Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
ARTEM
T he deafening roar of the helicopter blades silenced the laughter of a bunch of drunk college students.
All cloudy, unfocused eyes turned to me as I stepped out of the shadows of the spinning blades, the downdraft whipping my custom suit against my body like a second skin.
Everyone on the lawn ducked down onto the grass, cowering like rabbits before a wolf, as if the blades that were over ten feet off the ground were going to decapitate them. Unmoved by the wind that had them scrambling, I methodically buttoned my suit jacket and made my way toward the house with two of my men flanking me like dark sentinels.
"Cops," one drunk college student yelled. Several of them panicked and ran, tripping over themselves, abandoning cups and dignity in equal measure.
Fucking drunken idiots.
When was the last time a cop showed up to a frat house wearing a Tom Ford suit worth more than their tuition, arriving in a helicopter that cost more than this entire shithole campus?
I thought Viktoria had chosen a good school. If this was the intelligence of the student body, perhaps we needed to revisit her choice. Immediately.
I took a moment to absorb the scene through narrowed eyes: the front lawn littered with red Solo cups and piles of vomit; the occasional passed-out student sprawled like human detritus. Loud, obnoxious music blared from the house, bass thumping like an irregular heartbeat in time with the strobe lights flashing from the windows, casting demonic shadows across the property.
My girl wasn't out here on the lawn, so she must be inside.
For her sake, she had better be in one of the public rooms.
If I found her in some asshole's bed getting groped by a football player, I was going to lose my shit. The rage simmering beneath my skin would boil over, and there wouldn't be enough left of him to identify.
She would be transferred to an online degree or better yet, an all-women’s college run by big burly nuns with heavy rulers that would leave welts on delicate skin.
If I found her unconscious or drugged and getting assaulted by a drunk college student, then I was going to kill him slowly, painfully, forcing him to beg for a mercy that would never come—and then still put her into the girls' school with the big burly nuns.
I didn't know why the thought of someone else touching her pissed me off so much, or why I was so mad at her for putting herself in an unsafe situation.
The possessiveness that surged through my veins was unfamiliar and unwelcome.
When did I start referring to her as my girl ?
If any other college girl had done this, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. It was what college girls did. Hell, if any other women I knew did this, I wouldn't have cared.
I wasn't sure why, but I needed Viktoria to be better. I needed her to be stronger and to not come to such stupid life choices. She was meant for more. For silk sheets and diamond collars, not this cesspool of mediocrity and cheap thrills.
Did she not realize she was in danger?
She was a beautiful woman without her family's protection in a large city. Hell, she was on an American college campus. It was rife with assholes with date rape drugs and administrators who would rather look the other way to avoid paperwork and bad press. My blood froze in my veins at the thought of her vulnerability.
I knew she was aware of the security I had assigned to keep an eye on her. I had told them to keep back and be discreet, but they reported that she had spotted them.
She was clever.
At least, I thought she was.
When I started hearing whispers of people wanting what her father owed them, I increased the surveillance and gave up on discretion. It was a luxury she couldn't afford any longer. The shadows that hunted her were darker and more dangerous than she could possibly imagine.
Which made this party even more treacherous.
Another look around and I couldn't understand why she would even want to be here.
She wasn't some silly little party girl.
She was a survivor, a scholar, and from what I understood, smart enough to fly under the radar. If I had thought she would burn through her college days in a drunken haze, I would have never let her attend.
The naiveté displayed tonight was beneath her. It was disappointing. It was...terrifying.
When I marched into the house, several people stopped and stared at me, their faces draining of color as they registered my presence. But the party lights kept flashing, my temples throbbing from the kaleidoscope of colors. And as more people stopped talking to stare, the music only seemed to get louder, pounding against my skull.
I took out a Glock, the metal gleaming under the chaotic lights, and shot out the sound system.
Immediately the room became silent, the sudden absence of noise almost more shocking than the gunshot.
That was probably a little heavy-handed, but it was effective.
The scent of fear permeated the air, mixing with the alcohol and sweat.
"Where is she?" I barked.
No one answered. The room was so quiet I could hear the rapid, terrified breathing of those closest to me.
"I will not ask again," I said, bringing the gun up with an ominous motion that sent visible tremors through the crowd.
"Who?" A blonde girl with glazed blue eyes, her shirt pulled down so her bubblegum-pink bra was showing, pushed forward. "I bet I can be so much better for you, Daddy."
She wobbled toward me, tripping over her own heels. When she reached out for me, her fingers grasping at empty air, I took a step back and watched as she fell flat on her face. I didn't have time for this shit. Her desperation clung to her like cheap perfume.
"Oh my god, that was so mean," she whined, her cries muffled by the carpet her face was planted in.
