Rome stood as well. The meeting may not have gone well, but it went better than expected. He at least made some headway with both his father and Andrei. Vitaly would die tonight, and both Andrei and Boris would know it was Rome who executed him—his last kill, just like he had promised Misha earlier today at his apartment.
Vitaly would never even see him coming … or at least that would have been the case if the devil they had all just been speaking of wasn’t currently standing at the arched entrance to the living room, both sets of guards running in shortly thereafter.
“Where was my invitation to this meeting?” Vitaly asked with malice in his voice. He then strolled into the living room with an air of arrogance and stopped just a few short feet away from where the rest of the party stood.
Physically, Rome and his cousin resembled each other. Both men were tall, well-built with similar hair and eye coloring, though Vitaly’s eyes were a darker blue, and both had the perfectly sculpted Valentin nose, which was just a little too wide in the nostrils, but that’s where their similarities ended. Vitaly had no soul, Rome thought, no passion or goals save for money and power and he was definitely not a man who could be reasoned with.
“My apologies, Boris. He said you had requested his presence,” Dmitri, Rome’s father’s bodyguard said. He also explained how he and his men had no choice but to come in when Andrei’s guards decided to follow Vitaly. Both sets of guards were now cautiously inching into the room.
Boris aimed an angry glare at his nephew. “When I request your presence, you will know it, Vitaly. Do not dare speak to me with disrespect.”
“But from him,” Vitaly jerked his chin in Rome’s direction, “you tolerate disrespect? Looks to me like the great Valentin assassin is slipping,” he finished, referring to Andrei, who clearly was still breathing.
Rome mentally cursed the fact that his gun was in the other room. He could have put an end to this feud right here and now.
“You will not stick your nose into matters between me and my son,” Boris yelled.
“I demand justice!” Vitaly’s eyes were burning with anger as he drew his gun, too quickly for Rome to speculate if he had been disarmed before entering the house. Apparently, he wasn’t. Vitaly aimed at Andrei’s head, after which, both sets of guards drew their own weapons, leaving hardly any heads in the room without a gun pointed at it.
Rome saw the fury brimming in Lenny’s eyes, and the guilt nearly choked him. He had brought this back into Lenny’s life, a life finally made peaceful, and the only thing he remained thankful for was that neither Sasha nor Klara were anywhere near. His gut told him this would not end well.
He had to stop this somehow. “Not here, Vitaly,” he warned. “This is neutral territory. Put the gun down before you do something else you’ll regret.”
“Regret? I regret nothing except being second to you, Rome. I should be in line to take over the business. Me!” He shifted his focus to Boris, his aim at Andrei’s head never wavering. “I loved you like a father and respected you more than my own father. He was not strong enough to lead our family, and neither were any of your other brothers. Give me the order, Uncle Boris.” He thumb-backed the hammer of the gun. “Let me do what your son was too chicken-shit to do, and then all of our rivals will know who their king is.”
Rome could practically see the steam rising off his father, the look in his deep-set blue eyes lethal enough to make grown men cower, and yet, when he spoke next, his voice was calm and collected, calculated even in his choice of words. “This isn’t a monarchy, Vitaly. I run a business. If I were a king, you’d be bowing down to me and kissing my feet in gratitude for giving you a position you did not deserve. You have no head for business. And you have no honor!” He shouted his last sentence, and Rome reveled in his cousin’s flinched response.
Boris held out his hand. “Give me the gun … now!”
The tension at the start of the meeting was nothing compared to now. The room became too quiet, eerily so. Rome could practically see the indecision warring within Vitaly. He didn’t have many options at this point, and he knew it. If he pulled the trigger, one of Andrei’s guards would take him out immediately.
Footsteps in the hallway broke the silence right before everything went to shit in a blur. Through Rome’s peripheral vision, he saw Vitaly shift his focus to the entrance of the living room. To his horror, Sasha appeared, her mouth forming a silent O. As if in slow motion, Rome hurled himself at his cousin, but it was too late to stop him.
Vitaly fired.
“Aleksandra,” someone yelled.
Rome wasn’t sure if it was Andrei or Misha, nor did he care at the moment. He ran to her and knelt beside her prone figure on the floor. She was bleeding on the right side of her head. He heard shouting behind him, scuffling sounds, and then another shot fired followed by breaking glass.
“Sasha, open your eyes, baby … please.” His voice broke on the last word. “Don’t leave me.”
“Never,” she whispered. Her eyes fluttered open, but Rome’s relief quickly turned to mortification when Sasha shrieked. She practically shoved him down right after she kicked out at Vitaly and missed.
Vitaly seethed with rage, blood staining his left shoulder, and then he aimed his gun at him and Sasha.
A single shot made the room go quiet again.
Earlier, everything had moved in slow motion for Rome, but now time seemed to freeze completely, a photograph of the aftermath. Vitaly was dead, lying in a pool of his own blood, his eyes open, his father’s hand outstretched pointing a gun at Vitaly, finger still on the trigger, Andrei and Misha standing beside him, and the guards seemingly about to spring into action.
The world began to turn on its axis again when Sasha spoke. “I was so scared it was you he shot.”
“Aleksandra!” This time Rome was sure it was Andrei’s cry he heard, but he never took his gaze off the precious woman in his arms.
“She’s okay,” Rome quickly reassured them. The blood was coming from a small scratch on the side of her head she must have gotten when she fell. The bullet Vitaly fired never touched her.
And then Andrei was there, kneeling beside them. He tenderly put one hand underneath his daughter’s head and one on Rome’s shoulder. “You saved her life. I am forever in your debt.” He looked up at Boris, who was handing his gun back to Dmitri, and added, “And in your debt.”
“She threw herself in front of my son,” Boris said, his voice thick with emotion. “The debt is mine.”
Andrei stood, walked over to Boris, and held out his hand for him to shake. “Let’s call all debts paid.”
A single shot, and the feud between the two families had finally ended.
