodies litter the ground. I keep my hand on the back of Jo’s head to press her face into my chest.

“Don’t look up, okay, baby?”

“Okay,” Jo replies, her voice trembling with tears.

“If the vehicle is not here in a minute, I will use this gun,” Maxim vows.

I can feel his men at my back, but I decide not to worry about them now. Seconds later, a vehicle is driven up and parked between Isaak’s men and Maxim’s small, straggling group.

He tries to pull me towards the jeep, but I resist him.

“No, you promised me,” I say. “Jo.”

“Jesus,” he growls. “Put her down then. Let the brat run to her father.”

“Jo,” I whisper to her. “Baby, I’m going to need you to go to Isaak now.”

She pulls her face back just enough to look at me. “No, I don’t wanna leave you.”

There are tear tracks staining her cheeks, and it makes my heart break. “I know, love. I know. But Isaak has to get you out of here.”

“Back home?”

“Yes.”

“Will Aunty Bree be there?”

“I will make sure she is. Trust me, my darling. I love you.” I straighten up.

Isaak watches the whole exchange with careful eyes. “Camila…”

“Isaak, this is the only way. Just trust me, okay?”

Bogdan moves forward and grabs Jo. I don’t even have a chance to truly savor her weight in my arms before it’s gone.

Then Bogdan is retreating back into the ranks with my baby in his arms…

While I do everything I can not to fall apart completely.

Isaak takes a step forward, but Maxim points his gun directly at me. “That was the bargain, Isaak. You get the girl. I get the woman. We’ll be leaving now.”

“That is my wife,” Isaak growls.

“Not anymore,” he says, grabbing my arm. “Now, she’s going to be my whore. You got what you wanted. You got the Bratva. But I’m not leaving empty-handed.”

Pleased with those parting words, he steers me towards the jeep.

That’s when I strike.

I’m not even really aiming. My hand shakes desperately as I swing through the air. But I make sure the blade pierces his flesh. I bury it in his stomach, and as his eyes go wide with shock and pain, I kick at his groin for good measure.

Andrew’s eyes meet mine. He raises his gun to my head.

But before he can shoot, another gunshot goes off. He looks down and I watch as the blood blossoms across his belly. He drops a moment later.

Good fucking riddance.

I feel as though the air has been knocked out of me as someone grabs me around the waist and yanks me to a side. When I look up, I’m staring into his blue eyes.

“Isaak…”

“Are you okay?” he asks urgently.

“I… I think so.”

His eyes scour my body, looking for any signs of injury.

“Did I kill him?” I ask.

Isaak glances over his shoulder. “Not quite.”

“Then you can finish the job for me,” I say.

He nods once and walks over to Maxim’s body. The other Vorobev is spitting blood as he stares up at his cousin.

“I gave you two chances to leave,” Isaak says in the voice of an executioner. “Two chances to live. You spurned them both.”

Maxim can only gurgle at this point. I want to look away, but I can’t seem to. His remaining five men are corpses now. They surround him in a morbid ring of broken bones and crimson blood.

“But family still means something to me,” Isaak says. “And you are my brother. So instead of giving you the drawn-out and painful ending you deserve…”

He points the gun at Maxim’s head.

“I will give you a clean death.”

He shoots. I jerk at the sound. Maxim’s body twitches once, then goes limp.

And only then do I allow myself to feel relief.

It’s over. It’s over. It’s all fucking over.

I get up, turn, and run towards Bogdan, who’s still holding Jo. She reaches out to me and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, my baby needing her mother. My girl in my arms.

“It’s okay, darling,” I tell her as she cries. “Mommy’s here now.”

I feel Isaak come up at my shoulder.

“Isaak’s right here, too,” I assure her. “We’re both here. And we’re never, ever going to leave you again.”