The drive down to LA is uneventful, and I’m fucking grateful for it. When I arrive, I send MadDog a text, informing him that I’ve made it before I shove my phone back into my pocket.
Pulling up to Kirill Baryshev’s house is almost surreal. It reminds me of Frisco, of my parents’ and their friends’ money. His view is worth a million bucks alone, never mind the actual house.
Knocking on the door, I’m surprised when a young teenage girl answers. She appears to be around sixteen or so, and she looks exactly like Kirill, with her long body and dark hair. When she grows into a woman, she’s going to be breathtaking.
“I’m here to see your father. Is Kirill around?” I ask.
She eyes me up and down, not a hint of fear or trepidation in her gaze before she juts out her chin.
“Stay here, I’ll get him,” she announces before she turns and walks away, leaving the front door open and me on the porch.
I shake my head with a chuckle. She has a lot to learn. Her bravado is admirable, but she definitely has a lot to learn. You never leave a man you don’t know on the porch with your door unlocked, let alone open, and walk away—for starters.
My thoughts are interrupted when I see a gorgeous blonde carrying a baby walk by. She freezes in her place as her eyes zero in on my cut and then her gaze turns wary.
“Can I help you?” she asks, no tremble or fear in her voice whatsoever. Goddamn, this man’s women are strong. Fucking unwavering.
“Here to see Kirill,” I shrug.
“He’s expecting you?”
“Yeah. Your daughter went to go get him,” I shrug.
I watch as her eyes lift to the ceiling and she lets out a sharp curse.
“Teenagers,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m Tatyana,” she offers.
“Soar.”
“Hmm, you’re from up north?” she asks. I nod.
“Soar,” Kirill’s voice carries before he appears. “Come on inside. Apologies for my daughter, Kiska,” he shrugs with a lighthearted grin.
I step through the front door and tell him no problem. Tatyana offers me a drink, but I decline, not wanting to put her out.
“Come out in the back. We’ll talk. View is spectacular out there,” Kirill offers.
“Nice to meet you, Tatyana,” I offer with a grin as I walk by the stacked as fuck woman. Goddamn, Kirill is indeed a lucky man.
“Same to you,” she smiles before she walks away.
Kirill and I walk outside to the backyard. He’s wrong—the view isn’t spectacular, it’s out of this fucking world. The city lights glitter below, but it feels as though you’re above it all, above everything, peaceful and serine—totally alone. It’s the best of both worlds, being close to the city, but with the feel of the mountains and the serenity.
“Apologies if my daughter wasn’t polite. She’s struggling right now,” he offers as he pulls out a cigar and offers me one.
I take it, not because I particularly care for cigars, but because I don’t want to be rude.
“Everything all right?” I ask out of politeness as I take a lighter out of my pocket.
“I’ve chosen a man for her to marry. She isn’t happy,” he shrugs.
“Chosen?” I ask curiously.
“Or rather, he’s chosen her, and I’ve agreed. In our organization, it’s better to arrange marriages, especially between leaders. As her father, as a Pakhan, it’s important.”
“You and Tatyana?” I ask.
“Arranged,” he grins. “Now, let’s get down to business, yeah?”
I nod, ignoring my phone that seems to be buzzing like crazy in my pocket. Kirill and I walk around the side of the house to my car and I pop the trunk. I show him the merchandise, and he nods before he turns to me with a grin.
“Excellent. Let’s unload it into the garage.”
I spend the next few minutes unloading the trunk into his garage, stopping to admire the merchandise every so often. When we’re finished, he thanks me with a pat on my back.
“You need anything while you’re in town?” he asks.
I know what he’s asking. Do I need any women or any dope? I shake my head.
“I’m just going to crash at the hotel before I drive back to town. Need me for anything tomorrow before I head back home?”
“Nyet, I’m good. This was what I was waiting on,” he grins as he holds out his hand. I take his in mine and give it a firm shake. “You need anything, contact me and I’ll get it over to you tonight.”
I nod, knowing that for the first time in years, I don’t even want anything or anyone. I take my phone out of my pocket before I sit down in my car and start the engine. I back down Kirill’s steep driveway, then I thumb my phone and look through the ten missed calls from MadDog.
Fucking hell, he must be really concerned that I wouldn’t deliver this shit to Kirill without incident. I drive straight to the hotel before I call him, not wanting to break California’s no phone policy. I’m not even going to give the police an ounce of ammunition to pull my ass over.
Once I’m checked into the hotel and settled in my room, I decide to call MadDog back.
