Forever Mine (Tormentor Mine Book 4) Read online

  Despite my best efforts, dangerous questions swirl in my head.

  What will we do if Peter’s wounds get infected?

  Will there be food and water at the cabin?

  And, worst of all, how long until we’re found?

  Because we will be found. I can’t fool myself into believing otherwise. We’ve been lucky so far, but we’re no match for the FBI. Or at least I’m no match.

  Peter had managed to avoid capture for years with the help of his underworld connections.

  I’ve never regretted not having criminals in my social circle before, but I do now. None of my friends or acquaintances can help us—not without getting into trouble with the law themselves. In fact, other than my husband, the only people I know who have the right skills and contacts are his Russian former teammates, and they’re nowhere near—

  Wait a minute.

  I do have Yan’s email.

  That’s how he congratulated me on our wedding.

  My pulse jumps again, the excitement sizzling through my veins before I remember one important fact.

  I have no way to send an email other than using Peter’s phone, and for that, I need my husband to regain consciousness and put in his password.

  I glance over at my husband, my chest tightening at the gray pallor of his face. He needs to be in a hospital, with an IV providing antibiotics and replenishing fluids, not being jolted about on a pothole-filled road.

  If he dies, it’ll be on me.

  It’ll be because I chose to hide him from the authorities instead of bringing him to the hospital.

  A “Private Property” sign looms ahead, with a wooden gate blocking the road and a fence on either side. It must be our destination, unless I made a wrong turn earlier.

  I stop the car and get out to open the gate. Except a chain with a lock holds it in place. I yank on the rusty lock, unable to believe that after everything, we could be thwarted by something so stupid.

  Trying to contain my frustration, I come back to the car and attempt to shake Peter awake. Maybe he has a key stashed somewhere I don’t know about.

  He doesn’t react, no matter how I beg and plead with him, and when I feel his forehead, I find it hot and clammy.

  My stomach twists painfully.

  A fever so early doesn’t bode well.

  Hands shaking, I pat him all over, hoping against hope that he has a key hidden in one of them. But there’s nothing other than his phone in his pocket and the gun strapped to his ankle.

  Exhausted, I sink to the ground by the passenger side of the car.

  It’s hopeless.

  I don’t know how to do this.

  What was I thinking, playing at being a fugitive? Peter is the one with the knowledge and skills, not me. I can’t even get through a stupid gate. If he were in my place, he’d probably pick the lock or shoot it off or blow it up or—

  Of course, that’s it.

  I need to think outside my straight and narrow box.

  Jumping up, I put a seatbelt on Peter and sprint back to the driver’s seat.

  Sliding behind the wheel, I back the car up until we’re some fifty feet from the gate, and then I floor the gas.

  The Toyota rips forward.

  We hit the gate at sixty miles an hour, knocking the aged wood off its hinges.

  The windshield cracks from a piece of the gate slamming into it, but none of the airbags activate, and I press on the brake, grinning triumphantly as we continue down the road at a more moderate speed.

  Sara, 1. Stupid gate, 0.

  I glance over to check on Peter, and my elation fades as I see a fresh blood stain spreading over his shirt at his side.

  His stitches must’ve torn, either from the encounter with the gate or the rough drive in general.

  I need to get us to that cabin, so I can treat him pronto.

  The drive there seems to take forever, though realistically, I know it can’t be much more than a mile.

  Finally, I see it.

  A wooden cabin surrounded by trees.

  Shaking with relief, I pull up to the front and run up to the cabin.

  Surprise, surprise.

  The front door is locked.

  This time, though, I’m prepared. Grabbing a big rock, I walk up to a window and whack it as hard as I can. It shatters, shards of glass flying everywhere, and I use the rock to clear away the sharpest edges of the remaining glass.

  Then I climb inside, ignoring the blood trickling down my arms.

  I’ll deal with my own injuries later.

  Right now, my priority is Peter.