The constant flashing lights and the disgusting smell of cheap beer, vomit, and skunk weed was giving me a headache, each pulse of light like a needle in my brain.
Raising my gun, all the students around me ducked, some throwing themselves to the floor as I shot out the strobe lights, plunging the room into darkness, the acrid smell of gunpowder adding to the nauseating cocktail of scents.
A girl somewhere screamed, the sound high and piercing, and someone turned on the actual lights. That was better.
Now I had everyone's attention, and I could see their bloodshot or glazed eyes staring at me. Some trembled, others were frozen in place, as if stillness might render them invisible.
"Oh my god, call the cops," a girl shrieked, breaking the silence, then like a dam breaking everyone started talking at once.
A mix of "Hey man, who do you need help finding?" and "Wait until I tell my father about this," came from men and women, some cowering, others attempting defiance. A couple of them were positioning themselves like prostitutes in the red-light district, batting eyelashes and pushing out chests despite the terror etched on their faces.
I shot another round, this time into the wall over a door.
The sound reverberated through the room, followed by screams and whimpers.
I needed to make a point, not the front page of the paper for shooting some drunk college kid losing his virginity upstairs.
With an impossibly tight grip on my rage, my knuckles white around the gun handle, I pointed my weapon at the bastard who thought his father could do a damn thing. His face went paper-white, a sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
"Viktoria, where is she?" Each word was ice, dripping with menace.
"Of course he is after the Russian hooker," some guy said, and a few of the others broke out into fits of nervous giggles.
One deadly look their way, my eyes promising violence that would haunt their nightmares, and they shut their mouths and stared at the floor, shoulders hunched as if trying to disappear.
A girl who looked vaguely familiar cleared her throat, her hands shaking as she raised one to get my attention.
Blonde hair, pink top, drunk but not sloppy. I had seen her picture before.
My security provided it along with a dossier on her and her family, because she was Viktoria's friend.
Her name was Samantha, Sarah, something like that. Her family was in politics, but clean-ish. They had taken a few bribes, but not for anything noteworthy.
In fact, I only allowed Viktoria to stay in the dorms because she was going to be with this girl.
"Where?"
She pointed down the hall, her finger visibly trembling.
I signaled for my men to stay here while I went to find her. The crowd parted for me like the Red Sea, pressing themselves against walls to avoid touching me.
The second I saw her, clinging to the wall and batting a guy hovering around her away, the tension in my shoulders faded marginally.
My heart, which I hadn't realized was racing, slowed to a more normal pace.
Fuck, was I afraid for her? No, that couldn't have been it. It had to be stress.
The thought of feeling anything more for her than obligation was unacceptable.
She was conscious, so I doubted someone slipped her something.
She was just very drunk. And in a lot of trouble. My palm itched to teach her a lesson she would never forget, to feel the sting of flesh against flesh.
I took a deep breath, instantly regretting it. The smell had gotten worse the further I got in the house, with the addition of cheap cologne that clung to the back of my throat.
"Viktoria," I said, getting her attention, her name a command on my lips.
She looked at me, her eyebrows knitted in confusion, those wide, stormy eyes trying to focus on my face. "You can't be here. Only drunk little boys living on their daddies’ money can be here. No real men allowed."
Her words were slurred as she gripped onto the wall harder, nails digging into the plaster as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. "Make the room stay still."
At least she knew the difference between the asshole trying to cop a feel and a real man.
"Hey man, I got her," a frat bro with a death wish said, reaching for her arm with sweaty fingers.
"If you even think about touching her, I will personally remove every offending finger. Slowly."
The frat guy put his hands up high in the air like we were in a spaghetti western and I was trying to rob him, and took several steps back, nearly falling over himself in his haste to retreat.
He stepped back into a puddle of vomit, slipped, and screamed as he landed on the linoleum floor, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs. Then he pissed himself and started to cry, the dark stain spreading across his khakis as tears streamed down his flushed face.
I looked back at Viktoria, disgust curling my lip. "This is what you risk your safety for?" Motioning to the crying coward on the floor with a dismissive flick of my wrist.
She was watching him with a look of revulsion on her face before she turned to me, those eyes—those fucking eyes—trying to focus on my face.
"What I do in my time is none of your concern." Her words were still a little slurred, but they were stronger, steadier, each syllable dripping with defiance that made my blood simmer.
My mouth watered at the curve of her neck as she tilted her chin up in challenge.
She was still very drunk, but the more she spoke, the less I was concerned about an asshole like that having slipped something in her drink.
It still didn't excuse her behavior.
"That's where you're wrong," I said, each word precise, lethal.
I stalked toward her like a predator closing in on prey.
She clung to the wall, her knuckles white, her chest rising and falling rapidly.