For her, I’d cancel every meeting for the next month if I had to.
She then turns to my brother and asks, “Are you coming too, Uncle Kostya?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Kostya replies, but his focus is distracted from our niece and locked on Marcello’s car. Then he murmurs to me, low and tense, “Stella’s here. And she’s not alone.”
Everything inside me stills.
“Oh?” I turn instantly, eyes snapping to the car, and finding that flaming red hair of hers hiding in the back seat. My pulse jumps before I can control it.
But then Kostya leans in and whispers something lethal in my ear, words that hit like a sniper’s bullet to the chest. “Kill,” he murmurs, voice suddenly tight. “The woman sitting in the front passenger seat… that’s the Fed. The one from San Francisco. That’s her. I’m positive.”
And everything inside me, every warm thought, every flicker of joy at seeing Stella again, turns to fire and ice at the same damn time.
My blood starts roaring.
I look at the car again. Really look.
Red hair in the back.
A brunette in the front.
My heartbeat spikes into something violent.
The rage hits so fast it steals my breath.
This is the Fed who infiltrated our operations.
The Fed who cost us months of work.
The Fed whose team burned down everything we built out west.
Sitting close to Stella.
Breathing the same air.
Close enough to touch.
Something feral cracks loose in my chest, rage flooding into my veins, fast and vicious.
“Change of plans,” I say, my voice going cold as winter steel. “I’m taking my niece home.”
And before Marcello can say a single word in argument, I bolt into the snowstorm, fury propelling me across the parking lot. The wind claws at me, but nothing slows me down. Not when she is in that car.
I reach the back door, grip the handle, and rip it open.
Stella looks up at me—my Stella—and for a heartbeat I almost lose all track of thought.
Almost.
“Get out,” I order.
“No.”
I bite back a snarl. This woman will be the death of me.
“I’m in no mood for games,milaya. Get out of the car,” I say, lowering my tone, trying and fucking failing at being patient with her.
She doesn’t move.
