I press her harder against the tree, my shoulder braced against her thigh, my mouth never leaving her. I increase the pressure with my fingers, steady and relentless, fucking her with my hand while my tongue keeps working her clit. Her body arches, a broken plea falling from her lips.
My right hand slips to my pocket, fingers closing around the grip of my gun. I flick off the safety, aim behind me, and fire.
The sound tears through the garden. There’s a scream, startled and terrified, followed by the sound of someone falling back. I don’t wait to see where it landed.
That’s when she comes.
Her entire body locks, then shudders violently. She cries out, head thrown back, thighs clamping around my head as pleasure rips through her. I keep licking her through it, slow and possessive, riding her orgasm until she’s shaking so hard she can barely stand.
Only then do I pull back.
I lick my lips as I rise to my feet, tasting her, feeling the echo of her on my tongue. I turn calmly toward the darkness, gun raised, eyes cold and clear.
The scream hasn’t even finished echoing before the night explodes.
Footsteps rush the gravel path to my right. Too many. Too fast. They thought they could corner me in the dark.
Idiots.
I shove Bella fully behind the tree, my body blocking hers without thinking. “Stay,” I murmur, low and hard. Not a request.
She’s shaking, breath ragged, but she nods, hands clutching the bark. Her eyes are blown wide, stunned from the aftermath of what I just pulled out of her and what she just witnessed me do.
I don’t look away from the shadows.
Two shapes break from the hedges. Suits. Guns up. Nervous.
I move first.
I fire twice, controlled, center mass. One drops immediately, the other stumbles, screaming, collapsing into the shrubs. Leaves shake. Birds scatter. Chaos blooms.
I don’t wait.
I grab Bella’s wrist and drag her low, moving us into deeper shadow, keeping the tree line at our backs. I keep her head tucked to my chest as we move, my hand firm at the base of her skull.
“Lily,” she whispers, panic slicing through her voice.
Another gunshot snaps past us, cracking bark inches from my shoulder.
I pivot, fire blind into the darkness, then roll us behind a stone planter as bullets chew into the earth where we were a second ago. Bella gasps but doesn’t scream. Good girl. She’s learning how to survive my world whether she wants to or not.
I pop up, shoot again. One more goes down.
The garden lights flicker as someone inside realizes something is wrong.
Too late.
I grab Bella and move fast now, cutting diagonally through the hedges where the light doesn’t reach. I know this terrain already. I walked it the moment I arrived. Old habit. Always map exits.
Bella grips my sleeve, panic wild in her eyes. “Lily—” Her voice cracks, desperate, raw. “I hid her, behind the hedge, near the big stone planter—please, Aleksander?—”
The world narrows. I see the direction she points. I see nothing but the need to get that little girl safe.
“I’ll get her,” I promise, my voice so cold I barely recognize it. “Don’t move.”
I leave Bella pressed to the tree and dart through the darkness, keeping low, using every shadow and shrub for cover. My breath is harsh in my ears; my focus is a blade.
A figure steps into my path. I don’t hesitate—one shot, he drops, never even seeing me coming. I keep moving, heart racing, eyes darting to where Bella pointed.
