Page 101 of Falling for the Enemy

Sharing my thoughts, something he often does, Alejandro rolls off me and jumps to his feet. Pulling me up, he takes my hand and drags me toward the kitchen, where a weapons cache awaits inside a hidden tunnel.

“Casper, send out an emergency call and get everyone here!” I scream over my shoulder. “Then you and Nikolai move the girls to the bunker!”

My heart twists knowing that fear-laced panic undoubtedly grips Mina. I wish for nothing more than to be with her, to comfort her, but that isn’t feasible right now.

Not until I eradicate the threat that faces her.

That faces us all.

“Give my sister a gun!” Alejandro yells. “She won’t have a problem using it to protect those girls!”

With haste, I rip a hidden panel off the wall, revealing an electronic keypad. I quickly type in the code required and step back as a concealed door slides open, revealing a small armory.

The kingpin and I don’t speak.

We simply move.

I slide on a bulletproof vest, then tie my hair into a bun on top of my head. After grabbing a loaded rifle off the wall, along with replacement magazines from the shelf below it, I turn at the same time as Alejandro.

“Ready, Manzana?”

Eager to rip both Stefano and Sergei to pieces, I silence the alarm from the panel next to the door and exit the room, allowing my departure to answer for me.

As always, Alejandro follows.

When we reach the dining room once more, Anna’s panic-stricken voice calls out my name from the stairs that both Nikolai and Casper are escorting the girls down, the sound of their footsteps giving away their location.

“Ari!”

I don’t dare a glance in their direction. The terror on her and Mina’s face will be my undoing.

“I’m here, love!”

I take position by the blown-out window, Alejandro crouching opposite me, both of us using what remains of the wall to shield ourselves from the enemy’s view as more of my men spill into the room, Ivan and Viktor included.

“Everything will be fine. But listen to your brother and Nikolai for me, da?” For once, I mentally add. “And Solnyshko,” I continue, speaking directly to my beautiful baby sister. “I assure you we’ll make it through this. I’ll keep us safe, just as I always do.”

Come what may, this war is ending.

Today.

Against my better judgment, I give in to the mental voice shouting that I may never get to gaze upon Mina’s face again—not if this goes badly—and turn my head, eyes immediately finding her.

My stomach hits the floor.

The vulnerability on her pale face, her tear-streaked features twisted with horror as Casper holds her in his arms, her trembling hand unexpectedly fisting the front of his shirt. Gaze locked on him, he’s the one she’s looking to for reassurance.

Not me.

The sight is like a bomb to the chest.

Though it was likely done out of desperation, more so than anything else, she’s letting Casper hold her, his arms curled around her in an embrace much like the ones I’ve mourned for sixteen years.

I now realize I’ve made a mistake.

Just as I once thought of myself as numb to feeling anything beyond the never-ending emptiness that constantly plagued me, I was wrong each time I told myself that Mina’s demons would never allow her to fall in love.

Because she already has.

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