Chapter Twenty-Six

**Tempest**

I concentrate on Stone’s aftershave and how it smells sweet, but also spicy. It’s helping me breathe. I just focus on that and nothing else.

“It was self-defense, Nastya,” Sargent replies, glancing at me but I look away before we connect. I don’t know how he knows but I suspected he might look into my past. It’s not like it’s a hidden record. “She paid her dues.”

“Whatever.” Nastya waves him off and looks around, bored.

Stone shifts secretly and I feel his hand under my ribs, he presses something on his side, something hidden by his clothes. “Yaroslava, you had to know the drug thing is a bust, you made millions out of shipping shit out of the country. It’s time to find a new way. We got cocky. Greedy, even, and it was our downfall.”

Yaroslava glares at Stone as he spits, “Are you forgetting who you’re talking to, boy? I’ve been running this operation since you were in diapers! My loyalty to your club is the only reason I’m not putting a fucking bullet in your skull right now!”

“It’s true, Yaroslava, you might think I’m speaking out of turn but I told you to stop at the drugs, then you brought weapons into it, even missiles. It got too much. Somebody was gonna find out at the rate you were shifting shit, doesn’t matter who anymore. It’s done. It’s over.”

“That’s all we need,” Sargent says, and it sounds completely out of context.

The sound of glass shattering and bullets flying echoes through the next few moments, distorting reality as Stone pins me under his body. I don’t scream, I can’t even breathe. I want to vomit and faint as men storm the room, the feds.

Bodies drop, bullets fly, people grunt and cry but then it all goes silent.

“Oh shit,” I hear Stone murmur and I look up again, just as Yaroslava cries, “NASTYA!” He starts sobbing in Russian as he cradles her to his chest. Blood flows from her throat and even I find the moment emotional.

“WHO?” he bellows, looking around the room.

“You’ll see her in a second, you Russian prick.” A fed I recognize as Samuels from last night raises his gun and with a bang, Yaroslava is gone, just like that, just like Tucker. “Oops, crossfire casualty.”

He high-fives a man beside him who sneers down at the Russian father and daughter before somebody tosses a sheet over their faces.

I turn and dry heave properly this time, needing to vomit but my stomach is empty. Stone rubs my back but I push him away.

“I’m sorry I let it get so far, I needed you to be in a position I could grab and move you,” he explains softly.

“That all just happened,” I say, looking around the room. The only casualties seem to be on Yaroslava’s side. His two henchmen are dead, his daughter, her guards…

I heave again and feel hands on my arms; when I see it’s Sargent I shove him away and shout, “Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t touch me.”

“Tempest,” he tries. “I can explain.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I cry. “You’re disgusting… how could you?”

“He didn’t have a choice,” Stone interrupts, defending Sargent like a typical guy.

“There’s always a choice,” I hiss. He reaches for me again, his hand to my cheek and I almost vomit at the thought of where it’s just been. “No. Don’t.”

“Tempest, please,” he whispers but is drawn away by Samuels.

I’m guided away too for my statement and whatever the fuck else. I just want to be gone from here so badly.

**Sargent**
It’s done. The FBI have enough evidence to move in on the Russians. Stone who was wearing a wire has been cleared of all involvement and so have I. But I can’t celebrate. Seeing her face, her eyes as I came down those stairs. I broke her. Hell, the entire thing broke me.

I feel as though I can’t breathe.

These assholes move around my home, collecting bullets and other evidence.

I’m done with them now; my life is my own again. No more feds, no more drugs, no more mafia, or what’s left of it now that the FBI and CIA have enough to get into Russia.

Well, it’s mostly over.

I move to where she’s standing, her jeans partly open since the button doesn’t keep the flaps together, her top crooked and off center with a rip up the side, her hair a mess and her eyes swollen from crying.

My hand lingers in the space between us, she needs to accept my touch. I don’t want to upset her any more than she is already. “Temp…”

“Maddox!” she cries and brushes past me and straight into the arms of my son.

Maddox holds her, his chin atop of her head as she turns her face away from me. He doesn’t meet my eyes and I know why. He’s ashamed of what I’ve done. If only he knew it was the only way to keep him safe. I did my best. I wasn’t greedy, I paid my debts, I was just a naïve kid.