  Walking over to the front door, I unlock it and step out, racking my brain for how I’m going to move him inside. It would be amazing if he woke up again and used his impossible force of will to actually walk over, but I’m not holding my breath given his earlier lack of responsiveness. Maybe I can roll him onto the sheet and then pull that in, or—

  My gaze falls on an ancient wheelbarrow. It’s leaning against the house next to a rusty axe.

  Must be there to haul chopped wood.

  I walk over and pick up the handles, then test the wheelbarrow by rolling it back and forth. The wheels creak but seem functional.

  I push it over to the car and turn it so that the handles are propped inside the open door, on the floor. Then I grab Peter’s ankles and dig my heels into the ground, pulling with all my strength.

  He moves a couple of inches.

  Gritting my teeth, I pull again.

  Then again.

  And again.

  When he’s halfway over the wheelbarrow, I go around to the driver’s side and push him farther onto it, my heart aching as he moans from the pain. “Just a little more, darling,” I promise, and with one last shove, I roll him into the wheelbarrow.

  Step one accomplished.

  Now I have to wheel him into the house and get him onto a bed.

  34

  Peter

  My world is fire and pain, mixed with a gentle voice and soothing hands. The agony is unrelenting, but when that voice is near and those cool, tender fingers stroke my burning brow, I can forget it all.

  I can just focus on her.

  And it is her. Sara, my ptichka. I know it even in the depths of my delirium. Whatever is happening to me, she’s there, touching me, speaking to me, feeding me sips of water. Often, she’s asking me things, her melodious voice filled with desperation and pleading, but I can’t answer her, can’t do anything but turn my head toward that voice and accept the fleeting comfort offered by her touch.

  She gives up after a while, her tone changing to one of resignation, and I like that more, though not as much as when she’s crooning to me, her voice as soft and gentle as the kisses she presses to my cracked and burning lips.

  They make me feel good, those kisses—at least until I sink into the darkness and the demons come, wrapping their tentacles around my chest, stabbing me with their scalding pokers. My side, my arm, my calf—they’re pitiless as they savage me, burning my flesh to the bone.

  Pasha is there too, his skull half missing, his brain grotesque underneath the glossy waves of his dark hair. “Papa!” he shouts, bouncing on me, driving the hot pokers deeper, stabbing me through to the heart.

  “Please, Peter, stay with me,” Sara’s voice begs, and I latch on to it, fighting the demons in the darkness, struggling against their hold.

  More kisses come. Her lips are cool and wet, oddly salty. Like tears. All those tears I’ve made her shed. But why is she crying again? I don’t want that. I want to soak in her caring, to imbibe her love, not her tears. She’d fought against me, but now she’s mine. Mine to take care of and protect. Except I can’t do anything but burn, the fire eating away at me, consuming me, blanketing my mind with the pain.

  “Please, my darling. Tell me the password. I need to unlock your phone.”

  The words should make sense, but they don’t, the sounds bouncing off my brain like sunlight off a lake.

  “Papa, do
you want to see my truck?” Pasha is back to jumping on me, his little feet like a wrecking ball slamming into my side. “Do you, Papa? Do you?”

  I open my mouth to reply, but the demon tentacles wrap around my neck, choking like a lasso of fire.

  “Please, darling…” Tender hands smooth over my face and throat, cooling the burn inside. “Please, I need you to give me the password, so I can reach out for help.”

  “Papa. Papa. Play with me.”

  “The password, Peter, please. It’s our only chance.”

  “Don’t leave, Papa.”

  “Please, darling. I need you. Our baby needs you.”

  “Please, Papa. I would be good. I promise, Papa. I would be good.”

  The agony is unbearable. It feels like I’m cracking in half, the burning tentacles turning into whips as I fall deeper into the darkness.

  “Stay with me, Peter. Please, darling…” The salty wetness is back on my lips, the voice pulling me up, shielding me from the demons. “I love you, and I can’t do this without you. Please… I can’t lose you too.”

