Chapter 8
Sergei
"You're staring again."
Izzy's voice cuts through my thoughts. We're in Prospect Park, four days into this arrangement, and she's walking ahead of me on the path near the lake. Black jeans that hug curves I've memorized, leather jacket over silk, hair catching the fading afternoon light like it's weaponized.
She glances back over her shoulder, those blue eyes knowing. "See something you like?"
"I'm scanning for threats."
"Sure you are." Her smile is dangerous, teasing. "That's why you're looking at my ass."
"Your ass is in my line of sight. Not my fault."
She laughs, and the sound makes something in my chest tighten.
Four days of living together. Four nights of lying beside her in the dark, trying not to touch. I'm losing my mind. The scent of vanilla and flowers on my sheets. Her humming in the shower. The way she steals my coffee every morning because hers is never hot enough.
Movement catches my eye. Wrong rhythm, wrong posture. A man in dark clothes moving through the sparse crowd with purpose, hand inside his jacket.
Every instinct I have screams danger.
"Izzy, come here."
She hears the shift in my voice. Stops mid-step. Turns. "What's wrong?"
"Now." I'm already moving, closing the distance, but he's faster. He's drawn the gun, raising it, and there's no time for subtlety. I shove Izzy behind me as the first shot cracks through the air.
A woman screams somewhere. People scatter. I've got my Glock out, returning fire, driving him back toward the tree line. He's good. Trained. But I'm better.
"Stay down!" I bark at Izzy without looking back.
He empties his magazine. I don't.
My bullet catches him center mass. He staggers, goes down hard on the dirt path. I'm on him before he can recover, kicking the gun away, pressing my knee into his chest. His face is pale, blood spreading across his shirt, and I catch the tattoo on his neck as he gasps for air.
Bratva.
"Who sent you?" My voice is cold. Clinical.
He spits blood. Smiles. "The Wolf thinks he can retire? They all pay, eventually."
I press harder. Ribs crack under my weight. "Who. Sent. You."
"Doesn't matter." His breathing's labored, wet. "You're marked. Her, too."
He's dying. I can see it in his eyes, the way the light's already fading. I could call an ambulance. Let the system handle this.
But the system doesn't protect people like Izzy from men like this.
I press my forearm across his throat and apply pressure. He struggles, weakening with each second, and I watch his eyes go vacant with the same detachment I've watched dozens of others. When his pulse stops, I count to ten. Make sure.
Then I stand, scanning for witnesses. The area's cleared out. Smart people run from gunfire.
Izzy's crouched behind a tree twenty feet away. Face pale, breathing too fast, but not screaming. Not frozen. Her eyes meet mine across the distance.
She doesn't break.
"Come here," I tell her, already pulling out my phone. "Quickly."
She moves. Doesn't ask questions. Doesn't look at the body longer than she has to.
I dial Andrei. He answers on the second ring.
"Prospect Park. Near the boathouse. One body." I give him the coordinates. "How fast?"
"Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty."
"We don't have twenty. Shots fired. People ran. Someone's already called the cops."
"Then walk away now. I'll handle it."
"Can't leave him here with ID that traces back—"
"Sergei." Andrei's voice sharpens. "Walk. Away. Take your wife. Go home. I've cleaned up worse in tighter windows. Trust me."
I look at the dead man. At the Bratva ink on his neck. At the phone in his pocket, which might tell me who sent him, but might also cost me the fifteen minutes I don't have.
"Go," Andrei says. "Now."
I hang up. Grab Izzy's hand. "We're leaving."
"The body—"
"Being handled. Walk with me. Normal pace. Don't look back."
She doesn't argue. Just threads her fingers through mine and matches my stride as we head toward the nearest exit. Her hand is ice-cold. Trembling slightly. But her grip is firm.
We don't speak until we're three blocks away, cut through a residential street with brownstones and parked cars and no sign of pursuit. The sirens start then—distant, converging on the park we just left.
"Bratva," Izzy says quietly. "I heard the accent."
"Old employers. They don't appreciate retirement."
"He said I was marked, too."
"He was trying to scare you."
"It worked." She's not looking at me. Eyes forward, jaw tight. "What happens now?"
"Andrei cleans up. Body disappears. Cops find shell casings and blood but no victim, no witnesses willing to talk. Case goes cold." I squeeze her hand. "It's handled."
"And the next one? The one after that?"
"I handle those, too."
She stops walking. Her hand tugs mine, pulling me to face her. We're standing under a streetlight that's just flickering on, dusk settling around us like a bruise.
"You killed him," she says. "Didn't hesitate. Didn't flinch."
"No."
"Because of me. To protect me."
"Yes."
She studies my face. I don't know what she's looking for—guilt, remorse, some sign that the violence costs me something. She won't find it. That part of me died a long time ago.
"I should be horrified," she says finally. "I watched you kill a man twenty minutes ago. I should be running. Calling the cops. Something."
"Why aren't you?"
"Because he was going to kill us." Her voice is steady now. The trembling has stopped. "Because you put yourself between me and a bullet without thinking. Because—" She stops. Swallows. "Because I'm starting to understand why my father hired you. What you actually are."
"And what's that?"
"The thing that keeps monsters away from little girls." Her hand tightens in mine. "My father used to say everyone deserves grace. Even the dangerous ones. I think he meant people like you."
Something cracks in my chest. Some wall I didn't know was there.
"Your father was a better man than I'll ever be."
"Maybe." She steps closer. "But he's gone. And you're here. And I'm still alive because of it." Her free hand touches my jaw—light, careful, like she's checking whether I'm real. "Thank you."
I don't kiss her.
I want to. God, I want to. But not here, not now, not with his blood still on my hands and sirens still echoing in the distance.
Instead, I pull her against my chest. Feel her arms wrap around my ribs. Hold her the way I'd hold something precious and breakable, even though she's proving to be neither.
"Let's go home," I say into her hair.
We walk the rest of the way in silence. Her hand stays in mine. She doesn't let go when we pass other people on the sidewalk, doesn't pull away when a cop car screams past, heading toward the park.
She holds on tighter.