Chapter 12
Ryder
The bass is so loud it feels like it’s beating inside my bones.
Heat presses down from the ceiling lights while bodies move in tight circles across the dance floor.
The air smells like citrus liquor, sweat, and the faint salt of the ocean drifting through the doors whenever they open.
I keep my head down as I push through the crowd, my heart hammering harder than the music.
It’s almost one in the morning; two nights of running have left me wired and exhausted.
Miami used to feel like home. Now every street corner looks like a trap.
I slip past a pair of girls laughing near the bar and keep moving deeper into the club. The lights flash in violent pulses of red and blue, washing over faces that blur together in the dark. No one pays attention to me, which is exactly how I want it.
This place isn’t one of my father’s prized clubs.
At least it’s not one he’s known for, but he owns it.
It’s small, tucked into a side street that tourists rarely wander down unless someone drags them here.
It’s a place that makes enough money to exist without attracting attention.
Most of his men don’t even bother showing up here unless they’re desperate for a drink after their shift somewhere else.
Which means Liev shouldn’t know about it.
I cling to that thought as I weave through the crowd.
My bag is slung tight across my shoulder with everything I’ve managed to keep stuffed inside it. A change of clothes. Cash. My passport. I have enough to disappear if I can make the right arrangements tonight.
Puerto Rico isn’t far. All I need is a boat and someone willing to look the other way.
I’ve heard things during the last two days I’ve been hiding. People in the street gossip, and that noise travels fast in this city. Especially when someone with power starts asking questions. A few people were bold enough to tell me the same thing over and over: My husband is out looking for me.
The word husband feels strange now. Cold, like a blade edged with fear, and I don’t know, guilt?
I shove past another knot of dancers and scan the far side of the room. My stomach twists with familiar dread. Liev has been in Miami for just shy of a month, and already half the city is talking about him.
A new arm of the Bratva. Polite on the surface, professional, but ruthless and efficient underneath.
He’s the kind of man who removes problems without hesitation.
A woman who runs away from him probably counts as a problem. I swallow hard and keep moving.
Saint should be working tonight.
She usually stays near the VIP hallway, running drinks and checking wristbands for the private rooms. I met her last year when I stopped by the club late one night out of boredom. She recognized my last name, but treated me like a normal person anyway.
That alone had made me like her.
She’s younger than me, bright-eyed and impossibly kind for someone working in a place like this. Her family lives in Puerto Rico, and she talks about them whenever the bar slows down.
She talks about the quiet coves along the coast and how easy it is to slip across the water if you know who to ask.
The memory pushes me forward through the crowd. I spot her near the hallway a moment later.
Relief washes over me so suddenly that my knees feel weak. Saint is leaning against the wall with a tray tucked under her arm, and her dark curls bounce when she laughs at something a bartender says. For the first time in two days, I feel like I might actually make it out.
Guilt follows relief.
She doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this.
Saint has nothing to do with my father’s cartel and even less to do with the war unfolding across Miami right now. She’s just a girl trying to earn enough money to help her family back home.
If I ask for help, I could put a target on her back.
My fingers tighten around my bag strap.
But I don’t have another option.
The city is closing in around me, and Liev’s shadow seems to stretch across every street. If I stay here much longer, someone will recognize me and call the wrong person.
I can’t let that happen.
I move toward Saint, slipping between dancers while the lights flicker across the floor. The bass climbs into a frenzy that vibrates through the walls, and the crowd moves harder with the rhythm.
No one notices me, but a familiar face appears, and I stumble in surprise. Emma Pierce. She’s still alive.
Emma is an FBI agent, and she looks young. She looks too young to be in the club, and I’m sure that’s what got her this position in the field. She’s low-level and always has been, but a few years ago, the moment she set foot in my father’s club. From that moment on, he had his claws in hers.
It started small. A favor. Asking her to overlook the movement of some heavy substances through the back streets. She was offered a pile of cash she couldn’t turn down with the debt she owed. Training and housing in Miami, suits to look the part, and a few nightclub dresses to fit in here.
How could she have refused?
Still, I feel the familiar twist of sour disgust at the sight of her. I’ve never liked people who play both sides, and Emma has been doing that for years now. I thought by now either the FBI would’ve realized and put her away or my father would’ve let her die in an alley, seeing her as a liability.
Her pretty face turns toward me. Her blonde hair is up in a messy knot, and her slinky dress pours off her shoulders in a silver waterfall. Her eyes are flat and emotionless, and her arms and neck are covered with bruises.
Fuck. It’ll be a miracle if she lasts much longer in this lifestyle.
Something distracts me, and when I look back, Saint is gone. Disappeared somewhere into the depths of the club or the crowd.
Then instinct tightens in my chest. The feeling crawls up the back of my neck like icy fingers. I slow down without noticing, my steps faltering as if the air itself is thickening around me.
I look up.
And freeze.
He stands perfectly still in the middle of the dance floor.
People move around him in chaotic waves, bodies colliding and spinning under the flashing lights, but Liev doesn’t move an inch. The darkness of his suit cuts a sharp line through the neon glow.
Untouchable.
Out of place.
Handsome, immaculate, and quietly commanding. His eyes are locked on mine.
A pretty woman in a short dress notices him. Her lashes dropping with interest, and jealousy fights with fear in my gut. I’m torn between stalking over and ripping her hair out for even looking at him or running.
Running wins.
The music roars louder; the lights flare brighter, but everything else seems to fall away as the distance between us stretches tight like a wire.
