Page 65 of Last Hand

Anya stares at me with tear-streaked cheeks and a trembling chin. “You’re coming back, right?”

“I am,” I whisper, brushing her tangled hair off her face. “But I have to help your mom. I have to try.”

She nods, barely. Then I go. One thing I do have some reassurance of is that Mikahil is unlikely to kill his own daughters; me, he won’t hesitate.

I slip through the shadows, keeping low as I crawl to the edge of the clearing. Then I see them. Mikhail. My mother. He has her on her knees, blood running down her face and coating her hands, her blouse torn. She’s thrashing, still trying to push him off, spitting curses even as he hits her again and again.

“Call the girls to come out,” he demands, his voice carrying across the still night air.

“Go to hell,” she spits, blood and saliva splattering his expensive shoes.

He grabs her by the throat, lifting her slightly off the ground. “I’ll find them with or without you. I’ll make this quick if you tell me where they went.”

My mother laughs—a ragged, broken sound. “Then do it, you fucking coward.”

He drops her, disgust twisting his features. He nods to one of his men, Igor. The hulking Russian steps forward, drawing his gun from its holster.

And then Mikhail shoves her to the ground in front of Igor who lifts his gun, aiming directly at her.

“No…” I whisper, taking a step forward. I need to do something. Anything. I can’t just watch this happen.

Bang.

The sound echoes through the trees and seems to stop time itself. She slumps forward. Dead. Just like that. One moment alive, and the next… nothing.

A scream claws its way up my throat, and I slam my hands over my mouth, shaking violently as I sink to my knees. No sound escapes. My mother. She bought us time. She fought. And he?—

Pain explodes at the back of my head. Everything goes black.

Pain throbs at the base of my skull, each pulse like a hammer striking an anvil. I blink awake to darkness and the taste of dirt in my mouth. For a moment, I can’t remember where I am or why I’m face-down in forest debris. Then it comes back in flashes—the cabin, the fire, my mother’s body on the grass. I bite back a sob. No time for grief. Not if I want to keep the girls alive.

I push myself up on trembling arms, the world tilting and spinning around me. Blood matts my hair, warm and sticky against my scalp. “Where are my daughters?” Mikhail screams, grabbing my hair. I don’t even feel it, no pain, nothing, just a horrifying numbness as I stare at my mother’s body lying limp.

FIFTEEN

Leone

I feel it before I hear it—that shift in the air when something’s gone sideways. My phone buzzes with a text from Marco, one of my scouts positioned near the old country road. Six cars, all black, headed for the cabin. Nathan’s mother’s place. My gut tightens as I slide the phone back into my pocket.

Milo catches my eye from across the room. He’s mid-conversation with Rocco, whom we came to check on while we waited for Mikhail’s’ next request, twenty years of brotherhood means he can read the tension in my shoulders like it’s written in neon. He excuses himself and crosses to me, his movements fluid.

“Problem?” he asks, voice low.

“Mikhail’s making a move. Seems Nathan was right, his mother’s place.”

His jaw ticks, the only sign that the news affects him at all. “How many?”

“Six cars. An unknown number of men are scouring the forests near the town.”

We’re interrupted by my phone ringing. I check the caller ID. Nathan.

“Rebecca called. I think they’re in trouble. She told me to get the red door. The red door—remember what I told you about the red—” If they are checking the forest near the town, they haven’t figured it out the link to Rebecca and Fallon to search his mother’s place.

“I have to go,” he says. “I have to get to her.”

“Not alone, where are you? I’ll grab you on the way, I already have men out that way.”

“They’ll kill her!” The desperation in his voice is raw, primal.

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