Chapter 6
NIKOLAI
I’d been avoiding her for eight hours.
Eight fucking hours since I’d fed her like she was something precious instead of a hostage and reveled in the little moans she didn’t even realize she released with each bite.
Eight hours since I’d crouched down next to her and watched her take food from my fingers while my pulse hammered in ways that had nothing to do with power or control.
The taste of salt on that fry when I’d licked it, knowing she’d taste me on it? Fuck.
I lit another cigarette, my fourth in the last hour, washing down the smoke with another glass of vodka while I tried to focus on the tactical situation instead of the way her brown eyes had looked into mine while she chewed.
The way she’d leaned forward, trusting me not to pull the food away at the last second.
How her gaze was stuck on mine while her teeth sank into the food.
Why was it so fucking alluring?
It was supposed to be a power move. Show her her place in this little food chain of ours. That she was to do what I told her to at all times, even if it was degrading.
That shit turned on to me real quick once I heard the sounds of her satisfaction.
Babochka.
That damn tattoo on her thigh that made my mouth spit out the word before I could stop it. I never used it. Not since my mother died. To me, that word belonged to her. It was something sacred that I’d buried alongside her memory.
Calling a hostage that only told me these damn fumes and rust from the tunnel had reached my brain and wreaked havoc, short-circuiting that part that still actually functioned.
“Blyat,” Fuck. I muttered, taking a drag so harsh it burned my lungs.
I pulled my phone from my slacks, noticing the incoming messages from Adrik.
I’d sent him to deal with her instead. We had to push back our departure for a while longer, make use of the darkness of nightfall to slip through the streets of New York undetected.
Unlike what we’d led her to believe, we knew the Battaglias wouldn’t back down from searching for her.
They were all about family, and even if she only carried half of their shitty DNA, she was still one of them.
She’s not eating again.
I stared at the message, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. Of course she wasn’t. Stubborn little babochka would rather starve than show weakness. I was surprised she caved when I tried.
Take her to the secondary location. We move in an hour.
Want me to try feeding her before?
The thought of Adrik’s hands near her lips, of him watching her the way I had, made my grip tighten on the phone until the screen cracked slightly.
No. Just get her ready.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket and ground my cigarette under my heel with more force than warranted. This was exactly why I avoided complications. Why I kept things clean, professional, fucking transactional only.
Asking her about Dmitri was anything but that.
The question had slipped out before I could stop it, drenched in the trauma from the past that made me slip back into the mind of that eight-year-old boy.
Even I couldn’t deny the relief I felt when she said I’d arrived in time. And for that weakness in me, I had Adrik’s fucking father to thank, may God shit on his soul.
I didn’t give a damn about hostages beyond their strategic value. It wasn’t the first time we found ourselves babysitting a prisoner. It was the first time they didn’t have a dick, though. I shouldn’t care if Dmitri had gotten his hands on her before I put a bullet in his skull.
But apparently I fucking did. I brushed it off as my mind trying to fix what broke a piece of me at such a young age. A pathetic shot at redoing fate.
It made sense if I gave it thought. I was projecting.
Twenty minutes later, I was following at a distance as Adrik led her through the tunnel system toward our exit point. It was a tactical oversight. Making sure our asset was secure.
That truth tasted bitter against my tongue.
She walked steadily in the sneakers I’d given her, no longer stumbling or shivering for that matter. The food had definitely helped, even if she refused her dinner.
Good. We needed her functional.
Functional. Right.
“Thank you,” Her soft voice carried through the void tunnel back towards me as she spoke to Adrik.
They’d stopped near the ladder leading up to street level.
Her tone was serene, contrasting with all the others she’d addressed to me.
“For earlier. For not letting him just... get rid of me like he told you to. I know he’s your boss and you followed his orders, but that might have saved me. ”
My jaw clenched involuntarily at her words. Get rid of her? When had I ever said that?
“Pozhaluysta,” Adrik replied. You’re welcome. “Nikolai doesn’t make decisions lightly. If he wanted you gone, you’d already be gone.”
“Still. You convinced him to keep me alive. So... thank you.”
