Page 73 of Sexting the Silverfox

“Yeah.”

I hold my breath as I watch him carefully approach the front door. A second knock has my heart thudding like crazy, the blood rushing through my body and turning the heat up by a thousand degrees. I can see him opening the door, but it’s as if he’s moving in slow motion.

As soon as I see my brother Vitaly’s face, I’m tempted to relax, but then I spot the gun coming up, and I want to scream. I am paralyzed, my voice stuck in my throat, frozen in place as I watch the entire scene unfold in fragments of time that I cannot keep up with.

“Hands up,” Vitaly says.

Jason doesn’t fight him on it. He puts his hands up and takes a couple of steps back. “Don’t do anything stupid, Vitaly; that’s all I ask,” he calmly replies.

“Shut it,” my brother snaps.

I can see the anguish on his face. His good arm is holding the gun, the other wrapped tightly in a white brace up through his shoulder. He appears to have literally tumbled out of his hospital bed to come here and do what, exactly? “Vitaly,” I breathe, shaken to the core. “How’d you find us?”

“You continue to underestimate us, little sister,” Vitaly retorts with a heavy sigh. “You should’ve obeyed our father. You should’ve done as you were told. And you,” he adds, careful to keep the gun pointed at Jason. “You shouldn’t have done what you did.”

“It’s not your place to berate him,” my father’s voice echoes from somewhere behind Vitaly. I gasp as my brother steps to the side, allowing our father to come in. He isn’t walking, though. He’s in a wheelchair, and he looks miserable. His eyes are sunken in, his face pale, and he looks as if he’s lost a few more pounds since I last saw him. If he loses any more, he might just wither away like a dying flower. “Audrey, my little zaika, so glad to see you’re alive and well.”

I instinctively move away from my father and brother. “What the hell are you doing out of the hospital in your condition?”

“Give the man credit,” Jason says, watching Vitaly like a hawk. He must be waiting for an opportunity to disarm him. But outside, standing close to the doorway, I spot one too many Fedorov men in black suits and sunglasses, each of them likely carrying a weapon and ready to use it. “You were right, Audrey, my love. Your father is relentless. Like a cockroach.”

“What more do you want from me?” I shout, despair tightening my throat. I’m on the verge of tears, and the last thing I want is for my father to see me crying.

“We need to talk,” my father says.

“Vitaly, how are you still condoning this?” I try to plead with my brother, hoping I might get through to him somehow.

But the pained look on his face tells me any effort on my part is useless. “I’m sorry, little sister. This is family. And you know how we handle family affairs.”

“It’s going to be okay, Audrey, I promise,” Jason says, his tone strangely calm under the circumstances.

Minutes pass in heavy silence as my father comes into the living room, the electric wheelchair humming along the way. Vitaly keeps his gun pointed at Jason, and it’s making me all the more nervous while I’m unable to actually move. I doubt I’d be able to escape, anyway. They have the house surrounded.

“Where’s Anton?” I ask.

“He’s still recovering,” Vitaly says. “His injuries were a tad more severe. The doctors said he might make it worse if he insists on checking himself out.”

“And you didn’t make it worse on yourself?” I reply.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I shoot back. “You always have a choice, Vitaly, no matter what our father tells you.”

“Little zaika, enough,” our father cuts in with a wry smile. “Come, now, it’s time to go home. We’ll take good care of you and your baby.”

Jason scoffs, shaking his head slowly. “I take it you didn’t hear a single word I said back at that meeting with Arkady. I made you a promise, Grigori, and I intend to keep it.”

“For ridding me of Arkady, I will be forever grateful, which is why I have instructed my son not to kill you, even though you deserve it,” my father says. “You should’ve killed me, Mr. Winchester. Because a surviving Fedorov is ten times worse than an angry one.”

“You’re not taking Audrey away from me,” Jason replies.

“Oh, but I am. And you won’t do anything about it. You do not scare me, Mr. Winchester. I’ll give you credit; you are ruthless. A man like you would get far in the Bratva. Should you wish to join your business with ours, I’m more than happy to have a chat about it at some point in the future. But Audrey is my daughter. She is a Fedorov. I almost lost her to this wretched city, but now, I am taking her home, where she belongs.”

“I belong with Jason,” I shout, finding my voice. “Stop fucking talking about me like I’m not even here. I’m pregnant with Jason’s child. We’re in love. We want to live together, to build something together, to have a family. Do you remember what that is, Papa? Family? Real family, I mean, not this Bratva bullshit you keep trying to shove down our throats.” I pause and look at Vitaly. “Do you remember Mom, big brother? Do you remember how happy we were when she was alive? How you and Anton and I would run out of our rooms and almost tumble downstairs whenever she came home?”

For a moment, I spot a glimpse of hesitation in his blue eyes. But then the pain returns and his grip on the gun gets even tighter. “That’s all in the past, Audrey.”

“I am going to have a baby. I cannot and will not raise my child to become like you or Anton. Or worse, like our father,” I say. “How can you be so cruel, so spineless?”

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