Crash into Me: A BWWM Russian Billionaire Romance (17 page)

And that, much more than any of his mother’s nagging, showed him how serious things were.

Cautiously, he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and peace. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said. “You don’t have to do this.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the others getting out of their vehicles, clearly wanting to witness this for themselves, or provide their boss with backup.

“I do,” she said. “Because as long as there are people like you, people like your father, there will always be suffering. There will always be people who think they’re better than everyone else and who will cause pain to others. You deserve to die.”

“You don’t even know me,” Alexei said, holding her gaze. “I’m not like my father. I don’t want to do things the same way he did them. I want to make things better.”

“Better for you! Never for anyone else!” She said, brandishing the gun wildly. “I can end it.”

His heart slammed in his chest, fear making his blood go cold and his breath stutter. He wasn’t going to beg for his life, but
god.
His fingers curled into loose fists at his side, and he glanced out of the corner of his eye, looking for somewhere to take shelter.

Before he found anything other than the hilly drop behind him, two things happened in rapid succession. The first was the sudden wail of sirens splitting the air and getting closer as they approached. The second was the woman firing her gun.

Alexei had a split second to make his decision, and he ducked, wanting to throw up a bit when the bullet whizzed over his head. The rest of the goons were drawing their guns as well and opening fire, and he knew he was out of options.

The hill didn’t seem so steep, and even if it was, it was better than taking his chances and getting riddled with bullets, so he threw himself to the side and rolled down the hill fast and hard, rocks cutting into his skin where it was unprotected by his clothes, going faster and picking up speed until he slammed to a halt at the very bottom.

He was aware of his breath, ragged in his chest, and the fact that he ached all over, and then nothing more.

The first thing Alexei was aware of when he woke up was the blinding florescent lighting and the way the ceiling he was looking at was perfectly smooth. It took a few minutes for his hazy brain to work out why he was looking at a ceiling in the first place, but once his memories all slotted together, it made sense.

This place had that antiseptic and forced clean smell of a hospital, and the pain that was registering in his body explained a lot about what had happened.

The hill he’d taken a fall down had seemed smaller from his car, but the ache in his ankle and leg and side and
head
proved that maybe it had been bigger than he’d expected.

He groaned, wondering who had brought him in and what had happened to the people he’d been about to get into a fight with.

Alexei turned his head, taking in the fact that someone had changed him into a hospital gown and that there was an IV in his arm. When he looked the other way, he saw Vera and relief hit him powerfully. She was sitting in the chair off to the side looking miserable but otherwise alright, a few cuts and scrapes on her arms and face, but no other injuries that Alexei could see.

“Hey,” he said, clearing his throat when his voice was little more than a croak.

Vera’s head snapped up and she stared at him for a moment before bursting into a stream of rapid fire Russian, calling him an idiot and thanking god that he was alright. It almost looked like she was crying, but Alexei wasn’t going to say anything either way.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You were an idiot,” she said, continuing in Russian. “No one followed me because they were all after you. I saw you get out of the car and start running, and
you
should have had the gun, you absolute-” Vera broke off and took a deep breath. “The police came faster than I thought, and they caught some of them, but some got away. When they didn’t have you, I made them go back and look and you were unconscious at the bottom of the hill.”

That sounded right. He remembered them threatening him and then gunfire and sirens in the distance. He hadn’t wanted to take his chances with the guns, so he’d jumped down the hill.

“Well, at least they got some of them,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll get the rest soon.”

“The police have names and license plate numbers,” Vera pointed out. “They’ll find them. Or I’ll know the reason why.”

Alexei laughed. “I’m sure they don’t want to mess with you.”

Vera smiled and then made a face. “Also, I...called Mother.”

He didn’t know how to feel about that. “And?”

“And she’s terribly disappointed in us for meddling in things we have no business meddling in,” Vera replied with a sigh. “She’s…”

“Not coming to wish me well?” Alexei suggested before she could finish. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. She was never going to be on our side, and I knew that from the beginning of this. She doesn’t want to change, and we’re changing too much.”

It hurt a bit that he was in the hospital and his mother wasn’t coming to see him, but he wasn’t going to let that bring him down. Moping about the way he was treated by his parents was something he’d gotten over years ago. Or at the very least, something he was always trying to get over more.

“Actually…” Vera said, making a sheepish face. “She’s on her way down here.”

Alexei looked shocked. “She
is
?”

Vera nodded and sighed. “I wouldn’t expect her to be comforting or anything, though. She’s still Mother.”

“I never expect that from her,” he said.

It only took another five minutes for Veronika to show up, and they could tell because they could hear her barking orders to nurses all the way down the hall. Alexei drew in a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for dealing with his mother, but he didn’t think any amount of breathing was going to make this easy.

The door opened and Veronika came in, an anxious looking nurse behind her. “Ma’am, I’m afraid I-” she said, cringing.

“It’s okay,” Alexei said, cutting her off. “She’s my mother.”

The nurse looked relieved and full of sympathy for him at the same time, and she withdrew, closing the door as she left.

Veronika didn’t say anything for long moments, just taking in the sight of Alexei in the bed and Vera in the chair. “Well,” she said sharply. “I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. I don’t know what possessed you to get involved in this. Your father certainly never went
looking
for trouble, and he certainly never got involved in some
brawl
in the street.”

