THE GATEKEEPER

Heartache doesn't begin to describe the desolation crashing through me.

I walk through the parking garage and up the stairs.

I pass the first floor where I should go to report to Ravil. I keep walking up flight after flight. Passing my own floor. Passing the next one and the next.

I walk up all forty flights of stairs until I get to the rooftop.

Only when I arrive out on the rooftop do I realize why I came here. I go to the railing and stand to look over the edge.

I'm looking for Kira.

Trying to figure out where she might have gone.

She had no jacket. No money. No passport. She'll have to come back.

Except I know, as soon as I think it, that she won't.

Kira is a warrior. She's stubborn and strong. She will not slink back here to collect her things. No, the only way she'd come back would be with the FBI or police to arrest me for kidnapping and murder.

I search the sidewalks below, trace the lake shore for her slim figure or pale blonde hair, but of course, it's dark. I can't make out anyone down there.

Damn it.

"Where in the fuck is Maykl?" I hear Ravil demand in the comms unit.

"Coming." I move for the door.

"In the basement," Ravil instructs. "Where's the girl?"

"I let her go." Heaviness soaks the words. Like I just dropped an anchor into the depths of the sea and will never be able to move from the spot in my life again.

Ravil may kill me over this. Fuck. He may kill Kira over this. That I can't allow. I jog into the elevator to take it down to the first floor.

But Nikolai speaks. "Kira may not be a problem. She ran because her boss dropped the bomb that Maykl pulled the trigger on her father."

Ravil curses. "Is that true?"

"Yes, Pakhan."

"And you knew that?"

The elevator plunges down. "I tried to tell her. I wanted to. But I also didn't want to fuck things up."

"It's me you should have told," Ravil growls.

I stab my fingers through my hair. "I know. I guess I was hoping...it wouldn't come to light. He was my initiation kill. I was thirteen." I slump against the side of the elevator then, purposely smacking my head into the wall just to feel something other than the anguish choking me. "I never knew Fate would bring me the one woman who wants me dead."

The elevator doors open, and I step out into the scene. The bratva members quickly work to move bloody bodies onto laundry carts to be wheeled out the secret exit. The exit we used to get all the occupants out safely this afternoon. Adrian looks at me as he drags a body out from the other elevator. Great. The entire inner circle has been privy to my fuck-up via the comms. "Maybe Fate brought her to you to make things right."

I remember that Adrian kidnapped Kateryna because her father was responsible for enslaving Adrian's sister, Nadia. What started out as a revenge mission turned into love.

But that was different. It wasn't Kat who had done the harm to Adrian, it was her father.

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I took Kira's father, and there's nothing I can say or do to make up for that.

I pull my comms unit out of my ear.

"So what happened?" Ravil demands. He and Maxim stand together giving orders.

I don't have the energy to explain. Not even knowing Ravil may punish or kill me. Nikolai comes up beside me and recounts the entire scene to them.

"So we have Kuznets, Stepanov, and two soldiers still at large," Maxim says.

"If Kuznets even came. He may have just sent Stepanov to do the dirty work. Then he'll claim he knew nothing about it," Ravil says.

"The phones I hacked have been discarded," Dima reports.

Ravil curses. "Do we think Kira will make contact with them?"

I shake my head. "No. She was on our side before..."

"Her motivation is the nephew," Maxim reminds us, and a streak of relief runs through me as I realize I know exactly where she is right now.

"I told her where they were staying," I say.

"That's where she'll go." Ravil pulls out his phone.

I must have a death wish because I reach for it. Maxim shoves me back. "Let her go," I say gruffly. "She's not a threat."

"That's for us to assess," Maxim reminds me.

"Offer her help, then," I plead. "She has nothing with her-no phone or money, nor her passport. If we don't want her to call Stepanov for assistance, we need to step in." "Oh, but I do want her to call Stepanov for assistance." Ravil holds the phone to his ear. "How else will I kill the mudak?"

"Go and get her things," Maxim says. "We'll deliver them to the hotel for her."

"After Dima installs trackers," Ravil says.

"She won't go to him." I don't know whether it's true, or I just want it to be true. She may go running straight to her boss, considering what she now thinks of me. Maxim points to the elevator. "Move, Maykl."

I don't, though. I'm having a hard time just remembering how to stand on my two feet. How to keep my heart beating. How to breathe.

Nothing feels natural anymore with Kira lost to me.

Dima comes to my side and takes my arm. "Come on. I'll go with you to put the trackers in."

Kira

I don't realize how cold I am. The heat of betrayal propels me forward, along the lake, one foot in front of the other.

I can't believe Maykl killed my father. Every horrible moment in my life has been wrought by the bratva. And the moment I start to think I can get past it, that I might actually be able to forgive and move on, I discover the man I was falling for murdered my father.

It's just...too much to take.

I can't even absorb the information. That's why I ran.

Honestly, I don't want to absorb it. I don't want to think about it ever again. I just want to get the hell away from everything to do with the bratva.