Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4)(121)

She had to leave. She couldn’t stay here and give Sergei another chance to take her daughter’s life. And once she left, Sacha couldn’t return because this precarious existence wasn’t what she wanted for this innocent baby she was responsible for. How, as a mother, could she overlook what was happening?

And, how, as a woman, was she supposed to leave the man she loved? How did she take his child from him? Especially now, when he’d only just met her. When they were quickly falling in love with each other just as she knew they would. How could she leave a man who was currently at the morgue saying goodbye to one of his best friends?

She didn’t know, but she would have to find a way. For her daughter’s safety.

She got up and took another trip around the bedroom. Alekzander was at the morgue with his uncle. But it could very well have been different. It could have been her and Vasily staring down at Alekzander’s body.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Knowing Sergei might have been going after Alekzander and had gotten Markus by accident was a horrifying thought. Lekzi could have lost her father tonight.

Won’t she lose him anyway, when you take her away?

Moaning quietly, Sacha dropped her arms and wished there was someone she could talk to about this. If it weren’t so late, she’d have called Angela. Or better yet, Sydney. Being a mother in love with a Bratva member, she would know exactly what Sacha was going through. Had she felt she had to choose between her children and Maksim? How had she let herself have both?

She checked on Lekzi for the hundredth time, then went to the Bose system on the bookshelf in the corner. She continued to see Alekzander’s prone body in a drawer, and then that blue ring that had been forming around Lekzi’s mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut and remembered Lucian trying to arrange a time to have dinner with his little brother.

Swiping her finger to turn the speaker on, hoping to distract herself, she kept the volume low as she looked for a station that played oldies. It had been her parents’ favorite genre and was now hers when she was looking for comfort. She had fond memories of coming down after studying in her room to find her mother and father dancing. They wouldn’t be practicing, just dancing for the enjoyment of it.

A sound behind her had her turning to find Alekzander standing in the doorway. Her heart broke when she saw the despair in his eyes. She went to him without thought, and gathered him close, cradling his head when he pushed his face into her neck.

“What have I done, Sacha?”

“Nothing, my darling. You have done nothing,” she reassured him gently.

“I killed one of the best men I know.”

She shook her head. “No. No, you did not. You are all responsible for your own choices, and that includes Markus.” And it included her.

He tightened his arms around her waist. “Not this time.”

“Yes,” she insisted gently. “Every time. He knew who you and Gabriel were. He knew he was making successful a company belonging to two men who come from two of New York’s most prominent organized crime families. You are from a powerful Russian Bratva, and Gabriel is Cosa Nostra. His family history goes all the way back to Sicily; yours to Moscow. Markus knew this. Who you are and what you do is in your blood, and no matter how much you might wish differently, that will never change.”

She briefly thought about the effort him, Markus, and Gabriel had put into TarMor rather than their respective families, and it was only now that she could see they’d been fighting their nature.

“Markus knew that, too,” she said with more certainty. “And I believe he tried his hardest, but he could not cut his ties to who he was completely. He might have distanced himself from his brother’s reputation, but he was still a part of this life whether he felt he could admit that or not.”

She remembered Markus winking at her when Alekzander was dragging her to that secluded room in the convention center. Yes, he’d known Alekzander wasn’t bringing her back there to harm her, but the fact that he hadn’t found anything wrong with the behavior said a lot about the type of person Markus was. Essentially, he’d been very much like his bosses.

She looked up to see if she’d upset Alekzander with her opinion. Her lips parted on a soft breath when she saw moisture shimmering on his lashes. “Oh, Alekzander,” she whispered, hurting for him. “I am so sorry.”

“He did not deserve this.”

“No, of course, not.” The only one who deserved to be struck down was the man responsible for this pain. Sergei needed to pay for what he was doing, regardless the reasons behind it.

They grew silent, and as the singer’s melodic voice coming from behind them went on about innocent things like tattooed hearts and going steady, Sacha and her Russian stared at each other. When his head came down, she welcomed the feel of his lips meeting hers. He was in desperate need of comfort, and she would give that to him however she could. While she still could.