Aj
The door swings open with a crash, jolting me upright. My heart spikes before my eyes even focus. I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep. Blinking against the dim hallway light, I push myself up, disoriented. Wolff’s silhouette fills the doorway.
“Let’s go.”
I scramble to my feet. My legs shake, weak and unreliable, but I force myself into motion. I’m barely keeping up as he walks out into the cold night air without waiting. A large black SUV idles in front of the house, its headlights slicing the dark.
My gaze drifts toward the puppies’ den, and my chest tightens painfully. I shove it down. I don’t have the energy to care—not about them, not about myself, not about whatever mess of a life waits for me outside this place. If there even is one.
Wolff heads toward Savva, who stands near the hood, his cigarette ember glowing. Two men are beside him, speaking Russian.
I freeze.
More men.
A chill shoots down my spine, my lungs squeezing until I can’t get a full breath.
Wolff speaks in Russian to Savva, who nods in return. The unknown men glance my way, and my stomach drops.
“Wait by the back,” Wolff says without looking at me.
I swallow hard and force myself to move, circling to the rear of the truck on unsteady legs. The back door swings open. A large hand clamps onto my shoulder and yanks—
My body detonates.
A scream rips out of me as I twist, shove, claw—anything to get away. The grip tightens. Then suddenly—
It’s gone.
One second, the stranger is standing in the truck.
The next, he’s on his back in the snow, wheezing.
A blade flashes in Wolff’s hand. “I told you, no one fucking touches her!”
The knife comes down.
The man’s scream splits the dark as blood sprays across the snow. He grabs the stump where his hand used to be.
Savva shouts something in Russian and rushes forward, slamming into Wolff’s side. It barely stops him. More men surge in, all shouting, hands up. Two of them grab the wounded man and drag him away as he screams. The snow beneath them is soaking red.
Wolff lunges forward again.
Savva grabs him.
Wolff snaps, “Try touching me again.” The tip of the bloody knife presses against Savva’s throat. They start shouting at each other in Russian.
I’ve never heard Wolff talk this much. Or this loud.
Savva shouts back, just as angry.
The wounded man is shoved into a car, and it peels into the dark, tires spinning across the ice.
Wolff turns around, his gaze cutting across the rest of the men. Every one of them freezes. His hand tightens around the knife. Blood drips from the blade into the snow as he steps forward, shouting more Russian.
He points the knife at each of them.
They drop their eyes instantly.
No one moves.
Then he shifts toward me.
My chest locks. Every instinct I have screams for me to run.
He strides to me, boots crunching through the snow. My eyes drop to the blade, watching the blood still sliding down onto his hand, before rising to his face again. His jaw muscles clench before he pushes the knife back into the sheath at his hip.
“Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head, heart racing, but I’m barely breathing.
His fists clench at his sides.
“Get in the truck.”
His voice is rough. But after the shouting, the blood, the knife—it’s the closest thing to concern I’ve heard from him.
I move on autopilot, climbing into the truck, even though my legs barely hold me. My hands fumble with the seatbelt, shaking too hard to thread it. The door slams behind me, and I jump.
Savva starts the engine.
Wolff and three other men pile in.
“No touching,” Savva mutters without turning around. “And I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about K9. Crazy bastard hates being touched.”
My whole body goes rigid.
I didn’t realize how close I was sitting next to Wolff until that moment. I shift immediately, inching away.
He hates being touched?
Heat hits my face as images slam into me—me on my knees, my mouth on him while he slept. I swallow hard, nausea and humiliation tangling in my stomach. It makes sense now. His violent reaction. His distance. If he hates being touched, then what I did to him… My throat tightens painfully.
I stare out the window, the glass foggy with cold and breath, trying not to think about the way he tensed and reacted every time I reached toward him in the cabin.
Trying not to think at all.
The truck rattles over the frozen road, every bump jostling the passengers. AJ’s head keeps dropping against my shoulder.
I shove her off. Once.
Twice.
The third time, she slumps against me anyway, half-conscious, her fingers sliding under the hem of my shirt.
“Jesus.” I inhale sharply as her cold-ass fingers brush along my lower abs. I push her back again. Fucking hell.
Savva catches my eye in the rear-view mirror. I glare until he looks away.