“Maddox,” I try, brushing past Samuels who is trying to get my attention.

“Not now, Dad,” Maddox replies, his eyes sad as they come to mine. “We’ll talk, but not now. Let me get her out of here.”

“No,” I say firmly and grab his arm. “You’re not leaving, not until this is sorted and neither is she. I deserve the chance to explain myself.”

“You will,” he replies gently as I resist the urge to thread my fingers through her hair and pull her into my arms. Doesn’t she see that I need her too? “Dad…”

“I didn’t have a choice, Tempest,” I try again but she makes no movement to say she has heard me. “You have to believe me.”

“Dad, not now,” Maddox barks. “Now isn’t the time.”

Samuels, who has been a party to this one-sided conversation, hands a foil blanket to Maddox and helps him wrap it around her. She doesn’t look at me with her vacant eyes or broken expression, she looks at the bodies and then the couch and I beg her mentally to just look at me.

Maddox leads her away with an agent hot on their heels. I wonder if I’ll ever see her smile at me again, if she’ll ever allow it. The thought burns my throat and eyes. Maddox will understand, perhaps he already does.

“I kept him under witness protection until I figured out who I could trust,” Samuels explains looking around the room at his men.

“You could have told me that.”

“I couldn’t risk anything going wrong.”

I can understand that.

“He knows you were trying to get out of it. He’ll come around and so will she.”

“I fucked another woman less than an hour after she left. She’s not coming back.”

He shakes his head, his empathy apparent in his features. “If it’s worth fixing, then fix it.”

“I’m free to leave?” I question, raising a brow as we meet eyes.

“Go. Rest. Get your shit together. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

***

She left with Maddox who I soon found out had been put under protection by Samuels himself. That’s why we couldn’t find him.

It’s done, but it isn’t. If only they hadn’t found her, she’d never have had to know. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t come, I didn’t enjoy it, I had to.

Or maybe I didn’t.

Fuck.

She left in his arms, he carried her out of there as she sobbed against him. He didn’t even look at me, just took her and left and I could do nothing but watch.

She deserves better than this, more than what I can give her.

“Donate, destroy, and trash everything,” I tell Marcy who places a hand on my shoulder to comfort me.

“Have you called her?” she asks, knowing about the situation as I told her during a drunken rambling last night.

She’s the only person speaking to me. Cassius has served me with papers to buy me out of the Malibu business but won’t even look at me. Maddox won’t even reply to tell me where he or Tempest are and I know they’re together.

I don’t know anything about anybody and nobody will talk to me.

Nobody but Marcy.

I sit on the sofa as strangers move around my home, carefully packaging salvageable equipment. I need out of this home. It’s beautiful but I need a fresh start. Everything reminds me of her. Everything reminds me of the deaths surrounding the choices I made as a teen.

Marcy exits the house when one of the removal people call for her but she returns less than five minutes later and stands in the doorway. “You should see this, Sargent.”

Sighing, I stand and grumble my way to her, wondering what else could be wrong with this fucking house.

The pool is empty, the garden furniture is gone, but the art equipment remains. Or the easel does at least and what stands on it is a nearly finished painting of me, beautifully done with acrylics. Maddox is seven and sitting on my shoulders, leaning over to look at my face.

I clear my throat to shift the lump that’s making it hard to breathe.

“What shall we do with this?” Marcy asks softly.

“Nothing, wrap it and store it. That’s one thing I’m not parting with.” It’s the most beautiful painting I have ever seen.

God, I miss her. I miss them both.

Marcy smiles knowingly. “He’ll call. He knows it’s not your fault. He’s just angry.”

“I really made a mess of life, didn’t I?”

“Yep, but you fixed it too… eventually.”

“I fucked another woman and she caught me, I’d hardly call that fixing anything.”

Marcy winces. “Just keep trying, she’ll reply one day.”

“Maybe I should leave her be? She deserves better.”

“Hello?” Marcy raises her hands at our surroundings. “That’s what you’re trying to do isn’t it?”

I head back inside, grab my car keys off the counter and go. Not because I have anywhere to be but because I don’t and that’s extremely frustrating. I need to keep busy.