Chapter 14
Kirill
I freeze.
After her escape last night, I thought I’d need to tie her up to haul her back to the safe house. I’d even grabbed a handful of zip ties for efficiency.
This wasn’t in the manual. Not this shuddering surrender or the way she crashed into me, desperate for safety where she should see nothing but threat.
She’s quaking so viciously, I can feel the wild flutter of her pulse hammering against my chest. As the ice shelf inside me dislodges and starts to melt, a warm, heavy sensation pools low in my gut.
I grit my teeth.
Wrong time. Wrong place.
Wrong fucking person.
Her hair spills everywhere, tangling over my arm, brushing my wrist. The scent of leaves and earth and the memory of the park cling to her clothes and linger in the air.
And under it all, her. The smell that’s been spreading through the safe house for the past week.
Lavender. Warm skin that thaws the ice in my veins.
Haunting my days and nights and creeping into my room like a succubus.
“Car. Now.”
Dazed, she drags her head up, her eyes wide and wet and empty of fight. She nods without objection or struggle.
That easy obedience shakes me more than anything else.
I keep Jordan close, steering her toward the street, every muscle braced for a new threat.
The dead men sprawled behind us are Falcone’s, no doubt. If not his, then at least working for him.
And they’ve known her general location long enough to set up an ambush, which means we can’t go back to the safe house. They might not know which property belongs to us, but they’ve pinned the area. That’s bad enough.
Time to move.
My car waits two blocks over. Jordan clutches my jacket every step of the way. I pop the lock, open the door, and deposit her in the passenger seat like she’s made of spun glass.
She immediately curls up, winding her arms around her middle and shrinking herself smaller. Like if she squeezes hard enough, she’ll disappear.
I steer us through the network of back streets, taking three separate routes just to be sure.
No one follows today, and Jordan’s silent the entire drive.
Her soft breathing oscillates between fast and slow, and every few seconds I glance over to track the pulse in her neck. Watch the way she edges toward the window, pressing herself closer and closer against the glass, as far from me as the seat belt allows.
She already regrets that split second of trust. The moment she ran to me instead of away.
I can’t fault her for that.
Charging toward the monster doesn’t make sense. Not for someone like Jordan.
But I keep an eye on the widening gap between us, a tide rolling out centimeter by centimeter. Every tiny shift in her body conveys the same thing.
I can manage on my own. I don’t want you. I’m not fooled by your help.
Smart.
The next safe house, a split-level ranch with yellow paint peeling in strips and wild, unruly hedges, is nowhere near as luxurious as the last.
The windows, while intact, feature broken and bent shutters. Faded and forgotten, and easily overlooked, the house sits in a neighborhood no one visits unless they have no choice. Behind the walls, an invisible but leading-edge security system hums.
I swing the car into the garage, waiting until the door rattles shut behind us before releasing a breath and cutting the engine.
In the rearview mirror, I catch a glimpse of Jordan’s bag, laptop, and cell phone I stowed in the back seat. I’ll retrieve her belongings later.
“Inside.”
She doesn’t argue or even speak. Simply climbs out with her shoulders caved in and all the fight burned out of her. My hand stays on her arm as I guide her. Not as a threat. Just a reminder.
Don’t run.
Not that she would. Not right now.
Dust and stale air permeate the interior space.
While Roman keeps the fridge stocked and has equipped the place with blackout blinds and medical supplies like every other Kozlov safe house, this one barely beats a rundown motel room.
Kitchen from the sixties. Dull and cracked walls with water-damaged popcorn ceilings.
All the furniture is secondhand or sidewalk specials.
The doors leading to the two bedrooms and bathroom are cheap, hollow, and peeling. You can smell the carpet on sight.
I grab the first aid kit, lead her to the kitchen, and click on the overhead lights. Every mark on her skin stands out like a headline.
Swollen feet and palms. Legs scraped to hell. A cut on her throat. No lumps or bumps on her head, at least.
From the way she hunches, I bet she’ll have bruises all over by morning. Common problems after a wreck.
“Sit.”
Jordan obeys stiffly, hobbling to the table and pulling out a chair.
I flip open the first aid kit, laying out antiseptic, bandages, and butterfly strips, and putting everything in its place. Grabbing the betadine with lidocaine, I wet a gauze pad.
She braces, body tightening and locking up.
I keep going anyway. This isn’t about comfort. Just repairs. Triage.
I dab the cut on Jordan’s neck. She twitches and inhales sharply through her teeth.
I shouldn’t care, but the reaction slows me down. Gentles my touch.
Her shoulders relax a fraction, and my chest loosens in response.
I hadn’t even realized I was tense.
I keep my movements careful and methodical, refusing to notice the heat of her skin or the quick skip of her pulse each time my hand gets too close.
“Thank you.” Her warm, heavy stare weighs on my face. “For…back there.”
She shouldn’t thank me. I’m still the shark who dragged her out of her safe little bubble.
I glance up to meet her eyes. “Why didn’t you call the cops?”
I’ve been holding that question the whole way here. She had a dozen ways out and didn’t try a single one.
She settles her clear, sharp gaze on mine.
“You had time, you know. Could’ve flagged down a cop car or found a phone. Spilled everything.”
