Chapter 26 - Anatoli
It all happened so damn fast. My heart was still in my throat, my brain struggling to accept what I was seeing, which was a very powerful enemy’s head crunching against my desk in a spray of blood. The sound of the gun was still ringing in my ears as the guard brought Masha to the floor in a heap.
My wife was crazy. Oh, I always knew it, but I was beginning to think it was the good kind, fierce and fiery. Even when she tried to shoot me on the plane, I had to admire her guts. But no, it was the bad kind, the kind that was going to get herself killed.
She’d just taken out someone whose father was strong and powerful enough to burn us all to the ground.
And she’d ruined my plans, which certainly wasn’t the most pressing thing at the moment, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight, and it pissed me off.
I had just about gained enough trust to be able to set up a meeting with Enzo’s father and really infiltrate the Collective enough to topple them from within, but that was obviously all over now.
Now I had to figure out a way to cover up this guy’s death before his people found out he wasn’t making it home for dinner tonight, and then put a hit out on both Masha and me.
After I explained to her exactly what she had just done, after all the color drained from her face, which told me she clearly understood what she got us into, she still had the gall to be furious with me.
“You never thought it might be a good idea to let me in on your plan?” she snapped. “After all, you wanted me posted up by the door for everyone to see. Didn’t you think about how I might have responded negatively to you meeting with our biggest enemy?”
By that, she meant the Fokins, and I scowled, leaning close enough for her pretty brown eyes to cross.
“What part of being my prisoner don’t you understand?” I asked. “Since when do I have to share my plans with you?”
She leaned back with a huff. “Funny, I thought I was your wife.” She rattled the handcuffs, still attached to the folding chair, her voice laced with sarcasm.
There was no time for this. My men would have already overpowered the guard who waited out in the lobby on this floor for Enzo to be finished with our meeting.
The moment he heard the gunshot, he would have acted, but thankfully, the ruckus Masha caused in the hall before the shooting put my other guards on high alert.
No one was running back to headquarters to report what she’d done, but it was only a matter of time until someone took note that they were missing.
Based on Enzo’s standing in the organization, a very short amount of time.
I unlocked the handcuffs, rubbing the red mark on her wrist without thinking. She gave me a strange look, and I gave her one of exasperation right back. And I thought she’d be the death of me when I was chained in her torture room.
“We have to work together now to stay alive,” I said.
She kept looking at me, her eyes darting from my eyes down to where my fingers still rested on her wrist. She didn’t dare make a move to run because the guard whose gun she wrested away had something to prove now and stood in the doorway with it held at the ready.
She met my eyes again, her brows darting together in confusion. “Why don’t you just turn me over to them and let them kill me?”
I should. There was no good reason not to, and I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t going to.
This damn, foolish, hot-headed woman was still making me suffer, and yet I couldn’t seem to let her go or get rid of her.
Anger bubbled up inside me, both at her and myself, as well as the Collective, when I thought about what they’d do to her if I came to my senses and handed her over to them.
No one was touching Masha. No one was harming her. I didn’t need a reason, did I? And if so, it was because she was mine. I could feel my face turning to stone, the muscle in my jaw clenching as I stared at her in silence. I didn’t have an answer for her, so she wasn’t going to get one.
She finally looked away. “What do you need me to do?”
Now she asked my opinion on something. I hauled her to her feet and found a tissue in my desk drawer for her bloody lip.
I briefly told my men to deal with the body in the usual way, sending it out to sea in the dark of night.
Which was still hours away, so they’d have to hide it first, lock up Enzo’s guard in case he was important enough to use as a bargaining tool if it came to it.
She tried to pipe up about a safe house somewhere that her family never used very much, but I shut her down with an icy glance.
As soon as things were somewhat under control, I took her back to the house, cursing the distance to the desert, though we’d have been sitting ducks if I’d chosen a place in the city to hide her.
Once Julio Santino discovered his son was missing, he’d leave no stone unturned in trying to find him.
Once he learned that Enzo was dead, he’d unleash hell.
The ride home was blessedly silent, and she followed me into the house of her own accord. She only balked when I took her arm and led her upstairs to my room.
“You’re going to leave me here?” she asked, her eyes darting to the bed.
I was, and though I wasn’t going to cuff her this time, she’d be locked in with every guard I left behind on the highest alert.
I still couldn’t bring myself to speak to her, but reached out and touched the cut on her lower lip where she’d bit herself getting slammed to the floor.
She didn’t flinch or pull away, and I wanted very much to kiss her. Too much. It was pure insanity.
I gently pushed her back and began to shut the door to deal with the predicament she had landed us in. A dead body, a prisoner, an entire organization about to rain fire on me.
“Wait,” she said, trying to wedge her foot in the door to keep me from closing it. “You can’t just leave me behind. I know about this stuff. I can help.”
I grimaced. “You really want to help?”
She nodded, looking hopeful and eager as well as dangerous and too pretty for anyone’s good. I closed my eyes and nudged her foot out of the way, slamming her into the room and turning the key in the lock.
“Then stop being a pain in the ass.”