“What is my name, then?” she gasps.
“Juliana Crichton,” she says. “And your mother was Anna Langdale, and then Crichton. And your father was Jeffrey Crichton.”
Juliana cradles Rebel to her chest, fighting off the sobs.
I keep driving us through the night, taking the off-ramp and heading down the country roads toward the suburbs, my high-beams slicing like white sabers through the pitch-dark.
“I waited a year and then went back to the orphanage one day, to see if you were still there. You were. I left it at that, content that you were alive, that the Bratva hadn’t gotten to you. But over the years, I kept checking up on you. I had to make sure you were safe. And then when you left the orphanage and started a life of your own, I followed you. I wanted to be certain the Bratva didn’t get their hands on you.”
She pauses, coughing back a sob. Juliana moves closer to her, as much as the seatbelts will allow.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Patricia, it’s okay.”
“It’s not,” she says, fighting off the sobs. “I should have never made contact with you. I should have left you outside that railway station. But when I saw you and Rebel looking so miserable, looking so helpless, I couldn’t. I felt like I had to help. I thought enough time had passed. I was wrong. Last week, one of the Bratva swung by the office, claiming that he wanted me to plan a birthday party for his daughter. He made me take the contract on for free, of course. I was naïve. I thought that was it—a free party. But he was scouting. He must’ve heard that a woman named Juliana was working for me. I’m an idiot. I should’ve given you a false first name, too.
“But how could I do that? How could I take your name away from you, when so much else already had been?”
Both of them burst into tears, clutching onto each other, crying for a long time as I guide us through the night.
I can’t pull over to comfort my woman.
I can’t stop driving away from the city.
Because now I know that this is the Bratva, I know just how fucked we truly are.
The only way to save her now is to somehow make a deal with – or kill – Igor Zhirkov, the leader of the Bratva. And that’s like trying to assassinate a president or reason with a snake. He’s stubborn and ruthless and commits more evil in a week than most men do in a lifetime.
“You saved me,” Juliana cries.
“I lied to you—”
“No,” Juliana says firmly. “I won’t look at it like that. I refuse to. You saved me. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead. So you made mistakes along the way. Everybody does. But you saved my life, Patricia, and I’ll never stop being thankful for that.”
Chapter Twelve
Juliana
We drive deep into the suburbs, the houses getting further and further apart until the gardens are more like fields, and each house has a gate of its own.
Jett drives up to the biggest house on the street – a house that borders on being a mansion – and rolls down his window, letting in a shaft of night-cold air.
I shiver and cradle Rebel closer to my chest as he leans out to type a code into the keypad.
With a creaking noise, the gate begins to slide open.
My sleep-hungry mind reels from everything I’ve learned during the ride here, my whole life turned upside down and dropped on its head.
Everything I thought I knew has been shattered.
It wasn’t an accident.
It was a punishment.
My father was a criminal.
Patricia has known me my entire life.
She saved me twice, first when I was a baby and then at the railway station.
She lied to me.
I close my eyes and let out a shivering groan, wishing I could flit back in time to the underground apartment with Jett and just stay there, cuddle up with him on the couch, feeling his rock hard body pressed against me.
Feel him slide his hands all over me again, but this time we’d go all the way, giving in to our savage lust, taking each other’s virginities, and creating a wonderful life in the process.
“This is your safe house?” I murmur, opening my eyes and taking in the grandiosity of the estate.
There is a wide gravel driveway and enough space for several cars to park. In the center of the overgrown garden – itself at least twenty-five times the size of my apartment – sits a stone fountain, covered in ivy and empty of water. The house itself is a large colonial-style building, with a wide porch held up by two pillars and more ivy climbing up and down the walls.
It looks as though it hasn’t been lived in for a long time.