“And say what? That I was abducted by a stranger? That he’s after something I’ve never seen? That he’s a killer?” She huffs out a brittle, jagged laugh. “They’d call me crazy. Or worse, they’d believe every word. And I’d be cooped up with them instead of you.”
She doesn’t want cops. Why? My file on her came up clean. No record. Or maybe she just hasn’t gotten caught yet. “You were scared.”
“Of course I was scared!” Her near-yell ricochets off the bare kitchen walls. “I’m still scared. But I’m not an idiot. I know what happens to people who open their mouths.”
She’s smart, and she’s right. If she’d gone to the police, we would’ve known within the hour. And then we’d have her anyway, gift-wrapped by the detectives on our payroll.
I finish cleaning the blood from her neck and move to the raw scrapes on her arms. Goosebumps bloom in my wake.
This is what she rushed toward. She left my pristine fortress and ended up battered and bleeding and in the hands of animals who would have used her, chewed her up, and spat her out once they’d squeezed out what they wanted.
That thought pulses a cold, black current of rage through me.
I finish wrapping her wrist, keeping my hands steady and my breathing even.
But inside, I sense a shift.
A complication I prefer not to mention.
Her skin is so soft and smooth, I want to run my lips across her neck and taste every inch.
She’s observing me.
What does she see?
The monster who pulled her from one hell only to drop her in another? The killer who painted streets in blood for her sake? Or something else?
Shark.
That’s what she first saw. Does she still?
I shouldn’t care.
My thumb grazes her skin, just for a second.
For a fraction of a beat, my hand hovers over the small scrape on her shin. A tremor stirs in my fingers, and I suck in a deep breath to maintain some semblance of self-control.
Startled, she flicks her eyes up.
She felt the thread snap.
We both did.
This unspoken and unwanted but absolutely real thing between us.
Sharp-edged silence follows. A garrote waiting to be pulled taut.
She leans closer, her eyes softer now, her lips parted.
I turn away and wipe the memory of those lips from my mind.
My own reflection stares back from the kitchen window. A face drawn in hard strokes. Eyes colder than steel. A man I both know and suddenly don’t. A dvoynik.
Exhaling deeply, I remind myself of who and what I am.
With steady hands, I pack away the first aid kit, every motion practiced and efficient, unlike my galloping pulse.
“Nothing goes back to the way it was.” I fix my eyes on the kit. “I’m the only thing keeping you breathing. Don’t run again.”
Behind me, she looses a strangled, crying laugh. “Run? Where would I even go?” Her sharp words splinter apart. “I can’t go home. They know you. Now they know me. And you did this.”
I pivot.
She’s still on the chair, fire in her weary eyes.
“My life, the one I clawed out of nothing, is gone. Just gone.” This isn’t a tactic.
Just her accepting reality. “I missed my podcast post this week. And my presentation and lecture at the Soul Journeyers conference is tomorrow. That was supposed to be my shot.”
I blink. That…is not what I expected her to say. “A presentation and lecture.”
Defeated, she nods and curls into herself as if trying to shelter a fragile core she’s suddenly found too exposed.
“You were trying to get to…” The disbelief cracks out before I can mask it. She’s running from killers, and instead of going to the police or an airport, her solution was to attend a coo-coo conference?
She covers her face. “Now that’s just another thing ruined. Another thing to rebuild from nothing.”
I watch her exhale, inhale, and start to reconstruct herself in real time.
Der’mo.
This isn’t how I wanted this to go.
I meant for all that effort—the threats, the grinding uncertainty, the involuntary loneliness—to break her so that I could extract information from her.
Instead, she’s re-forged herself into an unyielding force of nature. Absurd, mystical, crystal-charged steel, but steel all the same.
That’s a problem.
Steely Jordan is useless to me. I need her open. Supple. Malleable.
The hammer’s not working, though, so I have to pivot to a different kind of tool.
Heat.
Hope. Or a hope-shaped lie.
And considering her cop aversion, she’s just handed me the perfect carrot.
“You can go.”
She jerks upright in disbelief. “What?”
“Your conference. You can attend. But only on my terms.”
The way hope breaks across her face…
I shut down the weird little warmth wiggling to life in my chest.
“My terms. You’ll wear what I choose. And you don’t run again.” I find myself gravitating closer, lured by a sensation I don’t care to name. My thumb sweeps over the cut on her neck.
She sucks in a breath, her eyes wide, the green in them a thin circle around dark pupils.
She feels that tiny spark too.
Sharp and electric.
Magnetic.
I keep my stare locked to hers. “Because next time, I might not reach you fast enough. And until I get what I’m after, you’re mine.”
The possessiveness in my voice surprises us both.
This truth I’d rather not admit to slips through the cracks of my control. I spin away and leave Jordan alone in the kitchen, intent on giving myself some space.
On creating some space from her and from the echo of her warmth still on my hands.
Mostly, I need distance from the cold, razor-edged fury that tightened inside me at the sight of those men pawing her. Fury unrelated to the job or the evidence I’m seeking or Roman’s orders.
A fury that’s just mine.
With numb fingers, I punch a number into my phone from memory.
When the call connects, my flat, clipped voice demands, “Clothes delivery. Size four dresses. Silk, with solid colors. No patterns. Elegant and modern. Red and black.”
Red for the blood they spilled. Black for what happens if anyone tries again.