Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
“I’m coming back,” I said.
Her gaze didn’t falter. She held mine, steady and unnervingly direct. “What happens to me after?”
The question punched straight through the professional distance I’d been clinging to. I could have lied. I could have said I’d give her a passport and a new life on the other side of the world. That she could pretend none of this touched her bloodline, and that her father’s empire hadn’t been built on human bodies.
“I’ll help you get out of the country,” I said instead. “Clean and quiet and with enough to start over somewhere his shadow and reputation can’t reach.”
Her brows drew together. “You will?”
“I will,” I said. “If that’s what you decide.”
She studied me for a beat. Then shook her head slowly. “That’s not what you meant.”
“No,” I admitted. “It isn’t.”
She sat there and stared at me, then straightened her shoulders and tipped her chin up a notch higher. “Then say what you meant.”
I stepped closer until the bunker’s air warmed against my chest. My hand found the back of her neck, thumb brushing the pulse at her throat. This was dangerous, wrong, and not in my plans. Yet, Zoya was changing something in me, nudging loyalty and murder into territory that felt personal.
“What I meant,” I said, “is that after this is finished, I’m not pretending you don’t exist. I’m not dropping you in a city you’ve never seen and calling it mercy. You’re not disposable. Not to me.”
Color rose beneath her skin, and she slowly stood, her height minuscule compared to mine as I towered over her. Her lashes fluttered, pupils dilating, and for one long second, the bunker shrank to nothing but the scent and sight of her and the knowledge that I could take her apart without ever raising my voice or touching her.
I forced myself to let her go. “Eat more and rest,” I said. “When I come back, the first part will be done.”
Her brows knit. “The first part?”
“The man who paid for your father’s business. The one who paid to watch my mother die. He’s first on my list, and tonight, he stops breathing.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And then you kill my father?”
“Yes,” I said, no tremor in my tone. “Slowly.”
She didn’t argue or try to defend him. All she said was, “Be careful.”
I should have turned and walked out, left her with the heater and the blankets and the rational distance between captive and captor. Instead, I stepped back into her space, close enough to feel her breath warm against my neck, to see the pulse kick beneath her skin.
I slid my hand to the back of her neck, thumb grazing her nape as if I couldn’t control myself. Her eyes widened as I used pressure and tilted her face up. I was leaning in closer, my mouth hovering a breath from hers now. I could have taken her right now, pressed my mouth to hers and forced her to kiss me as if she were already mine.
But I didn’t close the distance. I let her feel the choice without letting her have it. I wanted Zoya to know I could take what I wanted, and she’d give it to me because she wanted to. Not because she’d been cornered.
“Ya ne budu tebya seychas tselovat’,” I’m not going to kiss you right now, I whispered, “potomu chto ya khochu chto-to sladkoye, myagkoye i sovsem moyo, kogda ya vernus’ ves’ v krovi, kogda ya otnyal ch’yu-to zhizn’ i mne nuzhno, chtoby ty vytashchila menya iz poteri rassudka.” Because I want something sweet and soft and completely mine, when I come back covered in blood, when I’ve taken someone’s life and I need you to pull me back from losing my mind.
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t pull away or deny anything I said. Zoya said nothing. She just stared at my mouth like she wanted to force my hand and take what she wanted instead.
I took a step back before either of us went further. I left the bunker and climbed the stairs. The slaughterhouse was freezing, but something in my chest burned hot and clean. I already had the location of where that motherfucker was right now.
I stepped outside, flipped the collar of my jacket up against the cold, and saw death and blood finishing out my night.
Tonight, I would collect a debt owed to me for the last thirty-eight years.
And for the first time in my life, there was something in my life worth returning to.
Chapter 12
Dmitry
I’d waited thirty-eight years for a name.
Not Andrey’s. His time was coming, and when it did, I’d make sure he felt every second.
Tonight belonged to the man who paid to watch my mother die.
I parked well outside the perimeter and killed the engine, letting the car sit dark and silent beneath the trees. The city lights faded the farther I got from it, replaced by the hum of private power lines and the kind of quiet money demanded. The kind that pretended nothing bad ever happened here.