Chapter 14: Blood on the Tide

Lightning cracked the sky open the second Dimitri stepped inside.

He looked exactly like Czar, if Czar had been carved from ice instead of fire. Same height, same cruel mouth, same eyes that stripped you bare.

Only difference: the long scar running from Dimitri’s left temple to his jaw, the one Czar had given him the night he buried him alive.

He smiled like the devil collecting a debt.

“Put the gun down, krasotka. We both know you won’t shoot.”

My hand shook so hard the barrel danced.

He walked forward slowly, palms open, rain dripping from his black coat.

“Easy. I just want to talk.”

“Talk from there,” I said, voice cracking.

He stopped three metres away, tilted his head.

“Look at you. Pregnant. Glowing. Terrifyingly brave.” His gaze dropped to my stomach. “My nephew. Or niece. How poetic.”

I cocked the pistol.

He laughed softly. “Czar taught you that, didn’t he? Good. Means he’s finally learning to protect what’s his.”

Another step.

“Stop.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me and explain to your child one day that you murdered their uncle?” He spread his arms. “Go ahead. I’m already dead once. Second time’s easier.”

Thunder drowned my heartbeat.

He was close enough now that I smelled the cold on him. Siberian cold.

“You have ten seconds to leave,” I whispered.

“Ten seconds is all I need.”

He moved: faster than human, hand snapping around my wrist, twisting until the gun clattered to the marble.

Pain shot up my arm. I screamed.

He caught me before I hit the floor, one arm banded around my waist, the other pressing a soaked cloth over my mouth.

Chloroform. Sweet. Sickening.

I fought: nails, teeth, knees.

I bit his hand hard enough to taste blood.

He hissed but didn’t let go.

“Shhh. Sleep, malen’kaya koroleva. When you wake up, the game changes.”

The room spun. Lightning flashed white.

The last thing I saw was his smile.

Then nothing.

I woke on a yacht.

Rocking gently. Engine humming low.

Wrists zip-tied in front of me. Ankles free.

I was on a bed in a cabin that smelled of diesel and money.

Dimitri sat in the corner chair, shirt sleeves rolled, cleaning blood from his hand with a white towel.

My blood. His blood. Didn’t matter.

“You’re awake,” he said calmly. “Good. We have twenty minutes before Czar realises the island feed is looped and loses his fucking mind.”

I tried to sit up. My head pounded.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere he’ll follow.” He stood, walked over, crouched so we were eye-level. “Somewhere he’ll have to choose.”

“Choose what?”

“You or the empire.”

He brushed a strand of hair from my face, almost tender.

“You’re the only thing he loves more than power, Eden. I’m counting on it.”

I spat in his face.

He wiped it off slowly, smiling.

“I like you. Shame we’re related by marriage.”

Footsteps on deck. Voices in Russian.

Dimitri straightened.

“Time to go.”

He lifted me like I weighed nothing, carried me up the stairs into blinding sun.

We were far from the island already. Blue water in every direction.

A second yacht waited: smaller, faster.

And standing on its deck, soaked, shirt torn, eyes wild:

Czar.

He looked like he’d swum through hell to get here.

Dimitri stopped at the railing, one arm locked around my waist, the other pressing a knife to my throat.

Czar’s gun came up instantly.

“Let her go.”

“Lower the weapon, brother,” Dimitri called, voice light. “Or I open her from here to here.” The blade traced my collarbone.

Czar’s hand didn’t waver.

“You’ll be dead before she hits the water.”

“Maybe. But she’ll still bleed out in your arms. How long before the baby dies with her? Five minutes? Ten?”

The knife pressed harder. Warm blood trickled down my neck.

Czar’s eyes met mine.

I saw the exact second he broke.

His gun lowered. Slowly.

He raised both hands.

“Take me instead,” he said. “Whatever you want: money, territory, my life. Take it. Let her go.”

Dimitri laughed, delighted.

“That’s the thing, Czar. I don’t want your empire anymore.”

He leaned close to my ear, loud enough for Czar to hear.

“I want you to watch me take what’s left of your soul.”

The knife moved from my throat to my stomach.

One second.

Two.

Czar roared: animal, inhuman.

And then the world exploded.

Gunfire from nowhere. Men dropping on both yachts.

Czar’s guards: hidden in the water, on jet skis, in the sky.

Dimitri swore, shoved me hard toward the railing.

I fell.

Water closed over my head.

Cold. Black. Silent.

I sank, zip ties cutting into my wrists, lungs burning.

Then arms around me: strong, familiar.

Czar.

He kicked hard, dragging me up, up, up.

We broke the surface gasping.

He tore the zip ties with his teeth, held me against his chest as bullets whipped the water around us.

A speedboat screamed toward us.

He lifted me into waiting arms, climbed in after.

Only when we were racing away did he look at me.

Blood poured from a cut above his eye. His hands shook as they ran over my face, my throat, my stomach.

“Are you hurt? The baby: tell me.”

I couldn’t speak. Just clung to him, sobbing into his neck.

He wrapped himself around me like a shield.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you both.”

Behind us, Dimitri’s yacht erupted in flames.

Czar didn’t look back.

He just held me tighter as the island disappeared on the horizon.

“I told you I’d burn the world,” he whispered against my wet hair.

“I just didn’t think I’d have to burn my own brother to do it.”

I looked up at him.

“Is he dead?”

Czar’s eyes were empty.

“He will be.”

Then he kissed me: salt water, blood, terror, love.

The speedboat cut through the waves toward safety.

But we both knew the truth.

There was no safety anymore.

Only us.

And the war we’d just dragged our child into.

To be continued…