“Lekzi, if your beautiful mama doesn’t move her ass, your papa is going to go fucking crazy.”
Alek was in the bedroom, holding his daughter in front of the mirror on the dresser. He’d learned she enjoyed bouncing up and down while staring at herself, and he’d spent so much time in this very spot over the last couple of days his footprints were permanent marks in the oval rug.
He looked to the walk-in where he could hear Sacha murmuring to herself as she packed enough to last a few weeks. He, too, had decided to take them to their friendly neighbors up north. He figured the Canadian side of Niagara Falls would be a good place to lay low. Honeymoon capital and all that shit. Maybe while he was there, he could convince the mother of his child not to leave him. He shouldn’t. But he was damn well going to pull out every stop he could think of to change the decision he could see she’d already made.
“I can see your mama’s fear,” he whispered to the baby. He’d found himself confiding in her more and more. “I know what she’s thinking, but I can’t let her take you away from me. To lose you both would be unbearable, and I won’t let it happen. So how about you tell your papa how I convince my love this is only a temporary nightmare?”
Lekzi answered him with a happy squeal as she bounced up and down on legs that had the sweetest Michelin Man rolls. She slapped her bare feet on the surface, tinkling the miniature wind chimes on the porcelain Tudor style house Sacha had placed at one end of the dresser.
He looked into the mirror and met her pale-blue eyes, then shifted his attention to meet the gorgeous gold of her mother’s as Sacha came out with a big bag over her shoulder. His chest constricted. He couldn’t lose them.
He cleared his throat. “Ready?”
She nodded.
“Anton brought the other bags out earlier. If you take her, I’ll grab that. Yuri is waiting in the infirmary.” Yuri had insisted on giving the baby a final once over before Alek took her away.
He placed his hand on Sacha’s lower back as they left their room. He’d have cuffed their wrists together but figured it best if he kept his hands free.
As they made it to the main floor and crossed the foyer, Alek saw Anton in his regular spot in a chair to the side of the archway that led to the kitchen. Grigori had trailed down behind them since he’d been stationed in his cubby at the top of the stairs. The guy was diligent, even when they were in the house.
“Will Yuri do a full check-up?” Sacha asked as she played catch-the-soother with Lekzi.
“He said there is no need for more blood work, but he’ll do everything else. If something worries him, he’ll send us back to Dr. Uvich.” At Yuri’s insistence, they’d visited a specialist the day after Lekzi had been poisoned, and a pediatrician the day after that just to be sure no one had missed any possible side effects.
Sacha paused and looked over her shoulder. “The last time he checked her, she became fussy. I should grab some fruit to occupy her.”
Alek nodded and changed direction, leading them to the kitchen.
No sooner had they passed Anton when the spectacularly loud boom of an explosion came from behind them. The noise was deafening, the force of it propelling Alek into Sacha’s back and Grigori into his. They went with it and kept going with Alek snatching the baby and dragging Sacha at a dead run toward the stairs at the end of the corridor. Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear debris raining down behind them.
“Grigori?”
“Panic room, I know.” The byki shoved at Alek’s back to get him moving faster.
Alek took the rest of the steps two at a time and in seconds was all but throwing Sacha into a huge room hidden in the corner of the basement that no one and nothing was getting into. It was reinforced to the tits and had enough supplies to keep alive any inhabitants for at least a month.
“What the fuck happened?” Yuri demanded as he came skidding in from the direction of the other set of stairs. He was still dressed in surgical scrubs from a trip into the city early this morning.
“Sergei is here,” Alek said. “It has to be him. You two don’t leave my fucking family. Promise me, right now!”
“Alekzander.” Sacha was shaking her head, looking petrified as he handed Lekzi over. “You can’t go back up there.”
“My uncle is up there, Sacha.” The second Grigori and Yuri gave him their word he was heading for the steel door. Without focusing on what he was leaving behind, he pointed to the screens. “Turn the cameras on, Grigori, and let only those we trust inside.”
He slammed the heavy door and burned through the open concept basement that was one-part living space one-part laboratory. By the time he heard the sound of gunshots, his girls were safely tucked away in the back of his mind, and getting to Vasily was his only thought. With a focus he’d never before had to utilize, he got himself up the stairs they’d just come down. He didn’t go out that door but locked it and raced through the basement and up the other stairs to come out in the waiting area outside the infirmary. He traveled the corridor, heading for the foyer, and kept his ears, which had thankfully stopped ringing, peeled for all those little sounds one knew to listen for in their own homes. Sounds which alerted him to the presence of men walking or opening doors. There was a lot of cursing, sporadic firing, and footsteps crunching over debris.