“Where the fuck are you?” he barks without even saying hello.
“I just dropped that shit off to Kirill, and I’m settled in my hotel. What’s up?”
“You need to get back here,” he murmurs.
“I’m leaving in the morning, stopping by my mom’s on the way home. What’s the problem?” I ask.
I feel a sense of dread fill me, and I know something is terribly wrong. Fucking horribly wrong. MadDog has never beat around the bush, ever. I walk over to the window and look at the city, and the cars headlights and taillights that line the freeways as I wait.
“It’s Genny,” he rasps.
“What about her?” I snap.
“You just need to get back here, brother.”
“Prez, it’s an eight-fucking-hour drive. You’re going to have to give me something,” I demand.
I feel my stomach clench when he murmurs, “She’s hurt. She’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?” I ask as I reach down and grab my bag, thankful I hadn’t even opened it.
I run out of the room, heading toward the stairwell as I wait for him to continue. He tells me that he doesn’t know much. Colleen found her and she had a pulse when the ambulance took her away.
The whole club is at the hospital, but he doesn’t know anything. It pisses me off that I’m so far away, and that I wasn’t there to keep her safe.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I choke out.
“Don’t get pulled over,” he warns.
“I won’t,” I confirm as I throw my shit in the back seat before I start my car.
It’s after six in the morning, my adrenaline keeping me alert enough to drive throughout the entire night. The hospital appears, and it’s as though I can finally take a breath; like I had been holding my breath for the past eight hours as my focus was on the road, on driving, on my destination and nothing else. MadDog sent me a text telling me what floor they were on so that I don’t have to waste time asking reception.
“Where is she?” I call out breathlessly as I run into the waiting room where I see all of my brothers and most of their Old Ladies.
“Soar,” MadDog calls. I turn to him and see a grim expression set on his face.
I see nothing around me, I’m hyper focused on MadDog and the words he’s about to say to me. “Where is she?” I demand as the room melts away.
My heart pounds in my chest, and I’m vaguely aware that I didn’t even feel a quarter of this when my father was in the hospital dying, but my Imogen? She means more to me than any other person, aside from Kipling, in my life. She can’t leave me, not when I’ve just got her back—got us back.
“We haven’t heard anything,” he admits.
“It’s been eight fucking hours, where is her goddamn doctor?” I shout.
MadDog reaches out for me, but I shrug away from his grasp as I turn to find a hospital staff member. I don’t care if it’s the goddamn janitor. Somebody is going to give me some information on my fucking wife, right this goddamn minute.
I march over to the nurse’s station, where they’re sitting around looking like they’re doing nothing but sticking their thumbs up each other’s asses, and I demand to know the status of my wife.
“If a doctor hasn’t come out yet to discuss your wife’s status, then there’s nothing we can tell you,” one nurse says.
She’s young and she looks like she’s about to shit herself. I’m in a fucking bad mood and I’m worried as shit, so I don’t take her feelings into consideration when I speak.
“I haven’t been here. I just fucking walked in the goddamn door. Now I don’t care who the fuck you have to get down on your knees and blow to get me a status update, but I want it, and I want it right fucking now,” I sneer.
“Soar,” a soft voice says behind me. I ignore it.
“I—uh—I…” she stutters before she bursts into tears.
“Fucking ruthless,” a voice says beside me.
I see Camo, who is giving me a dirty look for acting like an asshole. I ignore him and turn back to the nurse who is crying.
“You aren’t moving,” I snap.
Her body jolts and she whispers that she’ll find a doctor before she runs off.
“I’ll be surprised if security isn’t in here in a few minutes dragging your ass out of here,” Camo says dryly.
“She was brought in here over eight hours ago. I want a goddamn update,” I announce.
“Understandable,” Camo mutters. “Maybe not the best idea to make the staff cry, though, brother.”
I turn away from him, ignoring him completely, and walk back into the waiting area where everybody else is standing. It’s then that I notice the room is quiet. For as many people that are here, it’s almost completely silent. I run my hand through my hair and drop my head, looking at the ground.
“Sir?” a little voice calls.
I look over to the nurse who is standing by me, ringing her fingers together nervously, her face splotched from crying.
“Yeah, babe?” I ask, my voice softer than it was a few minutes ago.
“The doctor is almost finished with surgery, and he’ll be in here as soon as he’s able,” she says.
I watch as she physically braces herself, but I don’t blow up at her. I softly thank her and she blinks once before she turns and runs away from me.
Ivy walks up beside me before she murmurs, “She’s going to be okay.” I grunt as my answer and continue to stare at the door, waiting. “She’s strong.”
