Zel: Markovic MMA (76 page)

That was just like him to minimize his injury. I pressed a lingering kiss to his mouth. “Let me look.”

Alexei nodded his permission. I managed to rip open his torn shirt sleeve and uncover the wound. It was a bloody, nasty mess, but it wasn’t as bad I had feared. It really was a graze, but the skin was torn open and needed suturing or strips. “You need to go to the hospital.”

“That’s not happening.” His hard expression reminded me of the night he had come to my rescue with that bat. This was the version of himself that he tried to keep hidden from me and everyone else. This was the cold-eyed man who could separate himself from pain and fear and do the terrible things that had helped him survive in prison and on the dangerous streets of Moscow and Houston. “If I go to the ER, they’ll report the gunshot. Eric will come sniffing around and then we’ll have a real problem.”

“Here.” Stas brought some of the medical supplies that he had picked up for me at the drug store. “I’ll bandage it for you, but you’ll need some antibiotics and butterfly closures. I’ll have to make a trip to see our doctor.”

“It can wait until I’ve dealt with Shannon.”

I wanted to be the one who treated Alexei’s wound, but with a bandaged hand of my own, it wasn’t possible. Stas, Alexei and I entered the office and found Shannon sitting in one of the chairs by the fireplace. She had her head in her hands and sobbed quietly. Torn between comforting my sister and the man I loved, I hesitated. Alexei made the decision for me when he walked away and dropped into his desk chair. I tried not to let his sudden change in demeanor upset me. He’d just been shot, after all.

Kneeling down in front of Shannon, I wrapped my arms around her. Despite my anger with her for shooting Alexei, I was relieved that she was alive. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. We’ll find a way to make it right.”

Alexei hissed as Stas cleaned his wound. He met my gaze across the room. “We have to get her out of the country.”

“How?” I didn’t know the first thing about something like that. “If she goes to Mexico, she’s walking right into cartel territory. There’s no way we can get her to Canada. I’m sure Eric has her ID and passport flagged.”

“I know someone who can help.” Alexei winced as Stas applied pressure to his wound. “Shay, go upstairs to our bedroom and open the bottom drawer in my dresser. There are some burner phones there. Grab one. Then go to the closet and open the drawer where I keep my ties. Lift the tray and pick up the leather jewelry case there. Bring them to me.”

I nodded dutifully and hurried upstairs to do as he instructed. Burner phones weren’t the only things I found in that bottom drawer. There were loaded weapons, extra boxes of ammunition, two knives and rolls of cash. When I went to his tie drawer, I found the jewelry case. It was stamped with the logo of a high-end jewelry store that I had only ever dreamed of visiting. I ignored the urge to open the case to see what was inside, grabbed a clean shirt for him and hurried back downstairs to the office.

Boychenko was wiping down the floor when I walked by him. “I’ll come by in the morning to repair the drywall.”

I stopped and looked back at the wall and noticed the hole for the first time. Boychenko stood up and held out his hand. The round he had recovered rested on his palm. “Give this to Alexei.”

“What? Why would he—?”

“Trust me.” Boychenko pressed it into my good hand. “He’ll want it.”

I brought everything Alexei had requested to him and placed them on the desk. I started to walk back to Shannon, but Alexei grasped my hand and kept me from leaving. He rubbed his thumb in slow circles over the back of my hand. I understood this was his way of telling me that we were going to be okay. Leaning down, I kissed his forehead and whispered, “I know.”

“Open the jewelry case,” he ordered gently. “I need you to see it.”

I did as he asked and nearly fainted when I uncovered the incredible necklace and earrings. Brilliant diamonds, some white and others canary yellow, glimmered inside the case. “What is this?”

“I bought this for you. I bought it the morning after I saved you in that alley.” Alexei traced the stones with his finger. “I wanted you to have these. I wanted to use these to show you how much you mean to me.”

Not caring that my sister or two enforcers were watching us, I caressed his jaw. “I don’t need diamonds to know how much you care about me.”

