Chapter 3 - Zara #2
One second the man is charging forward, and the next moment he’s lying on the ground, gurgling. Mikhail stepped in close, redirected the attack, and drove his fist into the man’s throat. The sound of the attacker is wet and ugly, all broken breath and collapsing cartilage.
The second attacker comes from the side, but Mikhail pivots, catches his wrist, and twists. The snap—a sharp, sickening crack—is audible, slicing through the city noise like glass.
The man screams as Mikhail drives an elbow into the attacker’s sternum with enough force to fold him inward before shoving the body aside like discarded weight.
The third man advances and by then I snap out of my daze, grabbing a discarded bottle lying near the curb, glinting under fractured streetlight.
The fourth man circles wider, his attention split between me and Mikhail. That split focus is enough for me to swing the bottle hard into the side of his head. Glass explodes and he stumbles sideways, blood immediately threading down the side of his face in dark rivulets.
Pain jolts through my arm from the impact.
Worth it.
His hand shoots out anyway, catching my wrist in a grip like iron. The force nearly yanks me off balance. I twist sharply, dropping my weight the way my self-defense instructor drilled into muscle memory years ago: attack joints, never fight strength head-on.
I drive my heel into his shin, then his knee.
He curses and loosens his grip but not enough to give. Trying to wrench it off only tightens his hold again.
Then it disappears as Mikhail violently rips him off me.
One moment the man is attached to my wrist, the next he is airborne for a horrifying fraction of a second before crashing into the side of a parked car with a metallic crunch that dents the door inward.
The remaining men retreat first with their bodies, then with their eyes. As their colleagues’ bodies are lying barely alive here and there, the cost-benefit analysis is rewritten in real time.
Whatever they expected tonight, it did not include Mikhail Korovin arriving like an execution order made flesh.
One of them signals to retreat. They peel away with disciplined speed, disappearing into traffic and shadow. That seals the deal for me; these are professionals, not street-level opportunists.
My pulse is still pounding painfully hard, even as adrenaline fades away. The hormone has a peculiar half-life. During threat, the body becomes a machine, only to become nearly useless once the hormone drains away.
My wrist throbs, shoulder burns. A tremor begins in my legs, traveling to my jaw to make my teeth chatter. Mikhail turns toward me, dark eyes taking in my face first, then sweeping downward to my throbbing wrist and burning shoulder.
I follow his gaze to see that the blazer has torn.
Ah. Explains why it burns.
Then my eyes find his, a rage so controlled in them it becomes almost elegant.
I have seen anger before in grieving mothers, corrupt politicians, cartel sources, whistleblowers two breaths away from panic attacks.
What I see in Mikhail is something worse.
Wordlessly, he reaches for my wrist. I pull back instinctively.
His jaw tightens, which somehow feels worse than if he just shouted at me. When he speaks, his voice is low enough to reverberate through my whole body.
“Enough.”
His fingers tighten around my wrist, walking me toward a waiting car. I dig my heels in.
“This is kidnapping.”
“This is the second time you’ve almost gotten yourself killed.”
“I was handling it.”
That finally earns a visible reaction. His snort is a clear signifier of how offended he is by my claim.
He opens the car door and looks at me with a stare so direct it feels invasive, like he is peeling apart thought itself.
“You were losing, Zara Khan.”
His quip lands like a blow to the chest.
I hate him for making truth sound like defeat and I hate myself even more for hearing no lie in it.
He guides—no, forces me into the car.
The door shuts and locks click.
The city blurs past the window on the drive back to the penthouse, all neon and glass and reflected headlights streaking across the black surface like smudged paint. Neither of us speaks. The silence grows.
By the time we enter the penthouse again, the restraint holding the evening together snaps.
The door has barely closed behind us before I turn on him.
“What exactly did you expect?” The words rip out sharper than intended, my voice raw from exertion and fury. “That I would just sit here while you decide which parts of my life I’m allowed access to?”
Mikhail removes his coat with an infuriating calm, each motion artificially controlled. I want that control to snap. I want to see what’s behind it.
“I expected you to understand reality, but clearly that was an unreasonable ask,” he replies acidly.
I laugh, the sound brittle.
“Reality?” I step closer. “Your reality seems to involve locking me in a penthouse, confiscating my phone, and pretending that counts as protection.”
“It is protection. That what they teach you for your little journalist degree?”
I bare my teeth. “It is control, you bastard.”
His jaw tightens, dark eyes a void, lips blood-red at the center.
“No,” he snaps, “control would have you chained up by your fucking feet and hands, on your knees in the dark.”
The air leaves my lungs.
Panic sears my brain dumb. Will he do that to me now? Is that how he will keep me here from this point on, as punishment for this reckless little stunt?
“You do not get to decide what happens to me!”
“Can you at least try to fucking understand?”
“Then explain it to me.”
His silence stretches.
I realize, with growing unease, that Mikhail speaks least when he is closest to something important. Words are tactical for him. He uses them only when necessary.
“That attack was coordinated,” he spits. “They knew where to wait.”
“I noticed,” I say, folding my arms.
“They are tracking patterns,” he finishes, ignoring my quip. As if his words aren’t enough to raise the hair on my arms, he closes the distance between us. The space narrows until his presence dominates everything. Up close, he smells faintly of cold air, gunpowder, and bergamot.
“You think you can ever be alone from this point onwards?” He taunts, dark eyes flashing headily.
“I am not helpless.”
His gaze drops briefly to my bruised wrist.
“You know damn well that they’ll kill you the next time they catch you alone and unprotected.”
The truth stings.
“I still cannot stay here forever,” I reply, quieter now but no less firm. “There is something I need to finish.”
His eyes sharpen, contempt clear in them.
I don’t doubt he already knows what it is, given that he has been watching closely enough. And again, this lack of distance between us, his heady scent, all of it makes me feel like I’ve been stranded in a maze of mirrors, with smoke clouding my vision.
His lips part as his tongue sneaks out for a second. “I have a solution.”
“What solution?” I mutter.
“Marriage.”
Huh?
His face is flat and unchanged, and I think I’ve heard him wrong.
“I’m sorry—did you say marriage?”
I expect him to laugh, or give me a weirded-out glare, except nothing comes.
“The fuck is wrong with you, Korovin? Did you get hit in the skull or something during the fight because—”
“You would be under Korovin protection,” he interrupts my choppy, shocked spiel.
“I am not marrying you. How is this even—”
“It solves the problem.”
“No, it does not, it creates ten more.”
“It eliminates the target on your back.”
“Oh my God, you’re genuinely fucking crazy,” I bark out a laugh, rolling my eyes. “You’re absolutely batshit—”
His toes come to line with mine, wide palms coming up to grip my biceps tightly, as if I’m falling apart. Or to remind me that I’m breakable under his hold. Every nerve in my body becomes aware of him.
“I wasn’t asking, Zara.”