Chapter 3 - Ivan
The city tends to be dull during the day.
Without the usual nightlife to bring the Vegas strip to life, it looks more like an ordinary place. Engines idle in traffic, sirens wail somewhere in the distance, and neon signs stay dull, waiting for the opportunity to switch on once darkness falls over everything.
Sitting in one of our cars with a bogus license plate, my fingers absently tap against the steering wheel while I keep my eyes on the nondescript bar across the street.
The disguise Carlo Grimaldi wears is a shitty one at best. The baseball cap he wears makes him stick out more, and the sunglasses perched on his nose turn him into an even bigger douche.
Somehow, he can’t even get that right. If anything, he’s even easier to spot.
He’s talking to someone near the corner of the bar. The other man is tall, broad-shouldered, and lacking a ridiculous disguise. Though he isn’t familiar to me in the slightest.
They keep their heads low, and given the tension in Carlo’s shoulders, they’re talking about something serious.
I’m not close enough to read their lips, but I should be to make this scouting session more productive. I should be cataloging everything and gathering as much information as possible from their meeting.
But, instead, my attention drifts, like it tends to more often than not these days.
Mila is somewhere in this city, and even if that’s an obvious statement, it feels more apparent tonight. Rather than common knowledge, it’s like a sensation burrowing beneath my skin, reminding me that she is a far more interesting target.
Even if I normally get my fill of her any other day, something in me is just itching to see her again. I’m half tempted to throw all caution to the wind and track her down right now instead.
But as Carlo shifts his weight on his barstool and glances around the place, my gaze snaps back to him. The other guy nods once, and from my guess, it’s safe to assume they’re agreeing on something.
Letting go of a deep, almost pained breath, I glance away again, finding the whole thing way too dull.
Then, that’s when I see it.
A flash of blonde hair streaks across the street from the other side, moving recklessly through traffic. A few cars honk at the woman as she runs, and a handful of men chase after her.
She stumbles into the open, breathless and frantic as she looks for somewhere to go. Then, she darts ahead, running like something desperate to break free from whatever is trying to hold her down.
I can’t pull my eyes away from the scene, watching as she just manages to keep enough distance between herself and the men. The longer I watch, the deeper my brows furrow.
Then, my heart almost stops.
She cuts left, almost colliding with the rear-end of a parked car before swerving around it and running past mine. I catch her face just in time.
Mila.
At once, everything else ceases to exist. The bar where Carlo and the stranger are doesn’t matter. Whatever plan they’re cooking up means nothing.
Mila’s pale face lingers in my mind, along with the sheer terror in her eyes, more like she’s facing down death itself. That, paired with the reminder that she’s being chased, strikes me all over again.
The others aren’t as subtle as they follow her, not worried about witnesses, as one of them reaches into his jacket. They’re reckless, and I don’t like those implications.
That’s all it takes.
I punch the car into drive and hit the gas, veering into the wide alley, illuminating the dim space with my headlights. The distance crumbles away, and before they can gain on her, I’m already shoving the door open.
A few of the men glance back at me, but it’s already too late.
Gun drawn, I open fire, aiming at the closest ones. The shot muffles between the buildings through my silencer, and even if I’m doing something completely idiotic, I don’t care.
Two of them go down, with another two still chasing after her. Though at the sound of my pursuit, they duck behind a dumpster.
Mila screams before she can stop it, but the sound cuts off as she throws herself against the wall to avoid being hit.
Attention split between her and the two left standing, I rush towards Mila with my gun raised. On the way, one of them goes to shoot, but I beat him to it, firing again and hitting him square in the chest.
The moment he drops, I cut the rest of the distance and grab Mila around the waist, yanking her closer while ducking behind more bins.
A shot rings out, just narrowly missing where her head was just seconds prior.
She gasps, freezing at the contact, but seemingly unsure if she should fight me or give in.
Keeping her pressed tightly against my chest, I turn, firing twice in rapid succession. The first shot misses, only for the second to land the moment he hesitates.
The sickening sound of him being hit and dropping hard reaches me, then it all goes silent.
All struggle stops at once, and with that heaviness lingering, I feel as Mila shakes in my arms.
But Christ…she’s in my grasp, warm and alive.
Not just something to track or look at from afar.
For a long, almost agonizing moment, I just stand there, breathing ragged as I keep her pressed against me, palms splayed against her lower back.
The moment I hear other footsteps and murmurings from the street I came from, reality breaks my quiet reverie.
“Come on,” I murmur, already moving and hauling Mila to her feet.
