Chapter Nine
They didn’t quite make it to number twelve, but still, Sasha thought half that was an impressive number, and even though the light of morning was slowly streaming into the bedroom, they had time to reach their goal, or go at least another round, before she would have to face her new reality.
There was no way she could leave Brooklyn now, not unless Rome was coming with her. She still wanted no part of the violence, but there was nothing she wanted more than Rome, and she knew for a fact that neither time nor distance would ever erase him from her heart.
Put simply, they were just meant to be.
Sasha stretched languidly against the side of Rome and ran the tips of her fingers down the center of his chest. When he rolled over on top of her, she figured he had woken up with the same idea in mind as she had. What shocked her, however, was that he continued to roll right off the bed. Rome grunted as he took the brunt of the fall, landing on his back with Sasha on top, but he then quickly flipped their positions.
“What the—”
“Shh, someone’s in the house,” he whispered.
“Oh God,” she whispered back. Her heart began to pound thunderously in her ears, and she could feel the escalated rhythm of Rome’s heartbeat against her chest. She should have known better than to actually think she’d be granted some semblance of peace.
“Hiding like a coward, Valentin?” the intruder taunted, his voice resounding from just outside the bedroom, the door to which was left wide open yesterday in their frenzied foray onto Rome’s bed.
Rome reached behind her and quietly slid the bottom drawer to his nightstand open and then he pulled out a gun. She felt him bunch his muscles, tension radiating off of him, and knew that any second now, an all-out shooting war was about to ensue.
“I see by the clothes scattered in your living room, you’ve got a lady friend with you,” the stranger continued, the sound of his voice and footsteps getting closer to the bed. “Unlike your family, mine is not one to take innocent lives. She’s free to go. You and me though … we got business.”
“Let me up,” Sasha said, pushing against Rome. She recognized that voice, and now she was beyond pissed. “Trust me. He won’t shoot me.” She nudged a confused-looking Rome when he didn’t move, and finally, when he gave her enough room to free herself from underneath him, she draped an arm across her breasts to cover them before she stood. “You stay down,” she ordered Rome, pushing down on his chest with her foot, catching him off guard enough to make him lose his balance and flop down on his back. “And you,” she said turning to look at her intruding cousin, her nostrils flared, “you better put that gun away right fucking now, Misha Poriskova, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
With her free hand, Sasha pulled the comforter to her and covered herself. “So help me, Misha, if you keep pointing that thing at me…”
“Aleksandra?” he asked stupidly.
“No, I’m her evil twin.”
“I’ll kill you, you fucking bastard,” her cousin spat at the unseen Rome. He didn’t lower the gun. Instead he moved it over an inch, aiming it at thin air to the left of Sasha.
Sasha meanwhile, kept her foot on Rome’s chest and spared him a quick glaring glance, warning him to stay down. He was smart enough to listen. “Do I look like I’m not here of my own free will?” she snapped at her cousin, and then with a voice like steel, she repeated for him to lower his gun.
He did, though he kept it at his side, his finger on the trigger. “I went through the security tapes from yesterday and found him,” he jerked his chin toward the space next to Sasha, “in your father’s building.”
“He was there to see me,” she lied smoothly. It wasn’t a complete lie, at least. Rome may have started out breaking into her apartment to kill her father, but things had taken an interesting turn, and he must have been just as frazzled as she was after their encounter for him to have made his exit unmasked and through the front of the lobby. “You think the great Valentin assassin would have been caught on camera if he was there to murder my father?”
“What are you doing, Aleksandra?” her cousin asked taken aback. “You can’t seriously be with him. You just said it yourself—he’s the great Valentin assassin—one of our family’s greatest enemies, not to mention the fact that his father just put a hit out on your father.”
“One I have no intention of carrying out,” Rome said. Despite Sasha’s protestations for him to stay down, he easily dislodged her leg and stood, but Sasha wasn’t taking any chances. She immediately stood in front of Rome in case her cousin decided to get trigger happy, and then she and Rome stubbornly, and almost comically tried to position themselves in front of the other until Sasha shoved the comforter away from her body, exposing herself.
