Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Ivan
There was something irrevocably wrong with me.
That’s what I told myself, at least, as I watched Poppy from my newest car.
Dimitri and Ace insisted I have a driver, but I didn’t want to be a creep with an audience.
I just wanted to make sure she was safe and maybe…
see what she was up to. Her little attitude in the hallway just a few days ago ran my blood too hot.
It was the fire that kept my blood singing. It was all I could think about.
So here I was, sitting in my car, watching her swipe at her cheeks as she pushed her sunglasses onto her face and marched down the street.
Any normal person would have turned the car around, seen she was safe, and left…
But I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to know what she did with her time.
I wanted to know who she spoke to, and most importantly, I wanted to know why she was crying.
I blew out a breath. Any normal person would just ask her on a date or maybe get her number, but I wasn’t exactly normal. Plus, I had killed her dad, so both of those things didn’t seem like something I could participate in.
But this? Watching her from afar? This was easy. This was safe. This was innocent. I didn’t have to get too close. I didn’t have to let her in. I was just watching from a distance to make sure she was safe. Yeah. That was it.
Plus, we were going back to the same hotel. So I wasn’t technically following her. I was merely heading back to my own home. Completely innocent.
My phone rang, blasting me from my turbulent thoughts. “Yes?”
“We have another job for you,” Nana practically sang.
I cringed. Ace was right. They would probably never be done with me. “Does it have to do with the elitist I hate so much in this city?”
“Yes, now be quiet so we can tell you what the job is,” Grandmother snapped.
“Look,” I stopped talking as my eyes zeroed in on something in the alley Poppy was about to pass by.
She was looking down at the ground instead of paying attention to her surroundings.
I dropped my phone as I watched two men step out of the small side street and into her direct line of path.
“Gotta go,” I muttered as I maneuvered my car through the small bit of traffic around me and slammed on the brakes as close to her as I could get, but it didn’t matter.
One of the men had a bag over her head as the other wrapped his arms around her legs.
In broad fucking daylight? What the fuck was happening?
I kicked the door open and ran for my life. I had my gun tucked in my pants, but it would do me no good; I didn’t have a good line of sight and could easily hit Poppy if I wasn’t careful. At least she was fighting and I could barely make out her muffled screaming as I followed them into the alley.
On the other side of the alley was a van parked and ready.
If I didn’t get to her in time, she would be gone.
Their boots slipped on the slightly damp asphalt as she fought them tooth and nail.
Both of their faces were covered in plastic masks that distorted their features.
I pulled suppressor out of my other pocket and began screwing it onto my gun as I watched her fight and tear at the man trying to take her.
The first man had his back to me, hauling her legs up while she thrashed like a wild thing. The second yanked the side door open, shouting something I didn’t care to translate.
I drew my gun and fired. One clean shot to the leg.
He went down hard, his scream echoing off the brick.
The other dropped Poppy, either in surprise or because he wanted to fight me.
She hit the pavement, rolled, and scrambled to her knees.
She fought with the bag over her head, and the man must have changed his mind on fighting me because he turned around and kicked her in the shoulder.
She hit the concrete hard, and I saw red.
Before I could think better of it and consider all of my options, I aimed my gun at his head and fired. Blood and gore splattered the side of the van, and the other man let out a girly, gut-wrenching scream as the smell of urine filled the small space.
Poppy groaned as she finally pulled the bag off of her head, and scrambled up against the wall.
Her eyes blinked at the carnage before her and as much as I wanted to take out the second man, I knew I couldn’t.
Not in front of her. Not after everything she’d already seen and been through.
So instead, like a decent person—semi-decent—I clocked him in the side of the head and he went down hard beside the van.
I didn’t know if they were working with others or how much time we had, but I knew I had to get Poppy out of here and fast. That was… if my car was still where I left it. I couldn’t tell from here.
I knew she could probably walk, but she was missing a shoe. Not to mention her shoulder sagged where the man had struck her. Her eyes were wide in fear and her hair was a tangled mess around her head.
I hauled her up into my arms and carried her as quickly as I could down the alleyway and back to my car.
Traffic was mostly gone, and the streets were pretty much empty in these parts, thank goodness.
It was probably why they’d chosen this area to get to her.
People tended to mind their business more in these parts.
I tucked her into the car as quickly and gently as I could before I ran around to the driver’s side and peeled out into the minimal traffic.
I double checked she was buckled in while maneuvering through traffic.
I grabbed my phone off of the floor and punched Benson’s name.
“It’s so lovely to hear from you after such a long hiatus. You could have come to pay me a visit; I have been so lonesome for you.” Benson’s voice played over my speakers.
“Cut the shit, Benson. I need you to track me, and I need you to wipe all security footage you can find in the area I was in just now.”
“Uh oh, did you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, again?”
“I have company, Benson. I need you to be a little more… tactful.”
“Done. There wasn’t much security footage in the area. Just one of you carrying a beautiful damsel to your car. All wiped.”
I let out a breath. “Thank you.”
“Where are you taking her?” Benson finally asked. “I saw the cut on her forehead. She’s probably going to need stitches.”
