Across the street, a few building’s down. The diner's back door. It’s not far. She's in there. Alone.
I shouldn't drag her into this. I should make a stand here and take a few more out with me. Die like a Bratva soldier instead of running.
But I’m not ready to die yet. Not when I haven't tasted her.
Another burst of gunfire decides for me.
I answer with a blaze of covering fire, emptying the clip to buy myself seconds. Then I'm running, blood trailing behind me. Twenty feet feels like twenty miles.
My hand finds the door handle, cold against my palm. Through the small window, I see her, alone at the counter, sketching in that notebook, lost in her own world. Peaceful. Safe.
Behind me, boots pound pavement. Shouts get closer. They'll be on me in seconds.
I shouldn't do this. Once I walk through this door, she’s part of it. Part of my world. There's no going back. No protecting her from what I am.
My phone buzzes again. Misha, probably looking for me. But I can't answer. I can't explain that I'm about to do the one thing I swore I wouldn't.
The shouting is closer. Russian curses. They've found the blood trail.
Fuck it.
I open the door and stumble inside.
3
LILA
I drop my pencil, and it rolls across the floor in the sudden silence that follows the bang. It must be Mick coming back. He probably forgot his drug stash and is going to take it out on everyone else.
But it's not Mick.
It's Ivan.
He slips in the back door, looking like a nightmare… ripped from my 3 a.m. fantasies. His designer shirt hangs off him in strips that reveal—oh.
Oh God.
The man is all muscle. Not gym muscles. His are different. Functional. Dangerous. Muscles that come from real violence. Black ink paints them like a canvas. Orthodox crosses mark his chest. Cyrillic script wraps around his ribs. Stars decorate his shoulders, seemingly meaningful in ways I probably don't want to know.
My mouth goes dry. I've imagined what he looks like under those expensive suits for three excruciatingly long months, and now here he is, half-naked in my diner's doorway, and my brain has completely short-circuited.
Then I see it.
Blood. On his hands. On his chest. The dark stain spreads through what's left of his shirt. A gun rests in his waistband like that's a normal accessory, and a cut above his eyebrow leaks red down his face.
What the hell?
I can't move. Can't think. All I can do is stare at the blood—is it his? Someone else's? Both?
He steps inside, closes the door, and suddenly the diner feels too small. He fills the space now, all that exposed skin and violence making the air charged with an undercurrent of danger.
"I need—" He stops, sways slightly, and catches himself on the doorframe. More blood seeps through his shirt.
"You're hurt." My voice sounds far away, like someone else is speaking.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
