Chapter 93: Chapter Thirty-Eight

Andrei

We’d driven separately.

I sent Ax with the rest of the guys.

Mentally thanked them for standing by my side when I forwarded them the text Ax had sent me as he scrolled through the Eagle Elite social media accounts.

The anger I felt in seeing those words directed at her.

At mine.

Was enough to set me off for the next decade.

It was enough for me to pack enough ammo to take out the entire city block.

It was enough for me, Andrei Petrov, to humbly ask for help.

They didn’t ask questions.

They didn’t mock me.

They said “done” and minutes later, we walked in together, as a team, as a family.

I would take it to my grave, the way it felt to have the Italians ready to shoot on sight for offending what was mine.

I would never admit that I didn’t say thank you because I wasn’t sure I could get through it without trembling, without tapping my foot, without looking weak.

So, I nodded my head at them.

Got a few middle fingers back.

And got into the car.

Whore.

Petrov Prostitute.

Those bastards should count themselves lucky that I didn’t want her to see all the blood I would spill and hold it against me.

Because I had driven to that school with the purpose of killing.

And the only person that was able to stop me, to talk me from the ledge, was Phoenix, followed by a gruesome looking Chase who just shrugged and said, “It was messy, didn’t have time to clean up.”

The old me would have mocked him, said something to insult him and make him feel less than.

But I couldn’t see past the rage.

Couldn’t feel anything but the hard rhythm of my heart as it thudded angrily against my chest with the need for retribution, to hurt them the way they hurt her.

Some of the anger was misplaced, and maybe misdirected at myself, because I’d called her a number, I’d called her a whore. I had done those things, justified them because I was trying to protect her.

I swerved my black Maybach to the side of the road, my hands still gripping the steering wheel as I stared ahead.

Alice didn’t move.

I clenched my jaw so hard that pain shot down my neck. “Are you okay?”

Slowly she turned to me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Are you?”

I counted her soft breaths.

One, two, three—all unhurried, all patiently waiting for me to fill the silence with something other than her breathing, something other than the painful beat of my heart.

I felt too much with her.

And all at once.

Her fingertips—I focused on her fingertips, in the way they dug softly into my shoulder, watching, waiting, comforting.

I got out a hoarse “no.” And finally released my grip on the steering wheel and turned to her.

Pink cheeks, full lips, wide green eyes, measured breaths, and worried posture.

She was everything I wasn’t supposed to want.

“You saved me again.” Her hand was still on my shoulder.

“No.” I shook my head. “I think you have that backward, dorogaya. It’s you who has saved me.”

Her eyes widened.

And I acted.

I unbuckled my seatbelt, leaned over the center console, and jerked her against me, swallowing any protest she might have on her lips, tasting her with my whole body with every sense on fire.

It was passion.

It was painful.

It was us.

A chaotic mixture of all of my nerve endings firing too fast, too intense, but I didn’t want to stop it anymore.

Maybe because I couldn’t.

I was losing the war.

No, I wasn’t losing.

I was forfeiting.

And winning all at once.

She moaned against my mouth as my hands roamed down her shoulders, pulling open her white oxford shirt. I kept one hand on her trembling body while I moved the other down to her skirt.

Her hips bucked as I slid my hand up her naked thigh. “I’m keeping you.”

She softened against me, kissed me again, dragged her lips across mine over and over again. “Good.”

She spread her legs for me.

And I nearly died.

So trusting to a man who promised he’d murder her if she asked.

To a man who didn’t deserve to be touching anything so pure.

To the devil himself.

“Alice…” Her name felt like worship. Maybe for someone like me, it was.

I didn’t know how to navigate what I was about to ask her, what I was about to take from her.

Or what I would give her.

All I knew was that if I couldn’t hold her anymore, if the warmth, the life, left her body.

I would die.

I’d never loved anyone before.

And I’d never loved myself.

Maybe it was love.

Maybe it was obsession.

Lust.

Maybe a little bit of all three.

I didn’t care.

“Alice.” I said her name again because it felt like being baptized.

New.

Pure.

I moved my hand from her thigh and pulled away.

“I bled against this blade,” I whispered. “So did Luca. A blood oath isn’t just a promise. It’s a completely unbreakable bond.”

Alice licked her swollen lips and nodded in understanding.

“So, when I tell you that I’m binding myself to you,” I continued. “I want you to know that the only thing that will keep me from you is death.”

Tears filled her eyes, and one spilled down her cheek.

With shaking hands I let the facade slip.

I let go of the control I so desperately felt the need to have over everything.

And I took off both gloves and dropped them onto the console.

She sucked in a sharp breath like she’d just seen monster and man fuse or maybe she just saw vulnerability I refused to let anyone else see.

This was it.

This moment.

On the side of the road.

With Alice De Lange.

My gaze didn’t waver from hers. “The Italians cut across the hand.”

I peeled my shirt over my head. “The Russians…cut across the heart.”

I sliced across my chest, felt my heart beat against the metal blade as I carved a bloody A into my own skin.

Her eyes widened as I reached for her right hand, slicing across the palm and pressing it to my chest.

I kept it there.

More tears filled her eyes as she stared at me in wonder.

“I, Andrei Petrov, pledge my life, my heart, my soul to you.”

I didn’t realize that I was shaking until she wrapped her free arm around me and held me tight.

Our blood flowing, mixing, making love, as it dripped down my body.