Page 6 of Runaway Queen

First, I’d have my vengeance. It was the only thing that brought me a measure of calm.

Violence was all I had left. The whirling chaos inside me had only quieted once in my life, around her, my littlelastochka, and now she was gone. It’d never be still again.

I’d learned to live with the storm inside me. People had learned to fear it, and that made sense. The part of me that had been sane and rational had died with her. All that was left were the flames of madness.

There were the only thing that kept me warm.

The only thing I had.

3

NIKOLAI

The day of my release was anticlimactic. My lawyer, Ronan Black, came to oversee the paperwork.

Ronan was the kind of man who liked to dress up in suits and pull a veneer of civility over his brutality, but he was just the same as the rest of us. His stepfather, Brian O’Connor, had made sure of that. Despite going by a different name, Ronan Black was known in our circles as a man you didn’t want to cross. Luckily for me, Kirill employed him on behalf of the Chernov bratva. Funnily enough, he was Bran’s stepbrother. He didn’t go by the surname O’Connor in his professional life. The name was too notorious. Instead, he took his mother’s maiden name and played pretend that he wasn’t the son of a mob boss and his clients weren’t all criminals. Many a man had disappeared who dared to go against Ronan Black, and even the odd, irritating coworker. In the last few years, I’d enjoyed seeing him make the trek out to the prison sporadically to see me. He had hated every second.

“Well, today’s the day, Chernov. I finally get to see your ugly face for the last time.”

“Sure, until I get arrested again.” I smirked at him.

He shot me a glacial look. “Here, I have a cell phone for you. My number is in it. Do not call me for any reason, other than getting arrested again, and for fuck’s sake, Nikolai,” Ronan warned, his voice firm, “stay out of trouble.”

I took the phone from him, turning it over in my hands. “Even phones have changed,” I muttered.

“Congratulations. You’re a time traveler. All your favorite things will still get you in trouble, however, like violence, murder, and general mayhem. Try to not do them too quickly, or I might just kill you myself, instead of representing you again.” His clipped, polished voice sounded at odds with his words.

That accent was as fake as the friendly smile he shot the guards. Ronan had no respect for the police or legal system. He simply enjoyed playing with it, pulling people’s strings to his advantage. I was pretty sure he was a sociopath. Suffice to say, I enjoyed his company.

He’d brought me clothes to wear. A gray suit and shirt. It didn’t feel like me at all, and the material felt odd and too soft after years of rough overalls.

Leaving the prison after many checks, I stopped to collect my belongings, before realizing that, of course, I didn’t have any. I’d left my dog-eared books to the prison library.

The first step outside, onto free land, felt stranger still. I looked around the scrubby car park and the deserted road beyond. A shiny car was sitting at the curb, in the no-parking zone. I approached, knowing only a few assholes who would flaunt the rules right outside a prison. Ronan came out of the building behind me, having dealt with the last of the paperwork. I had Ronan to thank for getting out of jail so quickly. His reduction of my sentence to self-defense had been a masterclass I was sure they’d teach in hell.

“That your car?”

“Sure is. Hop in, I’ll give you a lift into town.”

He took off toward the vehicle without a backward glance. He got into the front passenger seat, which was odd.

Someone was in the back.

I approached, and the window slid down. The sight that met my eyes sent a reluctant grin to my lips.

“Well, well, Mallory Madison, you’re a sight for sore eyes, princess.”

“It’s Molly Chernova, which you know, and don’t call me princess. Kirill might send you back inside if he hears it,” Molly quipped as the door opened.

She pushed herself along the long cream leather seat in the back of the town car, and I ducked in beside her. I inhaled the scent of her perfume. Fuck, it was good to smell something other than male sweat and agony for once.

“Right, and where is your uglier half?”

“Russia. He’s back next week.”

I noticed three more black cars pulling in behind as we left the prison grounds.

“So, Kirill isn’t around. Is that why you’ve got a security battalion following us? Why Russia?”

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