“Stronger than she should be,” I mutter. I can feel her questioning gaze on me. “No need to pretend that I wasn’t a fucking piece of shit to her for years, Ivy. You saw it, everyone saw it. I mean I fucking hit on Cleo before I went down,” I announce before I clench my jaw tightly.
“Soar,” she sighs. “You fucked up, but you’ve changed.”
“Only took me twenty years to fix my shit, and now she’s hurt, really fucking hurt,” I grind out.
Ivy doesn’t say anything else. The doctor interrupts our conversation by walking into the room, a chart in hand and bloody scrubs on his body. I walk straight up to him and notice that he looks fucking tired. I feel the same goddamn way.
“Family of Imogen Huntington?” he calls.
“I’m her husband, Sloane,” I state as I place my hands on my hips and wait for the heavy news to be thrown my way.
“She sustained some serious injuries. The reason it took so long for me to get out here was that we had to send her out for testing and wait for results. She has some major contusions to her head and her torso. I wanted to check her brain swelling and check her for internal bleeding. In all, she doesn’t have any life-threatening injuries. I want her to stay in the hospital for another forty-eight hours under observation, but I feel pretty confident that she’ll make a complete recovery. Your wife was very lucky,” he states. I don’t miss the way his lip curls, as if I did this to her.
“Can I see her?” I ask.
He nods slowly, and I follow behind him, not bothering to look back at the room full of people who were no doubt listening.
Once the doctor stops outside a room, he turns to face me, all calm and gentleness completely gone from his features. If I was a man who was easily intimidated, I might find him as such.
“You do this to her?” he asks.
“Imogen is my wife. I’d never hurt her,” I state, my gaze never wavering. Surprisingly, neither does his.
“I’ve seen a lot of husbands and wives in here over the years. She didn’t fall down the stairs, she didn’t fall down anything. This woman was beat, and I want to know, plain and simple, if you did it,” he practically growls.
“I’ll tell you again. Imogen has been mine since she was fifteen years old. I’ve done a lot of shit, but physically harming her is something I would never do. Now if you don’t step the fuck aside and let me see my wife, I’m going to move you,” I growl.
The doctor nods and steps to the side, but I can feel his gaze still on me. I could give a single fuck. I open the hospital room door and close it behind me before I look up at Imogen. My breath is stolen from my goddamn body at the sight of her.
She’s hooked up to a bunch of machines, wires draped all over her, but my focus is on her gorgeous face. She doesn’t even look human. She’s so fucking swollen. Every single inch of her face is triple its normal size, and I can’t even see her eyes. She’s black, blue, red, purple, and completely unrecognizable.
My feet take me to the side of her bed, and I fall to my knees. I wrap my fingers around hers and press my forehead to the back of her hand. I’m alone, so I don’t try to hold them back, to choke them back or to keep them from coming.
I cry.
My wife, she’s so fucking hurt, so fucking broken, and it’s my fault. It doesn’t matter who did it to her, I wasn’t there to protect her, to help her, or to keep her safe. I’m never fucking there for her, not ever. I’m the biggest piece of shit that’s walked this earth.
The pain in my chest is so excruciating that I find it’s hard to simply breathe. Who the fuck could hurt her like this? Then I lift my head, and it dawns on me.
Graham Bayard.
That cocksucking piece of goddamn shit. It was him. I know it without a doubt. Wiping my face, I take another look at my beautifully broken wife and decide there’s only one thing left to do. I’m going to kill him.
I storm out of her room and into the waiting area to see that MadDog is watching me warily. I walk straight over to him, speaking low so that the entire hospital can’t hear me.
“It was Bayard,” I mutter.
“We don’t know that for sure,” he says. I can tell he feels the same way.
“I need someone to stay with her while I handle this shit,” I announce.
“Soar, you cannot do anything stupid. You’re on probation,” he warns.
“Do I look like I give one single fuck?”
Colleen stands before she calls out, “I’ll stay with her.”
“I’ll stay, too,” Ivy murmurs.
“We’ll all stay. The kids are all together, everything is handled for today,” Mary-Anne mutters.
“You don’t go alone,” MadDog states.
“I could give a rat’s ass who goes with me. But I’m driving down to Frisco today, now,” I announce before I turn and walk away.
I storm down to my car, firing up my engine before I speed off. I don’t bother even attempting to go inside of my house. I don’t want to see the aftermath of how Imogen ended up the way she did. I have one focus, and one focus only, Graham Bayard bleeding and fucking dead.