Chapter 4
Natasha
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I kept one locked on the steering wheel and the other wrapped around my phone like it was a lifeline, anchoring me at the moment.
The streetlights smeared into long golden streaks through the blur of my tears, and every shadow behind me looked like another car creeping too close. Hunting me.
“Get a grip,” I whispered, forcing air into my lungs. “Get it together, Natasha.”
But my voice quivered. I checked the rearview mirror again.
The SUV—dark, huge, aggressive—was still back there.
Not tailgating me but following the way a wolf stalks a wounded deer.
Just close enough to be felt. Just far enough to deny.
Tinted windows kept me from seeing who was inside, but obviously they had a good view of me because they'd been tailing me since I got back on the main road.
Dmitri’s voice filling the car’s speakers didn’t help anything.
It made everything worse. Too intense. Too grounding.
It only made his presence more domineering.
He was on his way to make sure that I was safe, which I appreciated.
My family had their own issues, and bringing them into this situation wouldn't help.
Especially, since we didn't have guards or a detail for me to ask for.
“I’m two minutes out,” he barked, engine roaring on his end. “Stay on the line so that I know you're okay.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, breath hitching.
“The fuck you are.” The tremor under his anger made my throat tighten. “Talk to me.”
I swallowed the truth because if I said it out loud, it became real. “I’m okay. I just don’t know who the hell would do this.”
He exhaled hard, like he was restraining a war. “The possibilities are endless.”
A shiver crawled up my spine. “I don’t have enemies though. Who would do this to me?”
“Don’t worry about that now. Pull over somewhere well-lit. Right now.”
“No!” My voice cracked. I cleared it and tried again, smoother. “No. What if they pull over too?” Was he nuts?
His silence was lethal. Then, “Natasha... princess… please.”
The “please” nearly made me cry harder. It wasn’t begging. It was a command wrapped in worry. Princess made this moment more personal. Intimate.
“I’ll stop when you’re here,” I whispered.
“I’m here now.”
My breath caught. “Where?”
I looked up, heart ramming my ribs as headlights flared in my mirror—this time a different car. Sleek black. Moving fast. Closing in.
Cori’s BMW. Dmitri must've been driving it. He whipped around me, pulling directly behind me, forcing the SUV behind me to brake so hard its tires screamed. Then it cut to the nearest side street and disappeared.
“Pull over,” he ordered.
This time, I did.
The moment my tires touched the curb, he was out of the BMW and at my door, ripping it open like he was ready to tear the world apart. He cupped my face, scanning every inch of me, chest rising like he couldn’t catch his breath. Then he relaxed a little before he said anything.
“Are you hurt?” He asked.
“No.” I swallowed.
“Bleeding?”
“No.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He tugged me against him, one arm banding around my back, the other cradling the back of my head.
I didn’t mean to collapse into him—my body made that choice for me. His heartbeat hammered against my cheek. Furious. Alive. But then he pulled back just enough to tip my chin up. The streetlight lit his eyes in a way that made him look dangerous. Territorial.
“This is why you’re coming with me,” he said.
“What? No.” I jerked out of his hold. “Absolutely not.”
His nostrils flared. “Natasha—”
“Don’t ‘Natasha’ me. I’m going home.”
“The hell you are.”
“It’s my life—”
“And someone just tried to end it.”
The words hit like a punch.
A phone rang, and Dmitri answered it quickly. “What'd you find out, Georgi?”
The person on the other line said a bunch of things that I couldn't hear. Whatever it was, Dmitri wasn't happy about it.
“I understand. Keep me posted.” He ended the call and turned his attention back to me. “Looks like your apartment was raided.”
“WHAT???” I shouted. “How do you know? How do you even have my address?”
“None of that is important right now. Because you're safe and everything else is replaceable.”
I backed up a step, shaking my head. “I don’t even know who.
I don’t know why. I don’t know anything.
And I—” My voice wavered. I shut my eyes tight for a second.
“I can’t do this. Not with you. Not at your place.
Not after everything. It's not a coincidence that you're back and my life has been flipped upside down.”
He stepped closer. “You think I’m gonna let you out of my sight after what just happened? Even if whatever is going on comes back to me, I'm for damn sure am not about to leave you alone to figure it out.”
“You don’t get to make that decision.”
“The fuck I don’t.”
His voice dipped—not louder, not softer, just true. A vow made of steel. I forced myself to straighten. Calm. Rationalize. Be anything but the frantic mess I was inside.
