*Tallon*
My nerves were still coiling the second Natalia ended our call. The beating of my heart stamred and crashed against my ribcage like it was trying to escape.
Hearing her broken voice through the speaker of my phone, left my palms sweating and a deep ache in my chest. What could possibly have happened that caused her to nearly break out, sobbing over the phone?
I snatched my phone off of my desk and headed straight for the car without giving it another thought. Out of pure habit, I packed my gun into my back holster and struggled not to think for the worse.
The sound of my heavy footsteps echoed madly throughout the house. I called one of the guards near the front doors to bring the car around. I wasn’t going to waste another mont. I needed to get to her. I needed to pull her into my arms, to feel her warmth and ease her stress.
Amongst the anxious feeling swelling between my lungs, I sohow felt a strain of pride rushing through . Even though I loathed the sound of her crying, I felt honored that she chose to call in the first place. She purposely chose to reach out to .
And here I’d thought she wanted nothing more to do with . In between those soft, shattered whimpers was a flicker of hope. Part of wanted to tell her the truth about who I was, who my family was, and what I ‘really’ did for work. But God only knew what would have beco of the conversation then.
There was no way in hell I could have possibly dumped that on her after all that’s been going on. Everything would end between us for sure.
And who could bla her if she were to end our relationship and turn away?
Even though I knew it would crush to no end, I couldn’t allow any harm to co to her.
“I love her,” I thought undeniably.
It sounded so simple, but it was quite the contrary.
Natalia beca one of the many things that consud my thoughts. She was my first thought in the morning and the last thought at night.
Alessandro had no right to accuse Natalia of being involved in the mad shit that had been happening. For Christ’s sake, she was just a college student from California who was just trying to get through her sester classes.
Why the fuck would she have anything to do with the Zaytsevs?
Lately, life had been nothing but a complete shit show, yet having Natalia in the back of my mind always made the darkest tis seem a little bit brighter. As delusional as it sounded, I didn’t care.
But it sounded no more insane than him and Vinny practically accusing her of working with the goddamn Russians.
Oh, yeah. I was fully intending to collect on my brother’s apology when the ti ca.
I quickly slid into the backseat of the vehicle and instructed my driver to hit the gas pedal with no intention of slowing down. The other cars on the road were wise to stay out of our way.
About halfway there, I heard my phone begin to buzz. My blood curdled with the thought of it being Natalia again. Her first call was enough to send chills down my spine in the worst way imaginable. And if this was her trying to call again, then I’d know that sothing was horribly wrong.
Yet when I finally glanced down at my phone screen, it was my brother’s na that appeared. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried.
Our last conversation hadn’t exactly ended on a high note. The mont he suggested Natalia’s potential involvent with everything that’s happened, feelings between us had been strained. Then again, these past few weeks had been hard on everyone.
Vinny was still in the process of reaching out to the respective families of those who’d lost their lives–under my leadership.
I knew I would never forget that ungodly sight when Vinny opened the door of the house to a front lawn filled with lifeless bodies. Those lives would forever hang over my shoulder until the score was made even. We may not have known who the mole was, but we knew enough that the Russians were the cause of everything.
I was convinced that he was calling to inform about Natalia being a dead-end. I was ready to hear the exasperated, sullen tone in his voice when he’d tell that he was wrong all along for suspecting her.
I hit the ‘answer’ button on my screen and held the phone up to my ear. My mouth twisted into a knowing smirk.
“So, are you ready to accept that I was right about Natalia?”
That irritated tone I was fully anticipating to hear from Alessandro was nowhere to be found. In fact, the guy sounded far too chipper for my liking.
“Oh, little brother... You could not be any further into a rut had you dug the fucking hole yourself,” Alessandro slithered.
My heart slamd inside of my chest as I proceeded to place my brother on speakerphone.
“The fuck are you talking about?” I hissed.
I didn’t need to see my brother to know that he was wearing his infamous shit-eating ‘I told you so’ smirk on his face.
“I finally got around to checking out that little girlfriend of yours.”
My blood was on the verge of boiling from the sharp, unforgiving tone in his voice. A long mont of silence passed between us before he spoke again. Now was not the ti for soone to play on my nerves.
“And?” I growled.
“And it turns out that your ‘precious’ Natalia is not who she says she is.”
I felt my stomach twist into knots. “You’re lying.”
“Oh, believe , Tallon,” my brother sighed through the phone. “You have no idea how badly I wished I was wrong about her.”