“Not much longer,” he mutters. “About an hour.”
I don’t answer.
I don’t trust the men he brought. Two are mercenaries who’d sell their own mothers for the right payout. The other two stare for too long, move too slow, breathe too loud.
They know the route. They know the stops. They know where we re-fuel, where we’re meant to switch vehicles. Too much information in too many wrong hands.
My grip tightens on the seat bench.
Savva speaks again. “The next turn is—”
“You’re turning a quarter mile early.”
His eyebrows lift. “That’s not—”
“Do it.”
He goes silent, forearms tensing as he adjusts the wheel.
I’ve already changed every stop he thinks we’re making. Every gas station. Every safehouse. Every switch point. I planned alternate routes before we even left the cabin. Three versions. Six variations. All of them ending nowhere that his men could predict.
Trust gets people killed. Patterns get people hunted. And I’m not letting some idiot merc hand us over because someone outbid the Sovereign overnight.
Six more days, and AJ Weston is no longer my problem.
“This is fucked, K9.” Savva yanks a crate of supplies from the truck and slams it onto the ice. “Why hire me if you’re just gonna go rogue, da?”
I ignore him and keep pulling gear from the back. His opinion means nothing. His men mean even less.
“I’m taking the back room. If anyone enters the hallway, I’ll put a bullet through their throat.”
Savva spits into the snow, curses in Russian, and storms toward the house.
“AJ,” I call into the truck. “Wake up.”
She stirs, sluggish and groggy, eyes barely open. “Where… Where are we?”
The farmhouse sits miles off the main road, half-rotted but defensible. No heat. No running water. But high ground, one entry point, and enough open field to see trouble coming before it hits the porch.
She climbs out and hugs her coat tighter around herself, eyes tracking the broken windows and warped siding.
“What is this place?” she asks.
“Temporary.”
Savva’s already ripping apart a half-frozen woodpile, muttering under his breath. “Sergei, perimeter sweep,” he barks at one of his men.
Sergei grabs a rifle and disappears into the dark.
AJ edges closer. “I… I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Outside.”
“Outside? Seriously?”
“No water.”
She hesitates, then turns toward the trees.
“Don’t go far.”
I step off toward a half-dead tree and piss, and steam rises off the snow. When I look up, she’s farther than she should be.
“Hey!” My voice cuts across the field. “What the hell did I just say?”
She whirls around. “I want some damn privacy. Is that allowed?”
“What’s allowed is you doing what keeps you alive. Stay where I can fucking see you.”
Her face tightens as she turns, bends, and drops her pants. “How’s this view, asshole?”
I ignore her. Scanning the tree line, I track for movement in the darkness. Measuring the distance from the farmhouse to the tree line and the road beyond.
Standing back up, her boots crunch the snow as she stomps toward me. “Should I pee in a cup next time? So you can watch?”
“Grow the fuck up. I’m not watching you piss.”
She fumbles with the zipper of her pants. Her hands are so damn cold, she can barely grip the small metal tag. My gaze shifts again. Tree line. Road. Window.
“I don’t like those men…”
“What?” I snap my head back at her.
“Those men… Savva’s men…”
“You’re not supposed to. They’re not your friends.”
“They scare me,” she says quietly.
“They should.” I glance down at her. “Stay away from them. You shouldn’t trust anyone.”
“I trust you. You saved me.”
She has no idea what I am. What I’ve done.
I step into her space, so close she has to tilt her chin just to keep eye contact. She’s barely 5’4”, and I tower over her by at least a foot. “Doesn’t mean a fucking thing. I could put a bullet in your head and sleep just fine.”
Her breath catches, and she backs up.
“You don’t know me. If you’re smart, you’ll fear me more than them.”
“But…you’re not like them…are you?”
A humorless breath leaves me. “I’m worse.” I’m the worst of all of them.
I turn toward the house. For a split second, I catch the look on her face—hurt, confused. The hesitant crunch of her footsteps follows me.
The farmhouse is warmer now, firelight flickering against rotting walls.
Savva and his men sit around it, tearing open MREs.
I grab a duffel with sleeping supplies and start down the hall.
Her footsteps follow. The single bedroom is small and bare, with only a few pieces of furniture.
It’s better this way. Close quarters, easier to defend.
