Page 71 of Midnight Sanctuary
“The type who wants revenge,” Nikolai says with a sigh. “My father is responsible for killing his entire family back in the day.”
My eyes go wide. “W-what?”
“They were a small-time outfit at the time. Oleg Agapov’s dad was in charge and he and my father got into a ton of territory disputes. It could have been settled with a little cash and some decent negotiations, but Gavrill Agapov decided to fight dirty.”
“How?”
“He tried to kill my mother and make it look like an accident.” My jaw drops. He’s relaying the story so casually, too. It’s making my hair stand on end. “Of course, my mother was not so easy to kill. She jumped out of the moving car and clocked the man driving after her. Recognized him as one of Agapov’s men. The next week, the Agapov family was all but ash. Oleg and his younger sister were spared only because they were children.” Nikolai looks me in the eye. “No one fucks with this family and lives to tell the tale.”
“Jeez. When you guys tell stories like that, all I can think is that I’m glad you’re on my side.” He laughs and I squirm in my seat. “Nikolai, I really need a shower. I’m going down, okay?”
“Do you need any help—”
“No.”
He holds up his hands, palms out to placate me. “I was going to offer to walk you down the stairs. Not shower.”
“Can never be too careful with the Bugrov brothers. You two have a habit of overdoing it. Just stay here with Lev. I need a couple minutes.”
“I’ll come down to check on you in ten.”
“Twenty.”
“Fifteen. Final offer.”
“So annoying,” I mumble as I wobble unsteadily towards the door. His laughter follows me all the way down the hall.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I get to my room and I’m able to strip down. Throwing off my clothes is liberating, not least of which is because my body temperature is straight-up haywire these days and I’m sweating like a pig. I crank the water on and adjust the temperature until it’s cool and soothing. Then I get in, ready to soak down my blood pressure for fifteen minutes.
Knowing Nikolai, though, I’ll be lucky to get half that.
I’ve just soaked my hair when my bathroom door is thrown open. Thinking it’s Nikolai, I scream and grab my towel—but then I freeze when I see it’s Uri.
“My God! You scared me.” The look on his face is bleak. It definitely doesn’t help my blood pressure. He opens the shower door and turns off the water. “Uri…?”
“Get out now,” he orders. “And get dressed.”
My brow ripples with unease. “Why?”
“Because we’re leaving. It’s not safe here anymore.”
31
URI
“Thisis our ‘bare bones hideaway spot’?” Alyssa is gawking at the cabin like she’s never seen Scandinavian architecture and exposed timber before. Her hair is still damp from the shower and twisted into a long tail over her shoulder. I want nothing more than to wrap it around my hand and coax her down…
Grimacing, I haul a bag onto each shoulder and nod. “Do you have a complaint you’d like to voice,narushitel?”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “You said we’d have to ‘rough it for a while.’”
“The cabin has only six rooms and no staff quarters. So we’ll have to cook and clean up after ourselves.”
If her eyes rolled back in their sockets any farther, they’d get stuck there permanently. “You poor man. How ever will you survive?”
I roll my own eyes in return as Dimiv comes up around the corner just in time to chime in. “Uri may be good in the kitchen, but he’s never lifted a broom in his life.”
Alyssa turns to him. “You must be Dimiv.”