Page 101 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

I abandon my silent approach and sprint inward. Caution be damned. I’ve been without Arya and Lukas long enough. I’m not going to lose them now.

I hear a distant voice. Just a single whimpered word, weighted down by unimaginable sorrow.

“Rose?”

It’s Arya.

I follow the sound of her voice down a long hallway to a round foyer. The floor is a checkered white and gray tile that swirls into a central circle. Arya stands in the middle of it. A body is sprawled on the floor next to her. The dead woman has red hair and a matching puddle of blood blossoming behind her head.

Arya is in a red silk dress and has blood dripping down her leg and all over her arms. Her face looks thinner than the last time I saw her. Actually, everything about her looks thinner. More fragile. I can see the pointed bones of her knees and her elbows. Her spine is visible all the way down to where the dress dips at her lower back.

Anger rushes over me in a molten wave. People took her from me. Starved her. Hurt her. Scarred her.

And now this son of a bitch Taras has a gun pointed at her.

Arya doesn’t move. Doesn’t even flinch as the gun is lifted in her direction. In fact, her eyes flutter closed with grateful exhaustion. As if she’s been tired for so long and now she’ll finally get to sleep.

For a brief moment, I contemplate what would have happened if I hadn’t been here.

But Iamhere.

And I know what happens next.

I run into the room, lift my gun, and pull the trigger before Taras can do the same. My aim, as always, is perfect. There’s just enough time for Taras’s drooping eyes to widen in shock.

Then the bullet destroys his face.

His massive bulk crashes to the ground. The house shakes.

Arya doesn’t move for a second. She holds perfectly still, her hands in fists at her side. Then her eyes blink open.

She lifts her hands to her chest, her stomach. She runs them over her face, like she’s searching for the bullet hole.

When Arya sees what’s happened to Taras, she stumbles backward with a gasp. She trips over her dead friend, but manages to catch herself before falling in the pool of blood.

Then she lunges forward, drops to her knees, and grabs Taras’s gun from his limp hand. Without hesitating, she spins around and aims it at me.

I hold up my hands, the gun in my right. “You wouldn’t kill the guy who saved your life, would you?”

She blinks at me, her green eyes shining with fear and disbelief. My chest clenches with an emotion I’ve never felt in my entire life.

I see recognition spark in her eyes. “Are you… are you real?” she whispers.

“I’m real,” I tell her.

Then Arya drops the gun and runs into my arms. I grab a fistful of her hair and crush her against my chest. She feels hollow in my arms, too light to be real.

But her desperate grip around my neck says otherwise. Arya clings to me like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.

“I’m here,” I whisper, smoothing my hand down her back. Her skin is cold and prickly with goosebumps. I try to rub warmth into her. “I came for you. I found you.”

She buries her face in my neck and breathes me in. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“I knew I’d see you again,” I tell her. “I wasn’t going to stop looking until I found you.”

She pulls back and looks up at me, and fuck, she’s beautiful. Even bloodied and terrified and thin, Arya radiates beauty. How could anyone stop looking for a woman like this?

All at once, though, a cold chill goes through me. A realization I haven’t let myself consider yet.

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