“What do you want to know?” he says after a long pause.
“For one, where the hell am I?”
“You’re at my place.”
One glance around the room tells me he’s lying. It has a woman’s touch, and none of his signature black tones show up anywhere.
“Fine. If you’re not going to tell me, I’ll find out myself.” I start to sit up, but pain tears through my side, and my throat tightens with another strong wave of nausea.
This time, Kirill wastes no time on theatrics. He slides into the bed and wraps an arm around my waist, preventing me from getting away. Usually, I’d dismantle his hold in a heartbeat, but my body feels lethargic and too weak to fight him off.
I fix him with a murderous stare, and he meets it with a look of helplessness, unsure how to handle me.
It’s unsettling. Kirill is always confident, always so self-assured it borders on irritating. But right now, he looks off balance. Rattled. Almost like he’s afraid. Afraid of me.
“I wasn’t lying,” he finally says after a tense pause. “You’re back at my place. Just not in the same city. Or even the same country, for that matter.”
“Kirill, don’t say it.” I close my eyes, already imagining the worst.
“We’re a few hours from Moscow,” he confesses at last.
“I told you not to say it!” I let out a scoff. I can’t believe this! The gall of him! “So not only did your men run me off the road and shoot me, but you alsokidnappedme? Jesus Christ, Kill! That’s a whole other level of stalkery. What were you thinking? Oh, that’s right. You weren’t!”
“It was never my intention for you to get hurt.”
“Well, you sure have a pretty fucked-up way of showing it.”
“Stella—”
“What? I’m not supposed to be pissed that you brought me to a different country, Russia no less, without my knowledge or consent?”
“It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.”
“Oh, right. I forgot. I was supposed to be dead in a ditch somewhere.” My statement sets him off.
“Do you really think so poorly of me? Do you think I’d ever be capable of hurting a hair on your head, much less causing you actual physical pain? Do you think I’d want to live in a world where you weren’t in it?”
Kirill’s words tumble out with a raw intensity that I hadn’t been prepared for. I open my mouth and shut it again, the confession in his black eyes knocking whatever snarky retort I had loose.
“What am I supposed to think?” I say softly. “I mean… I’m pretty sure I have a bullet wound in my shoulder. That’s real, right? That’s why it hurts like a son of a bitch whenever I try to move, right?”
“Yes,” he says, looking completely guilt-ridden.
“Thought so. Tell whoever shot me to count his days. When I get back to Chicago, the first thing on my list is to give him a visit and make sure he pays for the little gift he gave me.”
“That won’t be possible.”
“Why? Are you going to tuck him away somewhere to keep him safe from me?”
“No. Because I killed him myself.”
Surprise pins every word to my throat. Kirill killed one of his men. For me. For an enemy.
I want to ask him why, but I’m too afraid of what his answer will be. “Does my father know I’m here?” I ask instead, feeling that this is a safer line of questioning.
“He knows.”
“That must’ve been a fun conversation.” I scoff sarcastically, but Kirill just looks at me like I might disappear at any second. Like he can’t take his eyes off of me even for a minute, too afraid something will happen to me if he looks away.
