Year Four (Kingmakers, #4)

by Sophie Lark

“I’ve told you things I never told anyone in my life,” he growls. “I felt things with you I’ve never felt. I fell into you like a well and I’m still fucking falling. I never lied when I said I love you.” “Just about everything else!” I cry. “I don’t care about anything else!” he shouts back at me.

“I’ve still got several inches on you where it counts,” Adrik says, winking not at Kade, but in the direction of Sabrina Gallo.

Sabrina rolls her eyes, picking up the last two scuba tanks. Adrik holds out his hand to take them from her. Ignoring him, Sabrina leaps lightly down to the dock. Adrik narrows his eyes, following close after her.

“Rafe wrote to me about you,” Freya says.

“You’ll swim, or you’ll run out of air in that underwater maze and drown in the dark,” my mother says, calmly. “And if you don’t cooperate, I need you to remember that your father has kept my husband prisoner for three and a half years. You’re only breathing right now because I think you might be of use to me. The moment you become a hindrance instead of a help, I’ll snap my fingers like this,” she gives one crisp click of her finger and thumb, “and that will be the sound of a bullet entering the back of your skull. Do we understand each other?”

But if she tries to hurt Nix . . . I can’t let her do it.

He only stopped glaring at Nix when distracted by Sabrina Gallo zipping her very tight wetsuit over her hourglass figure. I’ve never seen Adrik stunned to silence over a girl. Usually he gives them about the same amount of attention as he pays to speed limits and unpaid parking tickets—a mere passing glance.

Sabrina retrieves her own rifle. “You know how to shoot that?” Adrik says. Sabrina swiftly slaps a magazine into the stock, then pulls back the slide to chamber a round. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m good.”

Adrik seizes Nix by the arm, pulling her to the front of the pack. He points his rifle right at her spine. “You lead the way,” he says. “And if you get any brilliant ideas about yelling out or trying to run off . . . I’ll cut the cord to your legs.” I shove my way between Adrik and Nix, standing between her and the gun. “Don’t touch her, and don’t fucking threaten her,” I snarl. Adrik stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“She’s not your girlfriend,” he scoffs. “She’d shoot you in the back right now if she was the one holding the rifle.” I look at Nix. Her stare is as furious as I’ve ever seen it. But I don’t believe she’d shoot me. “I don’t give a shit,” I say. “No one touches Nix but me.”

“You’ve been Ares too...

“Nix goes in front,” I say, “I’ll be right behind her.” Now it’s me with my gun pointed at her back. I see her stiffen, with hurt or with outrage. It doesn’t matter. She’s safer this way. Because no matter what she does, I’ll never pull the trigger.

I, on the other hand, know exactly what’s happening. My wife is here.

“I’m sorry Kuzmo,” I say. “I’d open the door for you, but I’m afraid you’d have to pluck out your eye and pass it to me through the slot.”

I’m ready to wreak the havoc these cretins deserve.

I’m going to slaughter every one of them standing between me and my wife.

I want Rafe right next to me. I want his warmth and his bulk in front of me. I hate to admit it, but I’m scared.

Rafe looks down, seeing my hand clutching his forearm. “I’ll stay right by you all the time,” he promises. I let go of him, angry at myself for showing weakness. Angry for needing him.

Now I can’t stop the tears that run down my face without warning. Borys was like an uncle to me. He used to time how long I could hold my breath in our indoor pool at the compound, and he showed me how to make pizza dough from scratch, with yeast and flour and honey.

I see Rafe’s obvious excitement, the heartbreaking hope on his face as we stand right where his father must have been. And I see my friend dead on the floor.

“I think there’s someone in here . . .” Kade says, bending to peer through the slot in the door. “NO!” Freya shouts, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him back. At that moment, someone fires through the door. Kade tumbles backward, hand clasped to the side of his head, blood pouring through his fingers.

“It’s just your ear, you dumb shit,” he says. His words don’t match the deep relief on his face as he sees that Kade is only missing the upper portion of his right ear. He’s bleeding everywhere, but it’s a hell of a lot better than a bullet to the head.

The violence keeps spiraling and spiraling. There’s no happy ending here—whoever lives and whoever dies, I lose friends on either side.

We turn back, into a cramped corridor where we collide with a dozen of my father’s men. Our groups run into each other in an instant maelstrom, two storm fronts colliding.

The chaos that ensues is difficult for me to follow. Under the flickering halogen lights, I see Rafe fire at one of my father’s soldiers called Andriy, then grapple with Kristyan. I turn to find a gun pointed right between my eyes. All I can do is stare into the face of a soldier I’ve never met, who curls his finger around the trigger, until Kristyan shouts, “No, that’s Nix!”, and wrenches the gun away, before being shot in the side himself by Freya Petrov.