“Whoa! I did not need to see that,” Misha said, abruptly turning around, doing exactly what Sasha had hoped he would do. “I can’t ever un-see that shit now, Cuz.”
“Well it’s your own damn fault for breaking in here.”
Misha stood with his back to them as Sasha snatched Rome’s gun and put it on the nightstand before covering herself up again. A small smile tugged at her lips when she noticed the leather-bound book of Romeo and Juliet she had bought for Rome in Verona. He had kept it close to him, just as she had kept his ring.
“Misha, Rome has been protecting both me and Papa from his psycho cousin, okay? How many more people we love have to die before we finally end this feud between our families?” She heard her own voice break on the last few words, and Rome hugged her to his chest.
Misha shook his head. “You’d go against your own family?”
Sasha did not know if that question was aimed at her or Rome, but it was Rome who answered “Yes,” without any hesitation.
“Why?”
Rome rested his chin atop Sasha’s head, eliciting another smile from Sasha. “Because she means everything to me.”
Misha let out a long, exasperated breath as he relaxed his shoulders, then he finally tucked his gun away. “I’ll wait in the living room while you two get dressed.”
When her cousin left the room, Rome went over to his dresser and took out a pair of sweatpants for himself and a sweatshirt along with a pair of his boxers for Sasha, since her clothes were strewn all over his living room.
Rome slid quickly into his pants and left her alone, causing her to panic. “Misha, if you hurt him, so help me…” she yelled as she dressed in a frenzy. When she was decent, she bolted from the room and found them talking in hushed whispers. “What’s going on here?”
“Nothing, sweetness,” Rome replied reassuringly and walked over to her. “Your cousin and I are cool.”
Misha nodded. “We are. Don’t worry, Cuz. I have to ask, though, how did you two end up together?”
“We met in Italy,” Rome answered.
Her cousin didn’t need to know the details, but one particular detail would definitely be a benefit. “He saved my life actually.” She smiled at Rome, and he returned it. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and a car nearly hit me. He pulled me out of the way.” Turning back to her cousin, she said, “It doesn’t matter to me whose son he is or what our families have done to each other. Like me, like you, he was born into a situation he didn’t ask for.”
Once again, her cousin nodded, in understanding this time. “Where does your dad think you are now?”
“At Rose’s. I texted him last night.” Despite being a grown woman, her father would have moved heaven and earth to find her if she hadn’t touched base with him on the drive over to Rome’s house. She’d texted Rose as well, and promised to fill her in later on the reason for her lie. Actually, she had planned on confiding everything to her favorite cousin, who had always been more like a sister to her. Rome had been the only secret she had kept from her.
“Who is Rose?” Rome asked.
“My sister,” Misha said. “I should get going. Apparently, I have a meeting to get to later.”
“I’ll see you out.” Rome gently squeezed Sasha’s hand in reassurance before he walked over to the foyer where her cousin already stood, and extended his hand out to him. To Sasha’s surprise, Misha shook hands with him, furthermore, without a hint of malice.
“What was that about?” she asked Rome as soon as her cousin left. “Not that I’m not ecstatic you didn’t try to kill each other, but you two were alone for like two seconds and now you’re—”
“I think he just wants peace as much as we do,” Rome interjected, “and you and I,” he gestured between them as he walked back over to where she stood, “can very well be the catalyst to that.”
She stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You really think so?”
“I truly do,” he said, right before he devoured her mouth, which led to activities the morning should have started out with.
****
She couldn’t do it. Sasha simply couldn’t stay behind, despite promising Rome that she would. He had assured her Lenny’s presence, and even Misha’s, would ensure a peaceful meeting. Lenny had even offered up his house, a neutral territory, but she wanted … no, needed to be there.
Once dressed in the previous night’s clothes, she called a car service to take her over to Lenny’s house. The ten-minute drive felt like it could have actually been an hour, and when she finally got there, a sinking feeling reached the pit of her stomach at the sight of the front door slightly ajar. An eerie silence met her when she opened the door and stepped inside.
And then all hell broke loose.