Page 37 of Wrath
Did she have a death wish?
Her words from the night of the fire came back to him.
It was supposed to be me first, Wyatt. Not them. I can’t be the one left picking up the pieces again.
Perhaps she did want to die.
Sara had wanted to die. She’d made a deal with the Syndicate for them to bring her back as one of their freaky clones. They’d promised her they would fix her heart disease, and so Sara had killed herself in the bomb explosion that tarnished the Deadly Seven’s name and caused a rift between Wyatt and Evan. She gave the term suicide bomber a new meaning. Was it really suicide if you came back as a cloned replicate?
Too many of Wyatt’s buttons were being pushed with Misha’s circumstances. Why couldn’t she be a goddamned teacher in suburbia, or something equally innocent and boring? Something that would have absolutely no ties to an organized criminal group like the Bratva, or the Syndicate.
Because this is the world you live in, dickhead.It was full of unsavory shit and selfish people. It was why Wyatt and his siblings were created.
Every night, after seeing Misha to her city home, Wyatt returned to his borrowed apartment in the burbs, and knew the family had no idea of her second job. With the restaurant gone, she shouldn’t be beholden to anyone. There was more to the story, or she was working with them.
On the ninth night, Wyatt knew he couldn’t stay in the borrowed apartment any longer. It had grown awkward without his job at the kitchen and worse with every passing day Misha failed to return to the suburban home. She avoided both him and her family. Coupled with the fact that numerous Lazarus family members had been calling him, leaving messages and texting, meant he was due to return to the family fold. Part of him was excited, part was afraid, but for the most part, he knew it was time.
He had to do a few things first.
He handed the Minski family a check to replace the damaged furniture in his room. They tried to refuse him, but he insisted, and when he put his chef-face on, people tended to do as expected. They were sorry to see him go, but he exchanged numbers with Alek and Roksana. He told them to call if they needed anything. Anything at all.
Then Wyatt headed to The Kremlin. This time, he was going as a patron.
Seventeen
It had been justover a week since Misha had last seen Wyatt, and despite trying to convince herself that he was no one to her, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Even now, walking to work through the almost fresh air of Cardinal City, she still had the scent of him seared into her memory. It was as though he stood right next to her.
But she didn’t do relationships for one simple reason—people leave. Whether it’s her or him, inevitably one of them would go first, and the other would be left picking up the pieces of their broken heart. When Misha’s mother died suddenly, it had almost destroyed her father. Misha was nine at the time, and she remembered a lot. When it became clear Alek was deaf, her father struggled even more. There were many nights she’d see him crying softly to himself with a glass of vodka slipping in his hands. Without his one true love there to help him raise a family, Misha had picked up the slack. Like her mother had always said, she was the protector of the family, the one they called when the going got tough.
Alek had texted yesterday to say Wyatt continued to stay at the garage apartment. In fact, he’d been teaching Alek self-defense tactics.
Why, was her first thought. Who were they to him?
It had been easy to say goodbye to Wyatt when she knew he was leaving, but knowing he stuck around and helped her baby brother… a tightness in her chest followed her daily.
Yuri guarded the entrance to The Kremlin as usual, and as she’d done each day since her beating, she gave him little acknowledgment beyond eye contact as she entered. This time, Yuri halted her with a meaty hand to the shoulder. Misha tensed and clutched her bag.
“Please,lapochka,when will you speak to me?” Yuri asked.
Misha could hear the pain in his voice, but it didn’t matter. “I have no words for men who beat me.”
“I was only following orders. If it was not me, it would have been someone else who hurt you worse.”
“So, I’m to thank you?”
“Nyet. But, you see there was no choice.”
“You once said that you would be with me if I agreed to more than one night. What if I had agreed and we were together? What then? Would you still have followed orders?”
Yuri grit his teeth, jaw tendons popping. He had no answer.
“See?” Misha continued. “Relationships mess everything up. It’s better this way. At least we know where we stand.”
Misha didn’t want anything to do with any of them, least of all Dimitri, but after he’d texted her the night of the fire, demanding she return to work the following day, she feared for her family’s life. Worse—he had threatened to bring Roksana in to replace her if she didn’t return.
She knew deep down that Dimitri wanted her, not Roksana. As long as she turned up, did whatever he said, his people would see he had control over her, and he would leave her family alone. Well, that’s what she assumed. She hadn’t seen Dimitri all week. He’d been too busy running around with his new friends, the white-robed ones with Halloween masks.
An air of excitement, danger and fear that went beyond the usual drugs, sex and violence, was present in the club. It was volatile. Dancers had gone missing. Problem customers had too. It was as though anyone daring to speak out of line just disappeared.