“It was hardly a brawl, Mother,” Alexei said, rolling his eyes at his mother’s choice of words. “And we didn’t go looking for it. It kept finding us. Well. It kept finding me, at least. What would you have had me do?”

“Keep yourself safe! Keep your sister safe. Not...not
this.
” She swept a hand around the hospital room. “Your father-”

“Mother!” Alexei said loudly, cutting her off. “You do realize I’m not Father, yes? And that no matter what happens I’m never going to be him?” After everything he’d learned about his father over the last few days, the last thing he wanted was to grow up to be like him. He’d never wanted that, even when he was a child, but now he was actively determined to never become Oskar Alexandrov.

That seemed to bring her up short, and she was silent for a moment, eyes far away. It occurred to Alexei that no matter how nonchalant and blasé his mother tried to be about everything, she definitely did miss her husband, and he felt bad for speaking to her like that.

“Mother,” he tried again, gentler this time. “I didn’t-”

She shook her head and the moment was gone. “At least have the decency to avoid getting yourself killed before you have an heir who can take over the business in your stead. Now, I have to go. Come, Vera.”

Vera stiffened and looked between her mother and her brother, clearly torn. Alexei took pity on her and sighed, inclining his head in a gesture that meant he would be fine and she should go.

She nodded back and smiled at him, patting his hand before following their mother out.

As much as he would have liked to have his sister stay, he figured that the peace and quiet of having his room empty would be better. And anything to placate their mother was probably the best plan considering they were soon going to be turning everything upside down when it came to the business and the way things were run.

He allowed himself to drift off for a bit, interrupted briefly by the doctor coming in to tell him that luckily he hadn’t broken anything and that aside from a few bruises and a very badly sprained ankle, he was fine.

A knock on the door startled him some time later, and Alexei was expecting another one of the doctors, come to tell him when he could go home or that they were going to put some painkillers in his IV drip or something, so he called for them to come in. He was pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t a doctor, but a worried looking Emma who stepped into the room.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, pushing himself into a sitting position.

“Vera called me,” Emma said, and Alexei had never been more grateful to his sister. She must have known that even though he didn’t want his mother to stay and understood that she had to leave, he would want to see a familiar and comforting face.

“Vera’s the best sometimes,” Alexei said. “Are you going yell at me? Everyone else has yelled at me.”

“I should,” Emma responded, glaring at him and folding her arms. “First I get your voicemail about being careful, which was cryptic as all get out, by the way, and then I’m getting a phone call from your sister where she tells me that you’re terrible at taking your own advice and that you’re in the hospital. Of course all of this is after last night when we got shot at in your apartment, so I don’t even know what to think anymore. What happened?”

“Vera didn’t explain?”

Emma scowled. “
No
, and I want to hear it from you, anyway.”

“Alright, alright,” Alexei said, hands raised in a gesture of peace. “I understand. Come here, you’re too far away.”

She arched an eyebrow at him and then sighed, coming to sit at the end of his bed. When Alexei held his hand out, she rolled her eyes, but threaded her fingers with his all the same. “Tell me,” she said, and so he did, leaving nothing out. Reveling in the fact that he had someone to talk to who was there for him, as well as the fact that he was alive and safe and his sister was alive and safe and for the moment things were alright.

Chapter 12: A Place to Land

“Will you stop that?” Emma asked, batting his hands away from her for the tenth time in a half hour period. “Honestly, it’s like you’re a teenage boy.”

Alexei pouted, clearly trying to look pathetic enough that she’d take pity on him. “I’m
bored
,” he complained. “This is boring.”

“You’re supposed to be recuperating,” Emma pointed out, not looking up from her laptop. The words were flowing well for once, and while she knew there was going to have to be heavy editing done on her part, it was nice to be getting something done. To be
writing
something. Patricia had promised to put in a good word for her at the job, and she had high hopes.

Now if she could just get the whiny rich Russian who had taken up residence on her couch to stop being such a child, her day would be going much better.

He was still recovering from bruises and aches he’d gotten in the car accident and the injuries that were caused by his stupid heroics after the accident. He had to use crutches for the next couple of weeks until his ankle was better. Since her house was easier to get around than his apartment (stairs notwithstanding), and he didn’t want to be alone, he was staying with her while he got better.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like having him there because she did. She liked that he was around when she woke up and there when she came home from work, usually still sitting in the same spot she’d left him that morning before work, hunched over his laptop or on the phone. The only evidence of his movement would be the plate and cup in front of him, showing that he’d had lunch at least.

And really, the way he’d look up and smile at her when she came in made dealing with the whining worth it.

Usually.

Now it was clear that he was horny and also desperate for attention, and while Emma was usually alright with those things in any combination, at the moment, she was trying to work.

“Give me fifteen more minutes and then maybe I’ll entertain you,” she said.

“Promise?” Alexei asked, and with his curls and pitiful expression, he looked like a sad angel.

“Promise,” Emma replied, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

“Excellent.” Apparently that was all Alexei needed to save him from his melancholy and he was up and gathering up the dishes from their dinner (made by him while she was at work, which definitely added points in his favor) to take them to the kitchen.

Emma sighed and turned her attention back to her screen. “You’re supposed to be using the crutches!” she called after him.