I drop the duffel on the floor and pull out sleeping bags. She stands there uselessly, hands hanging at her sides.
“Where do I sleep?”
I ignore the question, grab wood from the hall, and toss it into the old stone fireplace. A match flares in my hand. I light the kindling, watching flames crawl along the logs.
She finally moves, unrolling a sleeping bag near the far wall.
When the fire catches fully, I turn around. Her eyes jerk away a second too late. She was staring at me.
“Go to sleep,” I order.
She slides into the bag. I pull a chair from the corner and jam it under the doorknob until the wood groans.
“I’m not going to run, Wolff.”
I sit against the wall, keeping my eyes on the fire. “It’s not to keep you in.”
She hesitates, brow furrowing. “Then…?”
“It’s to keep them out.”
Her lips part. “Oh.”
“Sleep.”
“You don’t trust them?”
“I don’t trust anybody.”
Silence.
Fucking finally.
My head drops back against the wall. There is no way in hell I’m sleeping tonight.
Not with five fucking mercs in the next room.
The heat slowly rises, and she kicks her sleeping bag down to her waist, her shirt riding high on her flat stomach.
Her pulse is pounding hard enough that I can see it from where I’m sitting.
She rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling.
“I can’t sleep,” she blurts. “I can’t— I keep thinking about someone breaking in. Someone—”
“They won’t. Sleep.”
“It’s not that easy.” Her hands twist in the sleeping bag.
“My head won’t stop. Every sound, every shadow, it feels like—” She looks at me, firelight flickering in her pupils.
“I need something to help me sleep. Do you have anything I can take? Or drink? Anything to shut my head off for a little bit— Please.” Another crack in her voice.
“I can’t be alone with my thoughts. I need a distraction. I need…something…”
I keep my eyes on the door. Ten feet of hallway. Two windows. One blind spot in the corner. If someone fires—
“Can we fuck?”
What the hell? I slowly turn my head back toward her.
She’s staring at me like she means it. “Can you just…fuck me? Please?”
“No.” My jaw is so tight I can barely get the word out.
“But—”
“If you want to come, do it yourself. Or shut your mouth. Either option, just leave me out of it.”
“Fine,” she snaps. “I will do it myself…” She mutters the rest under her breath.
She shoves the sleeping bag down to her hips. Her hand dives straight beneath her leggings. The second her fingers hit her cunt, I hear how wet she already is.
I grit my teeth and stare at the doorframe. Focus on the hinges. The lock. The shadows.
She doesn’t go slow. She fucks herself hard. Her other hand pushes under her shirt, groping her tit, pinching her nipple. A broken, filthy whimper tears from her throat.
My cock surges against my zipper.
Unwanted flashes slam into my head.
Her on her knees, choking on my dick, throat bulging, tears running down her face while I force every inch down until she gags and drools. Her tight little cunt stretched around three of my fingers, then four…
She’s close now. Hips bucking wildly. Thighs shaking. Her eyes flutter open, and when she comes, she looks right at me like I’m the one wrecking her.
Back arching off the floor, she slaps a hand over her mouth to muffle the moan, but it still leaks out. Her whole body jerks through it, then she collapses onto her side, panting.
She looks up at me through her lashes…then her gaze drops to the thick bulge straining in my jeans. “I can—”
“Go the fuck to sleep.”
Flinching, she turns away, yanking the sleeping bag over her head and curling into a tight ball. The silence stretches out, and after a few minutes, I hear the slow, steady rhythm of her breathing. Asleep.
My fists stay clenched on my thighs. Cock still rock hard and leaking, pressing painfully against the zipper. I drag in a slow breath through my nose. It does nothing.
I shift, trying to adjust the pressure, teeth grinding as the ache flares hotter.
Pathetic.
I’m a fucking Sovereign. And I’m sitting here with a throbbing dick because a half-starved, broken girl fingered her cunt three feet away from me in the dark.
This isn’t me.
I don’t want.
I don’t lose control.
Not for anyone.
Especially not for her.
I force my eyes back to the door and stare. Measure exits. Count shadows. Think about anything except the faint wet spot I know is still soaking through her leggings.
Minutes drag by before the tension in my body finally starts to dull.
Barely.
I brace my forearms on my knees and keep my stare locked on the door.
I don’t look at her again.