War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
Desiderius Erasmus
Chapter One
Konstantin
My hands slip as I try to hold the tea towel over Vasily’s wound. Derek is being tended to by one of the men I hired, and the other is driving. Those fuckers shot Derek! I’m fucking fuming.
He should live. Vasily, though, might not. He’s losing a lot of blood.
I try to focus on his wound, but all I can think about is Cassie in the hands of Popov and the Armenians. Andrius will find out what has happened soon enough. He’ll return to my shot-to-fuck home, see the blood, and he’ll know. What will he do?
I need him to help me. I must get Cassie back. Anything else isn’t acceptable.
Popov is a sick, sadistic fuck. I don’t know Tigran, but his reputation proceeds him. He’s cold as hell, calculating, and vicious. It’s best all round if he thinks Cassie means nothing to me. In fact, I even tried to pretend that Liza did. It’s a terrible thing I’ve done by making those men focus on Liza. After all, she’s pregnant, but losing a finger won’t kill her, or the baby, and she deserves the pain more than Cassie.
Liza lied to me, betrayed me, fucked me over, and fucked Denis over. He’s dead now for trusting her. God, I laugh.
“What’s funny?” Vasily groans out.
I look at him and try not to show my concern. “Out of all us men playing one another, screwing one another over, the one who stands out as the absolute star player is Liza. An Instagram model, slash influencer, slash reality TV nobody is the one who has tricked and fooled more of us than anyone.”
I shake my head.
“Not gonna lie, boss. Not gonna make it.” He grabs my wrist as I shake my head. “Listen to me, you need to bring Bohdan over right now. You need help. You can’t… Moscow…” He coughs, and bloody spittle forms at the corner of his lips.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Don’t worry about any of that. It’s my shit to sort. You’re going to get through this,” I command it, as if by doing so I can bend the awful mechanics of a gunshot injury to my will.
My mind is in turmoil, but one thing is clear— I’m getting Cassie back.
She is fucking mine.
Do I love her? Fuck knows. Does she belong to me? Yes. Does that mean no one else gets to play with her? Fuck, yes!
If Andrius won’t help me, and with his life as it is there’s a good chance he won’t, I’m going to have to form an army to take those pricks on. They ambushed us with at least ten men, Vasily told me, and the Armenians are heavily armed.
We pull up outside the hospital, ten minutes after I lied and told Tigran I was arriving here.
Once more I think of Cassie. She’ll have heard everything I said, and she’ll be hurting, but it’s for her own safety, for her own good.
Liza is clearly as unhinged as they come, and so it’s best for everyone that Liza has no idea how much Cassie means to me. Or that I’ve decided to make my little ray of sunshine mine the moment I get her back. Hopefully, in the next few hours, Liza will also become of interest to Tigran, who might think she means more to me than she does.
The driver has the door opened and is yelling for help. This is going to be tricky. I’m about to blow my false image as a respectable businessman sky high. No way will I be able to cover this shit up. Legally, yes, because I have a lot of powerful people in my pocket. This will go away … eventually. In the court of public opinion, though, who knows. I expect this will hit the papers. I’m not known, but my stupid dick has led me into dalliances with a few women who are. The pictures of me dining with the President of France, the leader of Italy, as well as the Foreign Secretary and his wife here, will give the media interest too.
I can’t worry about such matters, though. Not when the alternative is to let Vasily die.
The doors to the accident and emergency department slide open, and three nurses come running out. One pales as she takes in the grave devastation we're faced with. I have the back door of the car open and a heavily bleeding Vasily lay in my arms. Derek