Before I can straighten, she’s on me, a savage, desperate fury of flying fists and clawing nails.
“No!” Her voice is raw with terror and rage. “No. You can’t hurt her. I won’t let you!”
Her fist connects with my gut, the impact sharper than I expected from her small frame. I bring my arms up, more to shield myself than to restrain her. She’s everywhere at once, striking at my chest, my face, my arms, any part of me she can reach. Not calculated attacks, but the desperate flailing of someone with nothing left to lose.
“You stay away from her!” She punctuates her threat with another blow. “You hear me? Stay the hell away!”
I expected fear when I found her. Tears. Trembling. Even begging. I’ve seen it all before. The way people shatter when cornered by someone like me. But this feral, broken violence catches me off guard. She’s not fighting for herself. Despite knowing she can’t win, she’s fighting for her sister.
Her magnificent fury stirs an unexpected response in me. Respect.
I capture her wrists mid-swing. She struggles against my grip, twisting and jerking, still trying to land blows even with her arms restrained. When that fails, she kicks at my shins while spitting curses.
I tauten my grip. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt your sister.”
“Let go of me!” She jerks against my hold again, tears streaming down her face. “I’ll kill you. I swear I’ll kill you if you touch her!”
I don’t doubt that.
MJ had that same loyalty, that same willingness to sacrifice everything for family. It’s why he took that fall for me and went to prison in my place. Why he died.
I nod in acknowledgment of her warning. “Noted.”
Her chest rises and falls, the costume shifting with each breath. A thin sheen of sweat glistens on her collarbone, drawing my attention to the delicate hollow at the base of her throat. I force my gaze back to her face, to those bright green, gold-flecked eyes that still hold defiance despite her physical surrender.
The violence has passed, leaving a strange, saturated silence in its wake. A standoff with no clear victor.
The air between us changes, charged with emotion beyond anger or fear. Primal, electric. Her pupils dilate, and a flush that has nothing to do with her earlier exertion colors her cheeks. She feels this unwanted attraction between us, too, crackling like static before a storm.
I gentle my grip on her wrists without releasing them. “You good now?”
She gives a clipped nod, though her eyes never stray from mine. Recognition passes between us, a silent acknowledgementthat this tether we feel is complicated by forces beyond our control.
“You’re never going to leave me alone, are you?” The words are more of a resigned conclusion than a question.
“No.” I release her wrists before raising a hand to brush my knuckles across her cheek and throat. “There are a lot of ways this can go,lyubimaya. All of them end with you in my car. The only question is whether you walk out willingly, or I toss you over my shoulder and carry you.”
Chapter 17
Aurora
“Five minutes. Pack what you need. Nothing more.”
I swallow hard, the weight of inevitability crushing me. There’s no way out of this situation. No escape route. Not with him watching my every move, tracking me like I’m the prey he’s finally cornered.
Everything feels slow and dreamlike. As if it’s happening underwater.
This can’t be real. Twenty-four hours ago, I was just a cocktail waitress with a mosaic art hobby and too many overdue bills. Now I’m packing to leave with a Russian mobster who’s killed a man in front of me after someone else ransacked my apartment and threatened my sister.
I grab the small duffel bag I keep under the futon, shoving in whatever clean clothes I can find amid the chaos. My fingers brush a smooth surface, and I pull out the photo of Samantha that he’d seen earlier. I tuck the picture carefully between my clothes in a small act of defiance. He already knows about her, but this feels like keeping a piece of her safe, away from his prying eyes.
As I pack, I’m calculating. Looking for openings. For weapons. For any chance to run. But Alexei never gives mean inch. He tracks every movement, anticipating my thoughts almost before I have them. When I linger too long near the kitchenette where my knives used to be, his posture shifts, blocking the path. When I drift toward the fire escape window, his head tilts in a silent warning.
“Time’s up.” He checks his watch, a sleek, expensive piece that glints in the fading light. “We need to move.”
“Wait.” I grab the ancient book about Roman and Greek warriors from where it fell earlier. Though awkward and heavy, I refuse to leave the book behind. Not after everything else I’ve lost.
Alexei raises an eyebrow but says nothing as I stuff it into the already-full duffel. Once I’m finished, he takes the bag from me, slinging the strap over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. “After you.”
