Chapter 5 #2
“No!” Ryan ripped the knife from Alexei’s fingers. In a lightning-fast move.
Alexei turned toward Ryan.
“Come at me, you prick! Me, not her!” Then Ryan kicked Alexei in the face.
Oh, that brutal kick had to hurt. She shot away from the men. Weapon, weapon, weapon. She needed a weapon so that she could help Ryan. What kind of weapon could she find in the stables? Where and what kind and—there. A pitchfork. Against a stall with a terrified horse.
“Nice horse. Nice,” she soothed as she grabbed the pitchfork. “Do not stampede at me.” The pitchfork was heavier than she expected because this was the first time in her entire life that she’d ever held an actual pitchfork. She spun back around and hurried toward the fighting men.
Only they weren’t fighting any longer.
Alexei was down. Flat on his back. Blood poured from his neck and a knife hilt protruded from his chest. Sure looked to her like that knife blade had been buried in his heart.
Ryan glared down at the fallen figure. “You really thought you’d cut her fingers off? Slice her throat? While I was right here?”
She squeaked. Then clamped her lips shut when Ryan’s head turned and his gaze immediately pinned her.
Nausea rolled in her stomach. There was an awful lot of blood on Alexei’s body. And around his body. And on Ryan.
Blood and gore had never been her scene.
Meanwhile Ryan was staring at her like…like…
Ice cold eyes. Handsome face locked in lines of savage intent. Hands fisted.
So. Much. Blood. That blood had sprayed across his tux coat. “Um, you’ve got a little…” A really hard swallow. “Something on you.”
His gaze went even colder. He ripped off the coat and tossed it onto the floor, next to Alexei. An unmoving Alexei.
Now would he just toss away the tux coat if it truly had a thirty-million-dollar egg in one of its pockets? She did not think so. But she did think he had the egg. Somewhere on him.
She’d get back to the egg in a bit. For the moment, she should probably do something to address the man with the knife in his chest.
“We should help him,” Simone decided. Why was her voice so squeaky? She was never ever squeaky.
“He’s past the point of help.”
Was he? Probably. But maybe they should still try?
“Are you going to stab me with that thing, Simone?”
His sharp voice had her glancing at her weapon and realizing that she did have it pointed at him. She immediately tossed down the pitchfork. “I was coming to save you with it.”
“I don’t need saving.”
“I did not know that at the time.” She should reevaluate.
They were free. Alexei was dead. Reinforcements were coming, and she needed to get the hell out of there.
“We should run. You go that way.” She pointed vaguely to the right.
“And I’ll go this way.” To the left. “Stay safe. And let’s never speak of this again. ” With those words, Simone took off.
Except she did not get far because strong arms wrapped around her and yanked her back against Ryan’s powerful body. Her hands flew down, darting over his hips. The top of his thighs. “Let me go!”
He didn’t. He did spin her around. “We are not separating.”
One of Simone’s hands shoved into one of the hidden pockets in her dress.
Immediately, she realized that Alexei had not been bluffing.
The broach and earrings were gone, dammit.
Her gaze darted to his fallen body. Did she dare search through those blood-drenched clothes of his?
Were the items she needed still on Alexei? Oh, but she bet they were.
“It will be better if we separate,” she tried to reassure Ryan. “They are going to search for us. If we split up, the odds will be higher.”
“Higher for what, Simone? Higher odds that they’ll find me and not you?”
“I was talking about the odds of our survival!” Simone sucked in a dramatic gasp of air. “I’m trying to save you!” And herself.
He leaned in closer. “You are not getting away from me.”
Had he experienced some sort of mental break? His grip was way too strong. Not painful. Just strong. “You just killed a man.”
He grunted.
“That’s probably stressful for you.” Probably?
It should have been extremely stressful, but there Ryan was, acting like he had ice pumping through his veins.
His voice didn’t even tremble. His hands were rock steady.
“You aren’t thinking clearly. So I will spell things out for you.
” With all of her might, she tried to keep her voice calm.
“Bad guys are coming. Bad guys who will hurt us. The fact that you are richer than sin is not going to help you right now. You just killed Frederick’s number one goon.
We are in a boat load of trouble. We have to run. ”
He…shook his head.
“Ryan?”
He leaned in closer to her. “You’re not getting away from me.”
“Fine.” If he was going to be difficult about things. “Then we will run together. I, just, um, have to check the dead man. Or, the maybe not-so-dead man.”
“What?”
“I can’t leave without making sure he’s actually dead! Let me check and then we’re out of here. Done.”
His hold loosened. She darted toward Alexei. Choked down more nausea. “What did you do? Slit his throat first?” Simone risked a glance at Ryan. She needed him to be staring at her, making eye contact, while her hands were busy. At thirteen, she’d mastered the art of misdirection.
Nothing was more useful to her in this world than a skillful bit of misdirection.
She gave a pronounced heave. Such a hard, long, and despondent sigh.
A hint of worry darkened Ryan’s expression. Finally.
“You slit his throat,” she repeated. “Then you…stabbed him in the heart?”
No response.
Her fingers flew over Alexei. As if she was looking for a pulse. “I don’t want to tell you how to handle your affairs,” she mumbled, “but I think that was overkill.”
Wait—had Alexei just gurgled?
Her fingers whipped back. She jumped to her feet. “He’s still alive!” Very, very dramatic.
Ryan immediately surged down toward her. His hands went toward the knife still in Alexei’s chest.
She used that prime opportunity to scuttle back, to shoot to her feet, to leap around Ryan, and try to flee. Yet, once again, Simone got dragged back against Ryan’s chest.
“Simone.” A bit impatient. A bit sighy. “I know when I’ve killed someone and when I haven’t. That man is dead.”
Okay, there was a lot to unpack in that statement of his.
“I also know that you just swiped the broach and the earrings from his dead body, didn’t you?”
This did not feel like the moment to announce that she was guilty. “Let me go!” Then, to be polite, “Pretty please?” She’d try being polite first. If that didn’t work, she’d have to get physical.
Except she’d just seen him get physical with Alexei, and the end result of that very physical confrontation had been a dead Russian guard.
“I’m not letting you go.” And, again, Ryan whipped her around.
Whipped her around even as she was pretty sure that she could hear the distant growl of an engine. Was a car approaching? Frederick and more goons?
Ryan stared down into her face with his deep, dark, intense eyes, and he told her, “I’m arresting you.”