She was thanking him. Him. For something I’d decided. For mercy I’d given her. And Adrik was just accepting it like he deserved her gratitude.
Like he’d saved her from Dmitri.
Like he’d brought her food and shoes and watched her lips close around his fingers.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Da.” Yes.
“What does babochka mean? Nikolai keeps calling me that, but I don’t speak Russian.”
I froze, another cigarette halfway to my mouth, expectant of what Adrik’s answer would be. My free hand was clenched, waiting for what seemed like a fucking eternity for him to speak.
“Babochka? He called you that? Are you sure that was the word?
“Yes, I’m sure. What does it mean? It’s an insult, right?”
Another pause. I could practically hear the wheels turning in Adrik’s head, wondering why the fuck I’d used that particular word. The word carved on the headstone of a hollow grave.
“It’s a word he doesn’t use lightly.”
“I knew it was bad.”
A chuckle escaped my mouth at the irony. I’d called her the only thing I never should have, and she thought I was insulting her.
The easy way they talked to each other made something dark curl in my chest. She’d barely said ten words to me without fire in her voice, but with Adrik, she was practically chatty. Comfortable even. As if he hadn’t planned her kidnapping as much as I had.
“We should go,” Adrik said. “Nikolai wants to leave soon.”
“Of course. God forbid we keep the great Nikolai waiting.” There was that edge again. The venom she infused as she said my name painted a clear picture of what place I occupied in her captor’s hierarchy. I was the monster. The culprit.
Because I fucking was.
They started climbing the ladder, Adrik going first to check the street. I waited until they were halfway up before following, staying back far enough to avoid detection.
The night air hit my face as I emerged from the underground, sharp and cold but so fucking relieving after the stale atmosphere of the tunnels. I could see them across the street, Adrik guiding her towards where we’d parked the cars.
Everything was going according to plan. We would be pulling up in Washington DC before dawn.
But the arrogance of thinking we’d slip away with something that didn’t belong to us and have no issues just had to come back and bite us in the ass. And this was the chosen moment for karma to come collecting.
The first bullet shattered the windshield of the car next to them.
“BLYAT!” I roared, diving behind a parked van as the night exploded into utter chaos.
Automatic gunfire erupted from every direction. Muzzle flashes lit up the darkness like beautiful but deadly fireworks. I settled my breath and registered their locations.
At least eight shooters that I could count, positioned to cut off every escape route. Could they be Battaglia men, or was it my loving father cutting his loose ends and taking only what he needed?
Glass rained down from shattered windows above us. Car alarms screamed as bullets punched through metal and brick. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air, mixing with the intoxicating scent of gasoline from the punctured car tanks.
Through the chaos, I saw Adrianne frozen in the middle of the street, her arms covering her head as if that would be armor enough to save her from the war around us.
Adrik was shouting her name from behind an overturned car, but suppressing fire from a doorway kept him pinned down. He couldn’t reach her.
She was going to die standing there.
Without thinking, I sprinted across the open space, keeping low as bullets flew past my ears.
The sharp crack of rifle fire mixed with the rapid chatter of submachine guns spurred me on even faster.
Screams from both sides fuelled the panic in the air while death teased us as bullets missed their targets. Me, mostly.
I tackled her behind a black sedan just as the rear window exploded above us, showering us with crystal fragments that caught the moonlight like diamonds.
“Stay down!” I pressed her against the cold metal of the car, my body covering hers completely. She was shaking uncontrollably. “Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t fucking breathe unless I tell you to.”
But even as I barked orders, my hands were already betraying me. One cupped the back of her head, fingers threading through her silky hair. The other traced along her jaw, checking for cuts from the glass.
Her skin was impossibly soft under my calloused fingers. Impossibly alluring, despite the mayhem around us. Adrianne’s shaking hand came to settle on my wrist, steadying my hand in place as if a killer like me brought her comfort.
“You’re not hurt,” I murmured, more to myself than to her. My thumb brushed across her cheekbone, wiping away a smudge of dirt and dried blood she hadn’t cleaned off from earlier. “Good. That’s good. You’re okay.”
“Nikolai–” she started, her voice shaky.