I hadn’t bothered with thinking that far ahead. All I could do was get her to safety, and the rest would come later.
“There is a discreet entrance at our hotel for celebrities. We’ll enter through the parking garage.”
Benson chuckled. “I’ll keep their security cameras on a loop for the next hour. Looks like our boy in the alley is waking up. Police should be there soon, anonymous tip— you’re welcome.”
“Talk to you later, Benson, thank you again.”
I hung up on him before he could get in any kind of snarky retorts or comments. I didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with him. But I was thankful for his skills and promptness.
“Why didn’t your gun make much of a sound back there?” She whispered as she rocked back and forth in the seat beside me.
I slapped it down, a little too hard between us, and pointed to the end of the barrel and the long piece attached to it. “This is a suppressor.”
She nodded her head, but her eyes were glazed over, and her teeth were beginning to chatter. My eyes zeroed in on the blood rolling down her face, and I let out another breath. I would need to take care of her. She likely had a concussion, and she was definitely in shock.
A name flashed across the screen of my radio, and I groaned. “Yes?”
Dimitri’s voice filled my car this time. “Don’t worry, my guys with the NYPD turned a blind eye to the shoe and bag and all the evidence you left behind. Thank God Benson called me and informed me of your extra-curricular activities so I could get things tied up with a nice bow.”
Poppy gasped beside me, and I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart. I’d been so worried about getting her to safety, I hadn’t even thought about taking care of my own hide.
“You owe me,” Dimitri didn’t bother with letting me get a word in. “You come to my city and keep making messes like this. You owe me.”
I sucked on my front teeth and blew out a breath. If these idiots kept on… I wouldn’t have much of a secret. Poppy was smart; she would figure it out. She would hate me. “Whatever you want.”
“Stay awhile. Keep making messes. I’m having a blast. You’ve been entirely too boring as of late. We need some excitement around here.”
The line went dead, and I spared a glance at Poppy. Her eyes were wide before her brow furrowed as she mulled over what my brother said.
“He’s dumb.”
She nodded, woodenly, as I pulled into the parking garage. I helped her out and watched to make sure no one was around before I got her into the elevator and up to our floor.
“My sister,” she whispered. “She’s living with me.”
“I’ll bring you back to my room.”
As quickly as I could, I unlocked the door and pulled her gently into the room. I stopped in the foyer and bit down on my bottom lip. This wasn’t going to be good.
“I suppose this means you don’t play a musical instrument…
” Poppy stared, wide-eyed, at the array of weapons strewn about the room.
I’d had to keep my hands and my mind busy and thought the best course of action was cleaning all of the weapons I brought with me…
Clearly, I wasn’t thinking at all when I did that.
I raked my fingers through my hair as she turned her gaze on me. “So are you special ops?”
My head moved on its own accord, up and down like a robot.
What else could I say to explain all of this? There was nothing else to say except to lie.
“Can you not talk about it?”
“It’s best not to,” Was she already putting the pieces together?
“Are you like a contractor?”
I shrugged. “More or less.”
“So people hire you to do jobs for them?”
She was definitely putting all of this together.
I was toast. Burnt toast. I squatted down beside the bed and pulled the trauma kit free.
I always kept one on me, especially after the accident with the antler.
I patted the bed and looked up at her from my knees.
Her eyes didn’t leave my weapons until I touched the alcohol pad to the side of her face, and she hissed through her teeth.
“I’m sorry, I wish I didn’t have to do this. How’s your shoulder?”
Her eyes widened before she reached up to rub it, as if it were forgotten. Adrenaline would do that to you. “Hurts a little but, it’ll be okay.”
I nodded as I continued to clean the dried blood from her face then spritz a numbing spray on it. I pulled the sutures from the box and prepared the needle. She blew out a breath as she watched my hands work. “Thank you.”
My eyes snapped to hers. “What?”
“Thank you for saving me. I don’t know why they would want me, but you were there, and if you hadn’t been…” She fought a shiver.
“I’m not a hero, Poppy.”
Her lips curled up in the corners, though only slightly. “Hmmm.”
I made quick work of her stitches. It helped that she didn’t move much, and she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. I was sure that if she kept up all that thinking, she would know exactly who killed her dad.
“Can I look at your shoulder?”
The dress she wore was torn and slightly hanging from her body. She was still missing a shoe, and I knew she needed clean clothes. She nodded slowly, and I went to the closet to find one of those plush robes they always hung there.
With trembling fingers, she began unbuttoning her dress right in front of me.
I turned my eyes to the ceiling. Sure, we’d done this song and dance before, but circumstances were a little different then.
Plus, there was also the fact that I’d pretended not to know her.
She would be getting to the bottom of that soon enough, too.
The ringtone on my phone blasted through the silence in the room, making us both jump.
I kept my eyes to myself as I brought the god-forsaken device up to my face and walked out.
She didn’t need an audience to put the robe on, but I was worried about her being alone with all of my guns and getting curious. I didn’t have much time.
“Yes?”
“Well, are you ready to hear the job position we have for you?”