Oh God. No. No, I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know what Alessandro had discovered.
The ache in my chest grew worse with every passing second that I wasted not asking the million-dollar question.
“What–” I cleared my throat the best I could. “What did you find?”
“Based on my sources, you Natalia did not exist anywhere before three years ago,” his brother said.
My brows pulled together in pure confusion. “The fuck do you an she didn’t exist until just three years ago?!”
It didn’t make sense. How could soone just magically appear out of nowhere without any sort of record or background? Alessandro was quick to fill in the blanks that my mind so desperately needed.
“Well, before I go any further I have to ask... are you sitting down?”
I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling of the car and snarled venomously under my breath.
“Stop dicking around and just tell what the fuck you found!” I shouted. “Who is she?!”
Another long pause went by.
My nerves couldn’t take the suspense. I was about a second away from reaching through the phone and throttling my brother with my bare hands.
“Natalia’s real na is Natalia Zaytsev....”
My voice sounded too far away as I struggled to process the words that had just co through the speaker of my phone.
“She’s the granddaughter of Dmitri Zaytsev.”
And that, right there, was the final bullet that struck in the chest, the final nail to be hamred into my self-made coffin.
A Zaytsev... a motherfucking Zaytsev.
Not only was the love of my life a goddamn Russian, but she just so happened to be a direct blood relative of the biggest enemy the Valentinos had ever fought against. The number of people my family and friends had lost because of that Russian snake was a list that was practically endless.
The whole family was heartless, a bloodthirsty group of conniving rats that had proven impossible to get rid of. That’s why my mind simply could not wrap around the truth that Natalia was one of them.
Unfortunately, there were too many factors stacking against her the more I began to consider it all.
Each and every ti there was a raid or so kind of attack, Natalia was with . I thought back to our trip to Positano. We were away from ho, and that was when one of the biggest attacks took place.
“She was the one who’s been telling them of my whereabouts,” I thought blankly to myself. “That’s how they’ve been keeping one step ahead of us this whole ti.”
Yes, well, that ti was about to end.
The ache in my chest started to beco laced with a burning sensation of pure, unbridled anger. The idea of marching up to her apartnt and crashing her door down was far too appealing to ignore.
I wanted answers.
I deserved an explanation for how she could live, knowing that so many people had lost their lives because of her family.
Was it worth using ? Were all the lifeless bodies that lined my property worth it?
“Tallon.”
Alessandro’s voice broke my excessive train of thought. For a quick second, I had forgotten that we were still on the phone.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
A dangerous smirk curled my mouth. “I’m actually outside of my ex-girlfriend’s apartnt right now.”
“Oh, shit. Tallon,” my brother hissed. “I can’t believe that I’m going to say this but... don’t do anything stupid.”
Of course, I didn’t have it in to physically hurt a woman... enemy or traitor, regardless. But that still didn’t an that I wasn’t going to storm up there and shake her for answers.
My voice grew calm, too calm to be considered normal given the circumstance. Alessandro had only witnessed using such a tone a small handful of tis to know that the results were never pretty.
“I’m not going to do anything besides talk to her,” I explained.
“Tallon, I think it would be a wise choice to simply co back to the house and think of our next course of action,” he suggested.
The corner of my mouth pulled back into a tight sneer. My anger continued to eat at .
“Since when did you beco the fucking voice of reason?” I snapped back. “Aren’t you the one who would march into the place with a gun in each hand and kill anyone who gets in your way?”
My seething words taunted my poisonous feelings even further. My hands curled into such tight fists that my knuckles were turning white.
“You’re not thinking clearly. Co ho and give yourself a break–”
“I’m thinking for the sake of everyone whose life was stolen because of her and her involvent,” I growled into the phone.
Without so much as another word of reasoning, I ended the call and climbed out of the car. I easily adjust my clothing and leisurely make my way into the apartnt building.
I got to her floor and I reached her door in record ti. The back of my hand knocked heavily against the door. I could hear her moving on the other side.
Suddenly, the door swung open and I was standing face to face with a very distraught-looking Natalia. Her eyes were puffy, and she looked as though she’d been crying for the past thirty minutes.
“Tallon,” she said weakly.
I hated that my first initial instinct was to reach out and pull her into my embrace. But I managed to hold my ground.
“I can hardly imagine what’s left you in tears when it’s my family who have been slaughtered by you Russian parasites,” I grated through my teeth.
Natalia visually froze in front of , and I was fairly certain that I’d made her heart stop beating.
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