“Is the door locked?” I got into the passenger side, and we were rolling before I had the door shut.
“Yes, and the lights are off.” She went quiet. “Hang on.”
I looked at Kirill, who was driving, and mouthed, “Faster.”
He was already driving like a bat out of hell. It was dark, and the weather didn’t help. The rain was pounding so hard the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. The roads looked black and the streetlights were overwhelmed by the waving branches and torrential rain.
I braced myself as Kirill drove through a red light without even touching the brake.
“I think he’s gone,” Mila whispered in my ear. “The guard dogs outside have stopped barking.”
My stomach dropped like a stone. If our trained dogs were quiet, it meant the threat was gone, or the threat had removed them.
“Where’s Bandit?” I worked to keep my voice calm and low.
“Beside me,” she whispered. “I don’t hear anything except the rain.”
Fear washed over me.
“We’re almost there,” I said quietly. “Can you stay hidden and calm for me?”
“Yeah.”
Kirill motioned with his fingers that our ETA was two minutes.
I ignored the panic clawing in my chest and spoke softly in an effort to keep her calm. “I want you to stay down and low. Don’t speak. Can you do that for me?”
She whispered, “I’m scared.”
I watched as Kirill fishtailed around an oncoming turning car, and blared horns followed us through the intersection. “Bandit’s there with you. He’s going to protect you. I’m less than two minutes out, okay?”
I heard a growl that made my stomach drop. Her voice trembled. “Bandit’s growling.”
“Don’t speak, Mila,” I told her.
She responded by breathing erratically in my ear.
Bandit growled louder.
I looked over at Kirill. “Punch it.”
It took another agonizing twenty seconds before we pulled up on the front lawn. I was out of the vehicle door and running before he’d even put it in park.
The wind pelted the rain down hard and cold, instantly soaking us. It bent trees and slapped branches against my face as I ran alongside the house and pushed open the gate. Two panting guard dogs greeted me. It was a good sign they were alive. I ran past them.
“Boss, it might be an ambush,” Kirill called from behind me.
“Then cover me,” I yelled as I sprinted past the pool toward the guard house, which sat dark and isolated in the corner of the yard. I didn’t see anything or anyone out of the ordinary.
“Mila!” I yelled.
By the time I reached the guardhouse, she had swung open the door. Bandit shot out, barking hysterically.
“It’s okay, Bandit,” she said from the doorway, looking forlorn and vulnerable in her soaking wet tank top and thin panties. Her arms were wrapped around her body, and she was shivering.
The relief I felt at seeing her safe and in one piece almost brought me to my knees. Behind me, Kirill shouted orders to the other men to search the house and the yard.
“Are you hurt?” I was working so hard to control the wild emotions inside of me that my voice came out almost completely emotionless. I wanted to touch her so badly, but I wasn’t sure I deserved it. So I stared at her in the pouring rain without moving.
