Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Radik lifted Saskia off the floor, his heart pounding with fear. Was she alive? He pressed his ear to her chest. The steady beat of her heart, the gentle rush of her breath against his neck, calmed him.
He didn’t need light to find his way back up the stairs where two of his people were guarding the door. A waitress stood nearby, her wide, fearful eyes on Saskia.
“She’s alive,” he said to her, then to his second-in-command. “Take care of it.”
Nuani would know what he meant. Get rid of the bodies, pay off the kitchen staff, find the Russian’s driver, find the hotel security. But there would be no explanation good enough to explain how Saskia ended up in the hotel’s basement with two assailants.
“I’ve got you,” Radik said to her, though she couldn’t hear him.
Another of his employees, Shola, followed him out into the loading dock where his vehicle was parked. She opened the car door and he slid into the back, arranging Saskia on his lap.
Gazing down at her, he couldn’t help but bask in the moment, despite her injuries.
He’d only ever touched her once, years ago, to remove her headphones.
They hadn’t spoken, though he often listened in on her conversations either through the cameras he’d had installed in her apartment, or the phone he had bugged.
Whether she knew it or not, he was always with her. And a damn good thing he was nearby and watching. His obsession with the young Koba woman was what led him to her this evening.
He’d planned on finally approaching Saskia while she was in Pretoria, perhaps asking her out for an evening. It seemed ridiculous now, the idea that the youngest member of a well-known mafia family and he, a mercenary warlord, might go on something as simple as a date.
What the fuck happened to her?
She should have been safe. Taken care of by her family. And by Radik, who always had eyes on her. He’d failed her and that was something he took seriously. He would find out exactly what happened and why.
Saskia made a sound and he tightened his arms around her. “Faster,” he told the driver.
The car sped through the downtown core until they reached Radik’s apartment building. His car door was opened for him and he slid out, his hold on Saskia firm.
Shola opened the building door and cleared a path to the elevator, giving the concierge a look that suggested he keep any comments to himself. Shola’s death stare was something to behold.
In the elevator, Shola punched the button for the penthouse suite. “Doctor Smith has arrived and is waiting to see the patient.” She kept her eyes carefully averted.
Radik stepped out of the elevator, greeting the doctor, a man he trusted and respected. “Zander. She’s been unconscious for twenty minutes. She took at least one blow to the head and one to the ribs.”
Shola rushed ahead as Radik strode through the suite, opening the door to the bedroom where Radik lay Saskia on the bed. She looked so fragile on his oversized king bed.
“She was attacked?” Zander asked, sitting next to Saskia as he checked her pulse and breathing.
Radik had to stifle the urge to snarl at the doctor for touching his woman, his protective instincts hammering at him.
It was necessary, he reminded himself, before saying, “Yes, two assailants.” He smiled grimly.
“She injured one and killed the other.” Technically, Radik killed them both, but the one with the severed artery would have died if Radik hadn’t finished him.
“She’s strong then,” Zander said approvingly. “That’s good. She’ll need to be to survive life with you.”
Besides a handful of loyal employees, only Zander knew the true extent of Radik’s obsession, knew of his plans to bring Saskia to his home and keep her there as his partner, and hopefully one day his wife.
Zander and Radik met 20 years ago in a refugee tent on the Chad-Sudan border after Radik had been shot.
Zander had treated him without asking questions, though it was clear he disapproved of Radik being in the area, having pegged him as a mercenary.
After learning that Radik had been distributing aid to villages cut off during the border skirmishes, he’d thawed.
The two became close friends over the years, Zander never hesitating when Radik needed his medical expertise.
“Will she be okay?” Radik asked.
“She has bruising here.” Zander moved her wild curls aside, gently brushing his fingers across her cheek and temple. “She may have a concussion, but we won’t know the extent of the damage until she wakes up.”
“You’ll stay.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course.” Zander stood, moving back from the bed.
“Can you wake her?” Radik asked, taking Zander’s place next to her. He picked up her limp hand and stroked the soft skin.
“It’s best to let her come around on her own,” Zander said, heading toward the door. “I’ll be in the other room. Call me when she wakes up.”