Alexei turned his head and kissed my palm. He smiled sadly. “That’s a good thing because I’m going to have to use these to buy your sister’s safety. I don’t keep enough cash in my safe, and we can’t wait for the banks to open. We have to get her out of the city tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling so much guilt at the situation we were in now. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hush.” He kissed my palm again. “I’d spend every fucking penny I have to make you happy. Saving your sister will make you happy. That’s all that matters.”

“I have something that might help you spend a little less money,” Shannon interjected in a ragged voice. “Well—I mean, I did have something that might help. I’m not sure where it is now.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Our house is empty. All of our shit is gone.”

“It’s not gone. It’s here.”

“I figured as much. That’s why I broke in here.” She made an apologetic face. “You’re going to need a new window in your pool room. Your alarm isn’t working either.”

“You’re lucky I forgot to turn on the alarm when we left for the ER,” I said, lifting my hand. “Otherwise, you’d be in the back of a police car right now.”

As if she hadn’t even noticed my hurt hand, her eyes widened. “What happened to you?”

“I burned myself.”

“With those stupid wood burning tools? I told you those things are dangerous! I warned you that those cords were going to get tangled up and that you were going to knock something over and hurt yourself.”

I rolled my eyes. “It was an accident.”

“Why did you break into the house?” Alexei interrupted our sisterly spat. “What did you hope to find here?”

“There was a box in my bedroom. The little jewelry box with the ballerina,” Shannon clarified. “It has something in it that I need.”

“I saw it when the delivery came,” Stas said and pushed off the wall he had been leaning against. “I dropped a box and it fell out. I’ll go get it.”

“What is it?” Alexei asked. “And don’t lie to me, Shannon. The man I’m going to call is not someone who tolerates lies.”

Shannon swallowed anxiously. “Earlier this year, Ruben and I started thinking about getting out of the life. We were tired of it. He was sick of the drugs and the guns and the gambling. He felt like Lalo was never going to let him have his own crew or grow his territory.” She rubbed her face between her grubby hands. “One of his friends from high school—Edgar—came to him with this scheme. He’d been running it small time by himself, but he needed money to get it off the ground and he needed access to computers and businesses.”

“Like mine,” Alexei interrupted with irritation.

Shannon nodded reluctantly. “Like yours. We came up with a plan, and we started small with companies that had little or no security. I would plug in a flash drive, hit a few keys and then let the program run while I cleaned. I would grab them when I was done, hide them in my smock and go to the next job.” She gave a little shrug. “It was easier than we thought it would be.”

“But what was the plan?” Alexei touched his injured arm. “Who was going to buy this information you were stealing?”

“Edgar put a listing on some deep web site. There were a few offers, and he accepted one. We were getting ready to package it and sell it. Edgar was going to Belize. Ruben and I were planning to run away to some place like Thailand.”

“Were you going to tell me before you left?” It was impossible to keep the hurt out of my voice.

Shannon met my gaze. Quietly, she said, “No.”

“No? You were just…what? Going to leave and hope I didn’t notice? You were going to leave me here to clean up your mess?”

“I was going to tell you when we were some place safe,” she insisted. “I wasn’t worried about you. I knew that you’d land on your feet like you always do.” She glanced at Alexei. “I knew that he would come running the second I was gone. He’s been watching you for months. You were blind to it, but I wasn’t. I knew that the moment I was out of the picture, you were finally going to get your chance at happily ever after.”

While I was trying to process all of that, Stas returned with the jewelry box. He handed it to Shannon who opened it and produced a handful of flash drives. “These are the originals. I kept them. All of them. It was the way Ruben and Edgar decided to keep things fair. Edgar couldn’t sell the information behind our backs, and we couldn’t sell it behind his. I don’t have the decryption key that Edgar kept, but I have everything else.”

“Who was your buyer?” Alexei asked.

“I don’t know. It was anonymous.”