I turn and dart into the crowd, heading for the back to a corner near the bar where I know a dark door leads out into an alley and opens onto a dirty beach.
Of course he found me.
Of course I was stupid enough to believe he wouldn’t.
I’m halfway there when some brawny tourist, blitzed out of his mind, knocks into me and sends me to my knees. They pulse with pain, and I wince, but stand, looking over my shoulder to see how much time I’ve lost.
Liev’s expression is calm, almost thoughtful, as he pauses. His gaze runs up and down my body, narrows, and then he starts for me again. A spike of panic ruptures through my ribs.
I glance toward Saint.
She’s still laughing with the bartender, completely unaware of the storm forming just a few yards away.
Liev takes one slow step forward.
The dancers part around him without being told. The lights flash across his face in quick bursts of red and blue, turning his expression into something almost predatory.
He’s hunting.
The crowd undulates, and he disappears. I force myself to breathe and turn back toward the bar. My heart pounds.
I make it three more steps before his hand closes around my wrist.
The grip is firm enough that I feel the strength in it immediately, but he doesn’t yank me back. He just stops me like he’s placed a wall in front of my body.
I turn slowly.
Up close, he smells like cologne and cold night air.
It’s completely out of place in the thick heat of the club.
His dark hair is perfectly in place, but his jaw is shadowed with stubble.
It’s a sign that shows he hasn’t slept since the moment I disappeared.
His eyes burn with something that makes my pulse stumble.
Anger.
Relief.
The music crashes through the speakers so loudly that it vibrates the floor.
“Let go,” I say.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he leans closer so I can hear him without shouting. His voice is low and controlled, but the tension in it is unmistakable.
“You didn’t come home.”
Home.
The word sends a pang through me, followed by confusion. It sounds earnest. Why would a man trying to kill me use that word?
“I’ve been busy.”
His fingers tighten slightly.
“Busy running from your husband?”
I laugh under my breath, sharp and humorless.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” The words catch like a hook, yanking something deep within me; a longing I push down. My husband. As if something can belong to me for once; as if a man like Liev could ever really be mine.
The lights flash again, bathing his face in crimson for a split second. It makes the hard line of his jaw look even sharper.
“You wrecked your car,” he says quietly. “What happened?”
“As if you don’t know,” I murmur, but his brow furrows. Did he not hear me, or is he playing dumb?
“I’ve been searching for you.”
I shake my head slowly.
The bass drops again, rattling the glasses behind the bar and sending a wave of dancers surging around us. Someone bumps into my shoulder, but Liev barely moves; his body automatically shifts to shield mine from the crowd. I almost step closer to him.
“I know what you’re doing,” I say.
“What am I doing, Ryder?”
I lean closer, my voice low and cutting. “Trying to clean up a mistake.”
The confusion in his expression deepens.
“Meaning?”
“You married me for territory,” I say flatly. “Savannah. Miami. My father’s network. Now that you have it, I guess the inconvenient wife has to disappear.”
For a split second, he just stares at me.
Then something dangerous flickers across his face.
His grip on my wrist tightens, and he hauls my arm up, dragging me across the floor toward the bar, but not the exit.
Instead, he takes a sharp turn and stands before the narrow staircase that leads upstairs.
He is looking toward the rooms where killers rest uneasily overnight, deals are made, and voices are silenced.
“No,” I gasp, pulling back, but Liev’s strong arm wraps around my waist. He cages my body against his; he’s been paying attention these last few weeks. The satisfied look on his face tells me that he knows just how to hold me so I can’t kick or punch my way out of his grasp.
He hauls me up the stairs. I struggle the whole way.
A young Hispanic man in the hallway steps out of the way, drops his eyes, and only nods.
He seems unbothered by the fact that a tall, dark Russian man is dragging Hinto Moreno’s daughter through his club.
I bare my teeth at him, silently promising to come back and teach him a lesson, but Liev pushes me into an empty room.
Cot in the corner. Unwashed blankets in a heap on the floor. It’s reminiscent of the safe house in Savannah. It looks like the one he tracked me to, pinned me to the bed, and whispered promises of pleasure and power if I agreed to marry him.
“You think I tried to kill you?”
I spin to face him, eyes narrowed, not trusting the disbelief in his voice.
“A car without plates ran me off the road two days ago,” I snarl. “Funny timing, considering the only person who knew where I was going was you.”
His hands flex slowly, then clench. Liev licks his lips, and as much as I hate to admit it, the sight twists something dark and wanting in my core. I try to catch my breath, torn between jumping him or fighting.
He steps back half a pace, running one hand slowly over his mouth like he’s trying to physically hold something inside.
When his eyes meet mine again, they’re darker than before.
“Instead of calling me, instead of asking one question, you decided I was trying to murder you?”
I cross my arms.
“Given the circumstances, it seemed like the correct assumption.”
For a moment he says nothing.
Then he moves closer, hands flexing again, reaching out for me but not touching. He crowds in so close I can feel the anger and heat rolling off his body and see the perfect creases in his suit.
His voice drops low enough that I feel it more than hear it.
“If I wanted you dead,” he murmurs, “you wouldn’t have made it out of Savannah.”
My breath catches.
“And if someone actually tried to kill you,” he continues, eyes burning into mine, “we’re going to find out who.”
My pulse stutters because he doesn’t sound like a man who planned the attack; he sounds like a man who intends to start a war.
His gaze drifts briefly over my face, my shoulders, my hands, like he’s checking for injuries.
Then he looks back into my eyes.
“Next time,” he says softly, “you don’t run from me.”