"Yes." The word hurts. "She probably went with whoever took her willingly at first. If they seemed nice, if they offered to help or buy her a drink or give her a ride home... she would've said yes."
"And you wouldn't have."
"No. I would've said no, walked away, probably pepper-sprayed them if they insisted." I laugh, but there's no humor init. "I'm the paranoid twin. The one who always thinks something bad is going to happen."
"You were right."
I sigh. "I wish I wasn't."
We fall into silence again. But it's not uncomfortable anymore. It's charged. Electric. Like the air before a storm.
I'm hyperaware of him. The way his hands move on the steering wheel, confident and sure. The line of his jaw. The way his shirt stretches across his shoulders. The faint scent of gunpowder and something more primal and so very masculine.
He smells like danger.
"You're thinking about things you shouldn’t be," Yakov says softly.
"What?" I ask, snapping out of my thoughts and hoping the blush creeping over my face isn’t obvious in the darkness of the car.
"You’re thinking about what would happen if I pulled this car over right now. If I kissed you. If I put my hands on you the way I've been wanting to since I saw your photo."
My breath catches. "I’m not."
"Yes, you are." He glances at me, and the heat in his eyes nearly burns. "I can feel it in the way you look at me." He turns his attention back to the road. "You're attracted to me. You don't want to be, but you are. And you're angry about it because your sister is missing and you think you shouldn't be feeling anything but fear and worry."
"Stop reading my mind," I grumble.
"I'm not reading your mind. I'm reading your body." His voice drops lower, rougher. "And it's telling me everything I need to know."
I want to deny it and tell him he's wrong, that I'm not interested, that this is completely inappropriate. But the words don’t come.
"My sister is missing." I say instead. "I watched you shoot two men. And I'm sitting here wondering what your hands would feel like on my skin. What kind of person does that make me?"
His jaw clenches.
"I know. I know it's wrong. I know I should be focused on finding Laurie and nothing else. Maybe it’s because that’s all I’ve been thinking of, worrying about for the last seven days…" I press my palms against my thighs, trying to ground myself. "But no one has ever looked at me like you did. Like I was already yours."
"You are."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true." He takes another turn and flicks the headlights off. Warehouses rise out of the desert like concrete monuments. "From the moment I saw you, I knew. You're mine, Laney. And when this is over, when we find your sister and deal with Zajmi, I'm going to make sure you understand exactly what that means."
Heat pools low in my belly. "Oh."
Yakov parks behind a cluster of abandoned vehicles on the side of the road.
"This is as close as we get without being seen," he says, all business now. The heat from a moment ago is banked but not gone. "I'm going to scout it out. You stay here. Doors locked. If anyone approaches the car, you drive away. Understood?"
"What if it's you?"
"I'll knock three times, fast. Anything else, you run."
"Yakov—"
He cups my face with both hands, thumb brushing over my lips. "You will stay safe. That's not negotiable."
"What about you?"