“Maybe not so anonymous,” he grumbled. Picking up the burner phone, he turned it on and waited for it to find service. He dialed a number and left a cryptic message with an answering service along with the number for the burner he held. Putting the phone down, he sighed. “And now we wait.”

“For?”

“For me to make a deal with the devil.” Alexei held my hand a little tighter. “It’s going to be a long night. You should get your sister cleaned up. If she’s hungry, feed her.” He kissed my fingertips. “You need to take your medicine, too.”

I had a feeling Alexei wanted us out of the office so he could make other phone calls. There were things I didn’t need or want to know. I did as he asked and took Shannon upstairs to shower. We didn’t say a word, not even when I handed her some of my clothing. She got dressed quickly and swirled her hair into a loose bun.

“Shannon?” I didn’t want to tell her, but she needed to know what Eric had told me earlier.

“Yeah?”

“Shannon…it’s about Ruben.”

“I already know.” She didn’t look away from the mirror. Her voice was calm and detached. “I knew as soon as he didn’t come back to the motel for me.”

“I’m so sorry, Shannon.”

Silent and serious, she turned away from the mirror and walked toward me. She put both hands on my shoulders and gazed down at me. “Shay, I never meant for any of this to happen. I need you to know that.”

“I do know that.”

“I love you, and I’m sorry that I screwed everything up for us.”

“I love you, and we’re going to be okay. You made some mistakes. You’ve paid for them. You don’t have to keep apologizing to me.” Shannon had lost everything trying to run this scheme—her man, her freedom and nearly her life. There was no reason for me to try to punish her further. She would be doing that to herself for the rest of her life.

After grabbing a hoodie for her and a jacket for me, I took her downstairs and let her make a sandwich. Feeling fatigued, I fixed a cup of coffee and took the medicine Stas had picked up for me. I was halfway through my coffee when Alexei walked into the kitchen with the clean shirt draped over his good arm.

“We need to go,” he announced. “Zec can’t keep his plane waiting very long.”

Leaving my cup of coffee on the table, I crossed the kitchen and helped him out of his ruined shirt and into the clean one. He handled the buttons himself because the fingers on my right hand were still too painful to move. I didn’t like it when Stas produced a shoulder holster for Alexei to wear, but I accepted that it was a necessity.

I picked up Alexei’s suit jacket from the back of the chair where I had left it earlier and helped him slide his arms through it. Behind me, Shannon finished her quick meal and put on the hoodie I had given her. Stas handed me the jacket I had brought down for myself.

Ten minutes later, we were driving to a private airport I hadn’t even known existed. I sat in the middle row of the SUV next to Shannon and held her hand as we made a drive that was going to forever change our lives. Alexei remained tight-lipped so I had no idea what was going to happen to Shannon once we reached the airport. Who was taking her? Would they treat her well? Was she going somewhere even more dangerous?

When we arrived at the airport, Alexei’s burner phone rang. He gave Stas directions in Russian. The SUV pulled into an open hangar. Boychenko followed close behind in his car. The doors closed behind our vehicles. I could see two men standing near a private jet. One of them I recognized as Besian. The other was a stranger to me.

Alexei turned in his seat. “Shay, stay here. I’ll come get you when it’s time to say goodbye. You,” he pointed at Shannon, “get out of the car and come with me.”

Shannon nodded and gave my hand a squeeze. My heart hammered in my chest as I watched my sister climb out of the SUV and follow Alexei. Stas trailed them with a duffel bag stuffed with cash and the jewelry.

Face taut with fear, Shannon glanced back at the SUV. In that moment, our entire life together flashed before my eyes. For better or worse and despite all her mistakes, she was my sister, and I loved her. Tears burned my eyes as I began to accept that I might never see her again.

To save her life and mine, she had to make a choice. She could disappear—or die.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Keep your mouth shut,” Alexei warned as he came around the SUV to escort Shannon. His arm throbbed incessantly, and it left him feeling irritated and short-tempered. “Don’t say a word unless you’re specifically asked something.”