Page 89 of Forgotten Vows
“Why don’t we give it a try?” She winked. When Lev took her hand, she tilted her head to the side, indicating where I’d find Luka.
I hurried there, hopeful when Emil seemed more charged and ready to go than worried and pissed. “Got a lead?”
He nodded. “Petrovs were spotted near one of the oceanfront resorts.”
Luka took his gun off his desktop as he stood. Holstering it, he looked me in the eye. “Let’s go handle this.”
I didn’t reply, turning to leave the study with them. Raisa had to be alive. She had to be staying strong for me. For us. For Lev.
I hated to leave him, but Alexsei calmed that worry. He intercepted Luka, Emil, and me as we strode through the house. “We’ve got him. Gabriella’s distracting them so far, and I’ll keep watch here.”
“Thank you.”
I would never stop loving my family for being the support team they were.
“Godspeed,” he replied. “I have a hunch that if you don’t hurry, Raisa will kill Konstantin first.”
I shrugged as we hurried to leave. “She can be my guest.” It wasn’t a competition.
We’d be a team to eliminate threats to the love we should’ve fought harder to keep years ago. But even as a team, I worried about her being harmed. She was strong. She was a survivor, but it was I who’d vowed to never let anyone hurt her again.
“Let’s go,” I growled, picking up the pace with my cousin and uncle.
It was time to end Konstantin and remove his small faction of power. I’d had enough with these politics wedged between us.
36
RAISA
I’d moved on instinct to get Gabriella free when the men held her. She wasn’t as trained and skilled at defense. She was my friend and I didn’t want her harmed. With this very new discovery that she was pregnant again, a secret she had yet to share with Luka, I felt obligated to look out for her.
As I was shoved into a barren room at one of my father’s cabins near the mountains, though, I had to be honest with myself for why I’d really wanted her to run to safety.
Yes, I was protecting her—physically. This was my fight, my war with my father.
But I was also sheltering her. I would kill this man. And I didn’t want her to lose respect for me. I noticed how she was still so naïve, getting used to the violence. I wasn’t opposed to her thinking I was a badass, but I didn’t want to expose my darkest side to her.
The one that pushed me to kill those Rivera men when they attacked. The sinister energy that lurked within me when I recalled the last time my father tried to threaten me and my son.
They locked me in here for at least an hour, but when a guard came back, he was in for a surprise. I attacked so ruthlessly thatI’d almost killed him. If it wasn’t for another guard backing him up, I would’ve been able to flee. Yet, I didn’t.
This time, I was done running away.
I was through with fleeing.
My instincts screamed for me to fight, and I would. I would fight to the death. My father was done threatening my family.
By attacking the guard who came to fetch me, I sought to see what my father’s intentions were. He’d captured me, but how much did he want to kill me?
When the guards didn’t use a gun on me and backed away, I had my answer. I was here, kept captive, but better off alive—for now.
I was left alone for another hour, and no matter how much I yelled and taunted them to face me or let me go, no one else came.
Patience was key.
I paced and prepared for the finality of killing the man who’d caused me so much loss in my life.
He had to have taken me as leverage. Maybe to get Ivan to come save me.