Then Rafe says, “Dad!”, and he runs to him. Ivan Petrov drops the knives, sweeping his son and daughter into his arms.

Ivan Petrov is frankly terrifying, and I’m staying as far back in the group as possible.

Rafe rejoins me. I can see the blazing relief in his face, a lightening of his step that makes me realize what a burden he was carrying all this time. His fingers tremble slightly as he clutches his rifle.

Meanwhile Ivan shoots two, three, four Malina, before sprinting across the open ground to his wife, heedless of bullets flying around him, sliding into her behind the body of the Jeep, seizing her and kissing her with a ferocity that would tear apart a more delicate woman.

Sloane kisses him back, blood smearing from his mouth to hers, their hands clutching each other’s faces, their bodies melded together like they could never be parted again. I’ve never witnessed anything so intimate. I can’t look away.

“Remember what I told you, my little fox: nothing could keep me from...

As one, Ivan and Sloane turn, raising their rifles to their shoulders. Side by ...

Until my father roars, “I’VE GOT YOUR NEPHEW!”

In the mad dash, Kade Petrov fell behind.

Without hesitation, Sloane seizes me by the arm and shouts back, “AND I’VE GOT YOUR DAUGHTER!” She begins to drag me back down the tunnel.

“Don’t hurt him,” I say, nodding toward Kade. “Let him go. He’s my friend.”

“He’s your friend?” my father howls, outraged. “Have you lost your mind? These are your worst fucking enemies, Nix! That’s Ivan Petrov! It’s his fault your mother is dead! His fault she was never avenged!”

I’m supposed to cross to the other side like Kade did. I’m supposed to join my own family. But all I can think of is Sabrina’s words, echoing in my head: Are you sure what side you want to be on? My father or Rafe? The Petrovs or the Malina?

Rafe looks at me. His eyes are as clear and blue as I’ve ever seen them—a reminder of sea and sky in this sunless place. He relaxes his grip so my forearm slides through his fingers, until my hand is resting on his palm. We gaze into each other’s eyes. There’s no lying when you speak without words. I turn my hand, linking my fingers through his. Then I say to my father, “I’m not coming home with you.”

“What are you doing?” he rasps. “I’m going back to Kingmakers. I’m staying with Rafe.” My father isn’t shaking anymore. He’s gone deathly still. “You choose him over me,” he says. “This boy over your own father.” “Yes,” I say. “I do.” Rafe’s hand tightens in mine.

“It’s over,” I say to my father. I turn away from him, back toward my friends, back toward the Petrovs, and most of all toward Rafe. Nothing happens for the space of a heartbeat.

Then my father gives a strangled howl. He rips the knife from his belt, swinging it down. I turn in slow motion, the arc of my spin intersecting with the trajectory of my father’s knife—the blade plunging directly toward my heart.

Until Rafe lunges between us, turning his shoulder into the knife. The blade sinks into his flesh. It cuts...

Rafe doesn’t even seem to feel it. He’s already pulling his own knife from his belt. He swings it upward, faster than a whip, slashing directly across my father’s throat. My father gasps. Before he can move, before he can even begin to bleed, Rafe slashes him again and again and again, cutting him across the belly, through the groi...

My father collapses, spurting blood from a dozen gashes. I sink to my knees, sobbing, grabbing for his hand. I lift that hand, heavy as a bear paw, and try to hold it against my face, to feel his rough palm one last time. My father looks into my eyes.

I look up at Rafe, who killed my father. Who saved my life.

I don’t know who fires first, or if it’s even intentional. It might have been Stepan Pavluk, who after all is only a bookkeeper, and should never have been brought to this place. I only hear the pop of a finger convulsing against a trigger, and then I see Leo touch his side, a startled look on his face, blood blooming on his shirt.

I feel the same about Nix. I don’t let her out of my sight, afraid that she might be far more fragile than she looks, ready to shatter any second like hot glass under cold water. I think she’s in shock. She sits silent and pale, all brightness wiped from her face.

Everyone else has cleaned up and changed clothes. She still sits in the outfit she chose so hopefully for our date, her clothing filthy with dust and stained with her father’s blood.

“How much money did he take from you?” she asks. “I’ll pay you back every cent.” My father looks at her, his eyes dark as flint. “Money can’t repay what was taken,” he says. Nix trembles under his stare, but she holds his gaze. “What can I offer, then?” she says. “You can offer yourself,” my father says. “Your mind, your body, your soul, your loyalty, your life . . . to my son.”