And that’s when it hits me. I always assumed freedom and independence was what I craved most in the world.
But I was wrong.
I wanted family.
I wanted a real family, after all those years of living in a broken one.
I came back to L.A. because Artem is my family. Phoenix, Artem and I were a real family. Nothing like the broken shell Cesar and I had been born into.
I have the chance to break the cycle that made me and I took it, knowing all the risks.
There is no turning back now.
“Esme!”
Tamara’s anguished scream forces me upright.
She has her hand on my arm, and she’s squeezing so hard that I can already feel her fingerprints bruise my skin.
Phoenix is still crying in my arms. We’re both speckled with tiny cuts from the explosion of the window.
But we got off easy.
The seats closer to the window took the brunt of the damage. At least a dozen people are slumped over, sliced to ribbons and very much dead.
The men stepping into the café through the glass window they’d just blown apart don’t seem the least bit bothered, though.
I clutch my son close to my chest as the soldiers approach, trying desperately to calm him.
“Shut the kid up,” someone barks at me.
“He’s not a kid,” I growl back, surprisingly even myself with my tone. “He’s a baby!”
“I know one way to shut him up,” someone else suggests acidly.
I feel my body go cold. “Don’t you dare come near my son,” I snarl.
I look around, trying to catch sight of Gennadi or Alik. They were sitting in the table right next to us… weren’t they?
“I suppose you’re wondering where your bodyguards are?” one masked man asks, stepping forward.
He’s decked out in full blown riot gear, and I can only see his eyes through the black mask that obscures his features.
An uncomfortable itching feeling stirs in my head and I wonder why it’s making me feel so… uneasy. More uneasy than I currently was at least.
Why does his voice feel familiar to me?
Like I’ve heard it before… a lifetime ago?
“Boys,” the man calls out mockingly. “Where are the bodyguards?”
The men behind him part to reveal two bodies, stacked one on top of the other. Lifeless limbs thrown carelessly as though they were cargo and nothing more.
The tears that prick at my eyes are immediate. I hadn’t known either man long, but they’d been protecting me. They didn’t deserve to die this way.
“There’s no one left to protect you,” the man informs me.
I look around the café. There are still people who are alive, but they’re cowering under the tables silently, hoping to escape notice.