Page 53 of Savage Reins
The thought feels like a noose around my neck. Three weeks ago, those stakes wouldn't have kept me awake. Three weeks ago, Mira Petrov was just another obstacle to be removed, another problem to be solved with violence and fear. Now she's the reason I check my weapon every morning, the reason I scan the horizon for threats that haven't materialized yet.
Now she's the reason I'm about to betray everything I've ever known about survival.
I find her in the main barn, checking Rusalka's legs for heat or swelling. The mare stands patiently under her hands, occasionally shifting her weight but otherwise content to be fussed over. In the dim light filtering through the windows, Miralooks younger than her twenty-three years, vulnerable in a way that makes my chest tight.
"We need to move Rusalka out of the barn tonight…" Pinching the bridge of my nose, I try to think of how to explain this to her without her getting upset with me again.
Mira glances up from Rusalka's front hoof, her gray-blue eyes sharp with immediate concern. "Move her where?"
"To the upper pasture. We should do it tonight too. Keep her there until after the race."
"Why?" But even as she asks, I can see understanding dawn in her expression. The slight stiffening of her shoulders, the way her hand stills on Rusalka's leg. She knows what this means, even if she doesn't want to acknowledge it.
"Because they're coming for her. Not Vadim's people—the Karpins. They want to end this before the race happens at all." I keep my voice level, matter-of-fact, but inside I'm already strategizing. I might need to go to the estate and get more weapons, or maybe just one rifle will do. It's hard to know without knowing who's coming and with what purpose in mind. "The upper pasture gives us better defensive positioning. Clear sight lines, limited access routes."
"Defensive positioning." She repeats the words slowly, as if tasting them on her tongue. "You're talking about a firefight?" She blanches, and it makes something screw tighter in my chest.
"I'm talking about keeping you alive."
The stark honesty of the statement hangs between us, cutting through whatever illusions we've been maintaining about the nature of this situation. This isn't a romance novel where love conquers all through the power of good intentions. This is survival, brutal and unforgiving, where the wrong decision gets you buried in an unmarked grave.
Mira stands slowly, her hand trailing along Rusalka's neck. When she looks at me, there's something hard in her expressionthat wasn't there before. The soft woman who fell asleep in my arms last night has been replaced by someone who understands exactly what I'm asking of her.
"I don't like it," she says.
"You don't have to like it. You just have to do it."
"And if I refuse?"
The question catches me off-guard, not because I haven't considered it but because of how much the possibility terrifies me. If Mira refuses, if she chooses to trust in hope and prayers instead of guns and tactics, then I'll have to watch her die. I'll have to stand by while the Karpins take everything she's fought to save, because I won't force her into a choice she hasn't made freely.
"Then you'll lose everything," I say quietly. "The horse, the ranch, probably your father. Probably yourself."
She flinches as if I've struck her, but she doesn't look away. For a long moment we stare at each other across the width of the stall, and I can see her weighing the options. Trust me and risk becoming complicit in violence, or trust to luck and watch everything burn.
"This is your world," she says finally. "Not mine."
"It's the world we're both living in now, whether you wanted it or not."
The truth of that statement seems to smack her, and she flinches. Mira didn't choose to get involved with the Bratva, didn't ask for her family's debts to drag her into a conflict between criminal organizations. But choice has very little to do with reality, and reality is that men are coming to destroy what she loves.
"Seven days," she whispers, more to herself than to me. "Seven days until the race, and they can't even wait that long."
"They're scared," I tell her. "Scared that Rusalka might actually win, that the debt might get settled clean. Scaredthat they'll lose their excuse to take the whole operation from Vadim." I pause, watching her process this. "Scared people do desperate things."
"Like moving horses to upper pastures in the middle of the night."
"Like that."
She's quiet for another long moment, her fingers working through Rusalka's mane with automatic motions. When she finally speaks, her voice carries a resignation that cuts deeper than any argument could have.
"What do you need me to do?"
We waituntil just before midnight, when the moon has set and the darkness is thick enough to hide movement. I've spent the hours since our conversation checking equipment, cleaning my rifle, plotting approach routes and escape plans. The scope is military grade, borrowed from a contact who doesn't ask questions about how his merchandise gets used. At three hundred yards, I can put a round through a bottle cap. At the distances I'll be working tonight, accuracy won't be an issue.
Lethality will be guaranteed.
Mira appears at the barn door wearing dark clothing and a grim expression. She's braided her hair back tight against her skull, and there's something different about the way she moves. More purposeful, more controlled. She's made her peace with what we're about to do, even if she doesn't like it.
