Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Dmitri didn’t move, but she felt his attention sharpen all the same. “You think so little of me.”
“Why should I think better?” She dragged in a breath, oxygen flooding her lungs. “You would have let my sister die. You would have let them all die.” A different shootout, a different enemy. Endless. The tide against her was endless.
“My priorities are not your priorities, moya koroleva.”
As if that made it better. As if she should be thankful that he apparently didn’t want her dead. Keira turned her face away, preferring to look at the strange wallpaper instead of his treacherous gray eyes. Was the curving print moving? She closed her eyes and opened them again. This time, there was no time jump. It was still dark. He was still here, taking up too much room. She shivered. “I’m cold.”
“You’re burning up.” A cool hand against her forehead. “The good doctor assured me this is normal, but…” He smoothed her hair back, the touch gentle. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend this was another time, another place. That she was just a woman and he was just a man, and nothing stood between them and the fabled happily ever after.
Hers wasn’t that kind of story.
If Dmitri had a role in her life, it was as the villain who locked the princess in the tower. But Keira wasn’t a princess, and the Russian was hardly a beast looking for a magic kiss to turn him into something less monstrous.
She had to remember that, but it was so hard to keep her eyes open. “You promised peace.”
“I promised to do everything in my power to ensure peace, short of sacrificing myself on the O’Malley altar.”
He had such an infuriating way of twisting her words to make them unrecognizable. Keira wet her dry lips. “Peace.”
“It takes more than one to broker peace.”
“Then do it.” Unconsciousness threatened to pull her under despite her best efforts. She twisted around to find him watching her with a strange expression on his face. “I’m coming out the other side of this…” She had to pause and wait for her dizziness to pass. How could she be dizzy when she was flat on her back? “When I do, if you haven’t kept your word, I will make you pay, Dmitri. Every single day for the rest of my life.”
“I have no doubt about that.” It wasn’t a reassurance, but she didn’t expect that from him.
Keira nodded, and then grimaced when the top of her head felt like it might just explode and end her misery. “Why are you doing this to me?” The cry of a lost child with no safety in sight and a wolf breathing down her neck.
He didn’t answer, and unconsciousness won the battle, sucking her down into the deep dark. But as she closed her eyes, she could have sworn he answered her. “For you, moya koroleva. I do this to you so you have a fighting fucking chance.”
“It’s been a week. We can’t wait any longer.”
Dmitri closed the door to Keira’s room and gave Mikhail a long look. “It can wait.”
“With respect, boss, it can’t.” He fell into step as they headed down the hall toward the stairs. “Mae was released on bail.”
Dmitri stopped cold and swung around to face his second. “How is that possible? We did everything but gift wrap her for the feds. Even they shouldn’t be able to fuck that up.”
“And yet they managed.” Mikhail passed over a manila folder, his expression severe.
Dmitri flipped through it and resumed walking. “My office. Now.” This wasn’t business that should be discussed where anyone could hear it. The fewer people who knew he’d been caught off guard with this news, the better.
Once they were safely shut into his office, he spread the handful of papers onto his desk. And cursed. “I should have known.” Since Mae had been found torturing an FBI agent’s daughter—also Aiden O’Malley’s fiancée, Alethea was claiming entrapment and a whole host of other things. It shouldn’t have mattered—tricking someone into a petty crime and kidnapping a woman to torture with the intent to murder were two very different things. Except apparently not according to the judge.
The charges against Mae hadn’t been dismissed, but the judge granted her bail—and it had been promptly paid despite being an astronomical amount. There was no possibility of Mae suddenly becoming an upstanding citizen, which meant she and her mother were gunning directly for the one they’d blame for this whole situation—Dmitri. “Blyad. If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
“What are you going to do?”
That was the question. Dmitri prided himself on staying ahead of the game, but he hadn’t expected this. He’d been confident that the FBI would ensure Mae was put behind bars to await her trial—and that she’d be found guilty. The daughter of an FBI agent was a superb witness, and Charlie’s reputation would be cleared by the time they went to trial. Another fucking surprise. Perhaps if he’d stayed instead of rushing to Boston to collect Keira…