Thankfully, she doesn’t argue or scream again. Instead, she grips my shirt as I guide her to my waiting car, eyes sweeping briefly over the men I took down.
Shoving the passenger door open, I pretty much toss her in before closing the door and rounding to the driver’s side. Putting it back in drive, I hit the gas, continuing through the alleyway and avoiding the bodies as best as I can to not freak her out more.
Hanging a quick left, I reach a side street, maneuvering until we’re well away from the alleyway.
Before anyone can find the scene, we’re gone.
I keep driving until I find an empty parking lot far enough away to have no connection to the bodies. When I park, neither of us speaks for a long moment.
Then, the sound of Mila’s sharp little gasps catches my attention, along with the way she clenches her hands so tightly in her lap that her knuckles are white.
I blink back at her, well aware that everything is hitting her at once.
In all the time I’ve been monitoring her, I’ve never seen her like this. Normally, she’s so controlled and untouchable. But now, she looks so close to breaking, and something about that gets under my skin.
“Hey…you’re safe now,” I finally manage to say, voice low yet steady despite the chaos we just slipped away from. “They’re not following anymore.”
Mila doesn’t look at me, and instead, she nods once, but it’s too jerky a movement to be a natural one.
“Where did you come from?” She asks, seemingly surprised by her ability to speak despite it all.
Looking her over for a moment, it takes me longer than it should to come up with a response, but I’ve imagined this moment a hundred times over.
Her realizing I exist, looking at me rather than around me. That acknowledgment is far more profound than it has any right to be.
But as sweet as I want this to be, it isn’t. Not while her fear is still palpable, and her hands are faintly shaking.
“I was parked nearby when I saw you running.”
Mila still looks ahead, obviously trying to process everything at once. I know she has more questions banging around in her skull, but she likely doesn’t know where to start.
“I thought…” she trails off, squeezing her eyes shut as she pulls in deep breaths. “I thought they were going to—”
“I know,” I say, voice far gentler than it usually is.
And I do know, because I saw the way those men moved. They were after her out of desperation, which surely came from the kind of orders that don’t leave room for mistakes.
The memory of them running after her makes that anger flare in my gut all over again, but I urge myself to keep it down.
“Why were they chasing you?” I ask, unsure if she’s ready to answer any questions yet, but it’s worth the shot.
Mila blinks, and many thoughts move through her eyes at once, unsure of what to settle on first. She shakes her head. “I can’t…I—”
“It’s fine,” I interject carefully. “You don’t have to tell me anything right now.”
At that, she finally looks at me, and more thoughts I can’t decipher flicker within her gaze. The fear is still there, along with confusion, while she assesses me.
“Who sent you?”
I lift a brow at that, caught off guard by the question. “No one did.”
Her eyes narrow just enough to be noticeable. “You mean that?”
“I do. I just happened to be there at the right time, I suppose.”
Mila’s discerning look lingers, then, seeming satisfied enough, she nods and rubs at her arm absently. “I guess you were.”
Silence settles between us for a long moment, full of unspoken questions and answers I’m not prepared to give her right now.
I should take her back. At least, I should take her somewhere else and let her decide where to go from there. That would be the smart, decent move. I could disappear as if nothing happened and let Wyatt know what I saw, then we could reassess.
Yet, sitting so close to her in this tight space, I’m incredibly aware of how it feels. Of how her scent surrounds me in the way I’ve been secretly longing to experience firsthand.
It would be so easy to keep her, and that thought alone nearly punches me into doing exactly that.
Out of all the streets and all the nights, she ran right across my path. She wasn’t even the one I had been watching, and yet, here she is.
Through that quiet, I picture her on stage, singing like she has nothing left to lose, and doing it with absolute defiance. It’s such a contrast to how she looks now, trembling like a rabbit that just nearly escaped the jaws of a predator.
After surveilling her for this long, I know her brothers don’t deserve her, and they likely have something planned for her.
Instead of returning her, I could protect her and make sure they can’t follow through with whatever they might want her for.
Before I can stop it, the idea blooms in my mind, squeezing with insistence.
If Mila’s with me, then she’s leverage and insurance. More importantly, I’d have her. I wouldn’t have to watch her from afar or wonder what’s in store for her. I can keep her close.
My jaw tightens as I force myself to breathe slowly, urging my newfound excitement down again. What I’m about to do is reckless and stupid, and definitely far too emotional for my own good. But I don’t care.
This isn’t at all how the night was supposed to go, but I already know it’s panning out far better than expected.