“What happens if she doesn’t wake up?” Radik asked before Zander could leave.
The doctor paused, and without turning to look at him, said, “Then I imagine you will hunt down every person involved in her death and make them wish they’d never heard of her.”
Zander’s answer was a punch to the chest, stealing Radik’s breath.
Not the part about hunting down the people involved in Saskia’s attack; that would be happening regardless of the outcome, but the lack of reassurance.
Ordinarily, it was what Radik liked best about his friend.
He always told the blunt truth as he saw it, but this time, Radik needed reassurance and what he got instead was the door closing softly behind the retreating doctor.
“You will not die,” Radik commanded Saskia. He brushed his fingers over her cheek, frowning at the darkening bruise on her cheekbone. “You will wake up.”
When she didn’t stir, he gave into the urge to lay down next to her, careful not to jostle her. He couldn’t help touching her, running his fingers over her eyelids, her nose, her chin, before resting his hand lightly on her stomach, then pulling away.
“Not without her permission.”
After watching her, getting to know her from a distance, admiring her, he’d vowed to himself that when the time came for him to collect his woman, he would wait until she came willingly.
His life had been one battle after another. One war after another. He was a brutal man, raised in a brutal system, who learned at an early age to deal out brutality to those who didn’t fall in with his plans.
But she was different.
Saskia was his antithesis. Her pale skin contrasted with his Congan roots, like a unicorn and an adze, a South African mythological vampire.
But how she looked had never mattered. It was her innocence.
Her unwavering goodness despite spending a lifetime under the tutelage of her mafia family.
She pushed back against their brutality and insisted on better for herself.
He admired her, but he was also covetous of her attitude and privilege.
His life had been laid out for him from an early age. He was a child when he became a soldier, and after that, a rebel, then a mercenary, until he became king of the mercenaries, a warlord.
A warlord who coveted an innocent. A young translator whose sole ambition was to get out from under the thumb of her powerful family. And he was going to steal her for himself.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, allowing only his gaze to touch her.
Over the past few years of watching Saskia, she had become his conscience. She softened him in a way he never thought possible. And now he was going to have to find the balance between allowing her the freedoms she so badly wanted in her life, while also keeping her for himself.
He didn’t think she would come willingly, at least, not until she got to know him and his intentions.
But what were his intentions?
He lay back, settling his head on the pillow next to hers, allowing his hand to fall between them, brushing against her hip.
His intentions had changed over the years.
At first, he’d watched her, intent on snatching her up at the right time to use her against her powerful mafia cousin, Jozef Koba.
But that goal changed as he got to know her.
He decided he would simply watch over her as she struggled to seek independence, perhaps nudge her in the right direction if it was needed.
An omnipotent benefactor she knew nothing about.
Except she was too smart for that. She knew she was being watched, then figured out who was watching her. She left notes occasionally for his cameras to pick up: Good morning, SMR. When are we going to meet? Why are you watching me?
SMR. Sharif Muhammed Radik. The messages were for him.
After he realized she was communicating with him, he’d started sending her gifts at Christmas and on her birthday. Her favourite seemed to be the book he sent her about the Congo, which had pleased him as it was the place of his mother’s birth and where he kept his residence.
And now here she was, under his roof, within his power, yet not how he wanted. She was helpless, a pale version of herself. She was injured, not whole and healthy, how she should always be.
But when she woke up, her personality would shine through and she would once more become the Saskia he had grown to love. He frowned as Zander’s words echoed in his head. If she woke up.
A knock at the door distracted him from his thoughts. Nuani peaked in, nodding at him. “We have the hotel manager.”
Now he would get answers.
He slid off the bed, careful not to disturb Saskia.
Entering the living room, he caught sight of the hotel manager immediately. He was the only man in the room shitting himself.
Stopping several feet away, Radik said to Nuani, “Tell me what you’ve found.”
Nuani stood next to the hotel employee, his arms crossed in front of him, biceps bulging. Nodding at the manager, he said, “This is Paul Grossman. He runs the hotel.”
Radik pinned him with a stare. “You know who I am?”
He nodded, eyeing Radik with distrust. “You’re General Radik.”