  Something dances on the tip of my tongue, something important that I need to remember. Something my ptichka needs.

  Four numbers float up in my consciousness, and I seize them with effort.

  It’s a birthday.

  My friend Andrey’s birthday.

  We’d always celebrate it in the camp.

  “Zero six one five,” I whisper—or I try to. My tongue doesn’t want to obey. I try again, with the last of my strength. “Nol’ shest’ adeen pyat’. Ptichka, passvord den’ rozhden’ye Andreya.”

  35

  Sara

  Shaking, I stand up as Peter lapses into feverish Russian, mumbling unfamiliar words interspersed with his son’s name, as he’s been doing for hours. Despite my best efforts, his condition is rapidly deteriorating, and I know that if I don’t get stronger antibiotics into his system, he won’t make it.

  The wooden walls sway around me as I walk over to the sink and return with a cool, wet towel—the only thing that seems to help him at the moment. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I smooth it over his face, neck, and chest, wiping away the sticky sweat. My arm trembles from exhaustion, my eyes burning from tears, but I don’t stop.

  I can’t—not while there’s still a sliver of hope.

  My whole body aches, my back spasming from the strain of transferring Peter from the wheelbarrow onto this bed. It’s past midnight, and the only thing I’ve eaten is the lone can of chicken noodle soup I found in a cupboard an hour ago. I tried to feed it to him, but I could only get him to swallow two sips. So I choked down the rest. Not for myself, but for the baby.

  Peter’s child needs the nutrition.

  It wasn’t a lot of calories, but it gave me a little energy—enough that I again tried to coax Peter into giving me the password.

  I failed, same as the prior twenty times, but Peter seemed to at least understand me on this attempt. He muttered “ptichka” and said something about a password with a thick Russian accent. Or maybe he even said it in Russian. For all I know, it’s the same word in both languages.

  My vision blurs again with the tears. It was a mistake to come here. I shouldn’t have taken this risk. Even in a sterile hospital setting, gunshot wounds are prone to complications, and given how much blood Peter has lost and where I had to treat him, infection was all but inevitable.

  If I’d brought him to the hospital, he would’ve lost his freedom, but he might’ve lived.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, pressing my lips to his burning forehead. His body is fighting the infection and killing itself in the process. “I’m so sorry for this. For everything.”

  And I am. I’m sorry for not admitting my love for him sooner, for resisting his love for so long. It seemed important at the time, not to give in to my feelings for George’s killer. It seemed moral and right. But now I see my resistance for what it was.

  Cowardice.

  I’d been afraid to fall for Peter, terrified to give in and love him. Petrified that if I let him into my heart, I would lose him.

  Like I lost George to the bottle.

  Like I knew I’d inevitably lose my parents.

  More tears stream down my face, burning my throat on the way. That’s one worry I no longer need to have.

  They’re dead.

  The worst has come to pass.

  I still can’t wrap my mind around what happened, can’t process the horror of seeing Mom’s brains blown out in front of me—and then squeezing the trigger myself. I’d felt no hesitation, no regret as I killed the agent who’d shot Mom—just that terrible numbness. It’s as if someone had taken over my body, someone ruthless and cold… and powerful.

  God, it had felt so powerful.

  Is that how it is for Peter? When he kills, does he turn off the part of himself that makes him human, embracing that rush of power? I’d always wondered how someone with such a deep capacity for love and caring can steal a life without remorse, but I understand it now.

  We’re all monsters under the surface. Some of us just never get the chance to learn it.

  His cracked lips move, and I reach for a bowl of water. Dipping a clean towel in, I drizzle the liquid over his mouth, careful to squeeze it out drop by drop so he doesn’t choke. The fever raging through his body is dehydrating him, killing him before my eyes, and there’s nothing I can do.

  Even if I wanted to take him to the hospital, he wouldn’t survive a return trip on that bumpy dirt road—and without being able to access his phone, I can’t call or email for help from here. Nor can I drive somewhere to do so.

