Pas de Trois (The Four Families #3) - Brynn Ford Page 0,1

flee, they will only hunt us down.

If we go back to Mikhailov Manor, we may never leave again. But maybe Nikolai can keep Anya safe from them. The contradiction of everything I thought I was certain about is a total mind fuck.

Anya sighs, her eyes falling as her chest sinks. She turns her head to look down at Nikolai. “It’s not enough to keep me safe. Can you keep us both safe? Can you promise that, Nikolai?”

“No. I can’t promise that. But I do promise I can keep you safe.” Nikolai holds her gaze as he pauses, taking a few haggard breaths. “I have things you’ll need to show them. Hidden away. Come back with me and I’ll help you. I can’t do anything if you run, Anya. Get on the plane back to Russia with me and I’ll call off the watch on your sister.”

A tear slips down her cheek and I reach out to brush it away. She looks at me and the sadness I see in her eyes physically hurts me. “You can still run. You can run when we land. They won’t need to come after you. I’m the one who killed Vigo…I’m the one they want. I can…I’ll find a way to keep Emma safe. You can run and be free.”

She’s giving me permission to run without her.

She wants me to run without her?

Fuck, no.

I grab her face with both hands and lean close. “I’m not leaving you. I’m not running without you. If the only way to keep you safe is to take you back, then we’re going back to Russia together. I don’t care what they do to me, but I’m not leaving you on your own. It’s you and me, okay? I’m gonna make sure Nikolai keeps his promise.”

“But you could be free, Ezra. I—”

“Don’t argue with me. We’re going back together. It’s already been decided. I told you before, my life is nothing without you.” She’s fucking crazy if she thinks I’m gonna leave her.

She presses her eyes shut and with a sigh of acceptance, nods. Her hands come up to grip my wrists, holding my hands in place against her cheeks.

“Mine?” she asks.

“Always fucking yours,” I reply.

If we’re going back, if the four families are coming after us seeking vengeance and blood, I will make damn fucking sure that the blood they spill isn’t my blue-eyed girl’s.

Chapter 1

Anya

My head is swirling with too many emotions, the range and depth of which brings aching confusion.

Nikolai spills a trail of blood along the black pavement as Ezra and the pilot carry him across the airstrip from the helicopter to the private jet. I’ve never seen so much blood as I have tonight—I’m still covered in the splatter from Vigo.

I drag myself up the airstair steps onto Nikolai’s jet, stepping carefully with my legs wide, straddling the red trail up the staircase to avoid stepping in Nikolai’s blood with my bare feet. I step onboard the luxury plane just in time to watch Ezra and the pilot lay Nikolai on the couch—he just barely fits on it.

I watch him as he lays on his back, bleeding, with one arm on his chest while the other flops off the side of the couch. I can’t help but think how frail and weak he looks—two words I would have never thought to call him before.

He took a bullet for me.

Did he save my life?

The pilot rushes off to the cockpit with Ezra’s insistence that we hurry. In mere minutes, the plane takes off, carrying us into the night, away from one master’s homeland to another’s.

The cabin is silent as the plane reaches its cruising altitude and levels out—silent, except for Nikolai’s heavy breaths. He was shot in the stomach nearly an hour ago. He’s bled a lot, and I don’t know what’s going to happen to him. I don’t know if he’ll live or die. My mind splinters as it tries to grapple with the strange mix of emotions that simple fact inspires.

Nikolai may die.

There’s relief in that possibility, but there’s fear, too. Nikolai stole me back from Vigo. He was angry for Vigo’s treatment of me, which is odd to think about, but clearly, it’s true. I don’t know how to feel about any of this. And the fact that Nikolai first tried to buy me back at a sum of ten million—I know my worth as a slave and it’s nowhere near that sum. If the families dealt in rubles instead of