“I-I love you too,” I gasp. “All—all of you, I?—”
“They know.”
“Enough!” Ivan snarls and he takes several steps backward, dragging me along. Fyodor begins to advance again, and with each step he takes, Ivan mirrors with several of his own. We stumble together and Ivan ends up dragging me along, keeping his gun on me the whole time.
“Naomi,” Fyodor says, his eyes never leaving mine. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I answer with little thought. I do. I never stopped.
Fyodor suddenly lifts his shotgun and opens fire.
An explosion of pellets rain forth and slam into Ivan’s chest, shoulder, and arm. He lets out a gargled scream and stumbles back—only there’s no more roof left. His determined retreat brought us to the very edge of the roof and there was nothing to catch his fall.
Ivan topples backward, a complete dead weight, yet his grip remains like a vise around my arm. A final look of victory flashes in his eyes before he falls from the roof and drags me with him.
A scream of terror escapes me as the roof disappears from beneath my feet, and Ivan’s body drags me down into an infinite darkness of smoke and heat.
I’m weightless, falling down, down, down…
I trusted Fyodor! I trusted him and?—
My scream of fear is cut short almost immediately when I thump down onto something that’s firm but soft. Tightness winds around me, drawing me up from my fall and holding me close. Whatever I land on crumples underneath me with a grunt. Pain flares across my arm as Ivan’s nail scratch grooves into my arm upon release, and his body falls into the abyss.
“Ow,” groans an achingly family voice.
“Zasha!”
I push myself up immediately and stare down at Zasha who has his arms securely around me and a cheeky smile on his face. We’re balancing on the crumbled remains of a balcony, and Zasha has several ropes attached to his waist.
He caught me.
He caught me?!
“Hey, gorgeous. Would have sucked if I missed, huh?”
38
NAOMI
“You shot me off a roof!” Picking up the nearest pillow, I launch it across the bed to Fyodor, who laughs and catches it just as it strikes him in the chest. “That’s unforgivable.”
“Are you sure?” He crawls up the bed to meet me, then catches my chin before I can turn away from the incoming kiss. His lips are soft and warm. “I saved your life, remember?”
“Is that what that was?” I tease softly, cupping his face with one hand. My thumb strokes through his soft facial hair and he leans in for another sweet kiss.
“I trusted Zasha to catch you.”
“Which I did,” Zasha remarks from where he lies next to my legs, kissing a sensual path up my inner thigh.
“It makes us even, I think,” Fyodor muses. “Payback since you were spying on me for eight months or so.”
“Hmm.” I hum into the next kiss while Zasha lightly pries my legs apart and settles in between them. His silky soft hair drapes over my thigh and his mouth warms the crease between my thigh and core.
It’s a relief that we can talk about this so lightly now. A week has passed since Fyodor, Daniil, and Zasha mounted a rescue at the island. A week since Ivan died. A week since I was sure my life was over, and they swanned back into my life with a promise to listen. Life is finally good.
We’d sat down and talked everything over for nearly three days straight. Everything was out in the open; every detail of my life had been laid bare in explanation, and they didn’t hate me.
Words cannot describe the constant relief singing in my chest that none of them hate me. There is only love in their hearts and that’s all that matters. Their excitement for my baby, too, is unmatched and I learned a valuable lesson.