  I can’t leave Peter alone for hours when he’s this sick.

  He’s mumbling again, his head tossing from side to side in agitation as he repeats a phrase in Russian. It sounds like what he was saying before, when I thought he might’ve understood me.

  “Nol’ shest’ adeen pyat’. Den’ rozhden’ye Andreya, ptichka.” His hoarse voice is barely audible. “Nol’ shest’ adeen pyat’.”

  Leaning over him, I press my forehead to his. “What does that mean, darling?” I whisper, squeezing my eyes against a fresh influx of tears. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  There’s something vaguely familiar about that phrase, or at least the individual words. Do I know them? I strain to recall what Peter’s teammates taught me in Japan. Spasibo—that’s “thank you” in Russian. Vkusno—that means “delicious.” Ilya also told me how to say the names of certain foods, and Anton started teaching me the alphabet and how to count to ten—

  I sit up, electrified. That’s it! That’s why some of those words were familiar.

  They’re numbers in Russian.

  “Peter, darling, is that the password?” My voice shakes as I lean over him again, smoothing back his sweat-dampened hair. “Are you telling how to unlock your phone in Russian?”

  He doesn’t seem to hear me, his agitation easing as he sinks deeper into unconsciousness. Dragging in a calming breath, I try to recall the specific words he said and how the count to ten goes in Russian. There was an almost musical rhythm to it, if I recall correctly. Adeen, dva, tree, something, something, something…

  Okay, then. So adeen is one, and I’m pretty sure Peter said that.

  It was the third word after something what sounded like “null” and “gesture.”

  I rack my brain, trying to remember how Anton pronounced the rest of the numbers. Adeen, dva, tree… was it chet-something? pet-something?...

  No, five was pyat’—which is what Peter said as the last word.

  I try to suppress my excitement, but my heart is racing uncontrollably. I still don’t know two of the numbers, but I can venture a guess as to one of them.

  Some Russian words are similar to English, which means the one that sounds like “null” could mean “zero.”

  Okay, then. Zero, unknown, one, five—that’s three out of four. I can brute-force guess the unknown number… if Peter’s phone doesn’t
lock me out for too many incorrect attempts, that is.

  Jumping up, I grab the phone, and as I start inputting the zero, the full count comes to me.

  Adeen, dva, tree, chetyre, pyat’, shest’, sem’, vosem’, devyat’, desyat’.

  I can almost hear Anton’s voice reciting it to me.

  Holding my breath, I follow the zero by six, one, and five.

  36

  Sara

  I pace around the cabin on unsteady legs, glancing out the broken window every five seconds. It’s pitch black outside, the silence interrupted only by the usual forest noises.

  Still, I keep looking, keep listening for police helicopters.

  It’s now been almost sixteen hours since I stole the car from the hospital. By now, its owner would’ve found it missing and reported it to the police. If they’ve discovered our Mercedes in the parking lot—and I would be shocked if they haven’t—every law enforcement officer in the area must now be looking for the blue Toyota and the fugitives in it.

  It’s only a matter of time before they find our cabin.

  If Yan doesn’t get here soon, it will have all been for nothing.

  I look at the phone again, rereading his email for the fifteenth time. I should conserve the battery, but I can’t help myself. The three little words on the screen are the only thing keeping me going.

  On our way.

  That’s all Yan replied when I sent him an email detailing the situation and our location. He clearly knew what is happening because he answered in under a minute.

  On our way. That’s it. No specifics, not even a rough ETA. I have no idea if he’ll be here in minutes or hours or days.

  For all I know, we’re looking at weeks.

  It had been another agonizing choice when I’d unlocked the phone: call 911 to get Peter the medical attention he so badly needs, or reach out to Yan and continue this fugitive madness. In the end, I went with my instinct—and when I looked at the phone’s browser after getting Yan’s reply, I was glad I did.