Page 63 of Shielded Secrets

“Fuck you!” I screamed. Of all the people in the world, it had to be him walking near the spot where Officer O’Malley tried to violate me that one night. Of all the assholes in the universe, he had to be the one to witness me at my worst.

The memory of Rurik and the Baranovs asking me if Jerome could have anything to hold over me came back to me, and I cringed that I hadn’t been truthful then.

“But she married one of the Baranovs,” the lawyer-like man said.

Benson. Eric Benson.He was the one Oleg wanted to follow and get more information out of. I tried to focus on that instead of the threat that Jerome would use my most protected secret against me as leverage.

“That makes her all the more interesting, doesn’t it?” Jerome said. “You wanna know what stakes the Baranovs have in this business, and she will tell you. She’ll tell you whatever you want to know so long as we remind her that we’ll expose her secret.”

“I’m not telling you anything.” A moment of stark irony hit me. This was exactly what I was afraid of, being targeted because of my association with the Baranov name, but this was worse. They could hold my secret over me too. I wasn’t safe no matter who I tried to be with.

“I’m not sure she’d even know anything,” Eric said. “Not if she just married the family.”

Jerome shrugged. “Never know until you try. If you’re uneasy about the Petrovs and Ilyins fighting too much, or whatever drama you’re worried about coming back to bite you in the ass, then what’s there to lose?”

Irina had asked me that question, and it felt like déjà vu to hear it being used again.

I reached into my pocket to record what they were saying, determined not to let these men win. If I could glean any usable intel, I would, and I would be proud to deliver it to the family that had welcomed me into their arms.

“I won’t tell you anything,” I repeated.

“I bet you will.” Jerome smiled. “If I remember correctly, you don’t respond so favorably to when men make advances on you.”

When it was a thirty-year-old-cop trying to rape an eight-year-old, no. No, I did not.

“Kelly here will do whatever it takes to survive. If you want her to turn rat and spill secrets from the Baranovs, she will. She only ran to them like a little desperate whore so she could pretend she’d found a family.” He sneered at me. “But she’ll never be worthy of being in any family. No one’s ever wanted her.”

I rolled my eyes, already aware of how damn wrong he was.

I lost the chance to respond to his harsh words because my family was here. Rurik and Vik burst in through the doors, ready to kill. Another soldier followed them into the office. And in an instant, shots were fired. Eric shot the soldier, alarmingly accurate with his aim. Vik handled the thug who’d snatched me off the sidewalk, and Rurik fought back Jerome.

Eric turned to run out the back door, and I lunged forward to stop him.

All of us fought, each of us locked in a battle of our own, but it was immediately clear that I couldn’t keep Eric from bolting. He hadn’t hesitated to shoot that soldier, but it seemed he didn’t want to risk being caught by the Baranov spies.

“Stop!” I grabbed at him as he squirmed and fought me back, shoving me into the hall with so much force that the air was punched out of my lungs when I slammed into the surface.

In the time that I’d tried to prevent Eric from running, knowing I could count on Rurik and Vik to handle the other two, the thug was dead. Vik had tried to stop him from running, too, but when the idiot got a knife out, Vik eliminated the threat.

Rurik waited to kill Jerome, though. I caught my breath, wheezing from the rushing adrenaline that fueled me, and stepped closer to where my husband held my nemesis’s head between his hands.

“Fuck you, Baranov.” Jerome squeezed his eyes shut tight as Vik punched his gut.

“What do you want with her?”

I strained to swallow, so nervous that Jerome would tell my secret that I was still so ashamed of. “I recorded it all.”

Rurik nodded at me without taking his eyes off Jerome.

“She was an easy target. I knew her. I knew I could use her for whatever I needed.” He strained to speak past the pressure of Rurik’s hands on his head.

“The fuck you will.” With a grotesque snap of bones, he twisted his head and killed him with his bare hands.

I breathed through the shock but didn’t let it rule me. It couldn’t. How could I be stunned by someone being killed when I’d managed that feat myself? When I’d watched others die elsewhere? Hardened by the reality of death and murder, I steadied my breaths and fought not to react. I would only scream so loudly in my head and will myself to lock this moment away, never to revisit it.

“You’re safe, Kelly. You’re safe.” He whooshed out a deep breath as he let Jerome drop to the ground.

Vik was already on his phone, calling for men to help clean this up.

---