“I appreciate the rescue,” I said, steadying my tone. “But going home with you is not an option.”
“You’d rather go back to your place? Alone? Where whoever ran you off the road knows exactly how to find you? In the apartment that's been torn apart?”
My stomach flipped. “You don’t know if they'll—”
“I know enough to not risk it.” He took another step. I backed into my car. He braced one hand beside my head, caging me without touching me. “I’m not asking.”
“And I’m not agreeing. I won't be bullied into agreeing, Dmitri.”
“So stubborn,” he muttered, eyes dropping to my lips like he hadn’t meant to. “Why?”
“Because you complicate things.”
“And you think I give a fuck about complications tonight?”
A beat passed. Too thick. Too loaded. Heat mounted us both, I could tell from the flare of his nose, the way he seemed to be holding back against his will, and from the way his glance danced over my facial features. He wanted me. I wanted him. However, we couldn't do that thing we both desired.
He exhaled softly, like he was trying to get control. “You’re scared. That’s the only reason you’re arguing with me.”
“I’m not scared,” I said firmly.
“You are.” His eyes softened just a fraction. “And that’s why you’re coming with me.”
I hated that he was right. I wasn't going to admit it, though. Not to Dmitri. He'd use that to crawl deeper into my head and shred my soul for his sick pleasure. I hated how much I wanted to say yes. I hated that his arms were the safest place I’d been all night.
But I lifted my chin, anyway. “I’m not spending the night in your bed, Dmitri.”
A slow, wicked smirk curved the corner of his mouth.
“Princess,” he murmured, leaning in so close his breath warmed my cheek, “if I wanted you in my bed tonight... you wouldn’t be arguing with me from the street. Instead, you'd be begging me not to leave it.”
My knees wobbled.
“I’m taking you to my house,” he finished, his voice dropping into something final. “Where you’ll be safe. Where I can protect you.”
“And after that?” I challenged.
His jaw tensed. “After that, we talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“We’re going to.”
“Dmitri, I don’t have anything to say.”
“Get in the car.”
I glared up at him, defiant. “I'm not leaving my car.”
He stared down at me, immovable. “I didn't say we were.”
Silence stretched... until I let out a shaky breath and climbed into the passenger seat of his BMW. He shut the door gently, like I was something breakable.
Moments later, a woman walked from around a building.
Black trench coat, red bottom heels, black expensive looking slacks, shades, purse on her wrist, and long straight hair blowing in the wind.
Even from here, I could tell she was flawless.
But she meant business. No way anybody would mess with her, and that wasn't because she was a tall baddie with an attitude.
Something about her screamed, don't fuck with me.
She climbed into my car and pulled off immediately. I turned to him to ask what the fuck was going on, but his phone rang.
“Package received, Daddy.” Then the line went dead.
Daddy?
Dmitri chuckled and shook his head. “Pay her no mind. She works for me, and it ain't that kind of party.”
I glared not buying it.
“She worked for me when I was inside. Made sure I could sleep at night, and that nobody ever got close enough to kill me.”
“A woman? What was she, an officer?”
Dmitri smiled. “Nah, she was my cellmate.” And with that, he pulled off and left me to ponder his words.
Sure, he wanted me to believe those lies — “She's a man?!”
Dmitri chuckled again and shook his head. “She'd kill us both if she ever heard you say that. Georgi is definitely a ‘she’.”
“Well, damn. Every woman wishes they looked like that. Even me…”
Dmitri turned my head to him and looked directly into my eyes. “You look like you, princess, and that’s more than enough.”
I shut up then, because it was impossible for me to think of something sassy while melting in this damn seat.
More than enough…
I shouldn’t have gotten in his car.
Every instinct screamed that this was a mistake—not because Dmitri would hurt me, but because he could break me in ways nobody else could. The kind that wasn’t physical. The kind that rearranged a woman from the inside out.
He drove like the world dare not get in his way. One hand on the wheel, the other gripping the phone, he kept checking every thirty seconds, jaw flexing with every unread text and unanswered call from this Georgi person.
The silence wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t hostile either. It was charged, sharp enough to slice the air in half. I kept my eyes on the road ahead, but I could feel him studying me—the tremor in my fingers, the way I pressed them into my thigh to hide the shaking.
“Are you in pain?” he asked at one point.
“No.”