I handed her my device so she could watch the footage of her apartment being ransacked by the Popovs.
She gaped at me, mad and stunned at once. “You… you had your men put cameras on my home to spy on me?”
“For fuck’s—” I turned away from her, growling. “That’s what you care about? That’s the detail you want to bring up? That I took it upon myself to order security installed there?”
She glowered at me, handing my phone back.
“There are men out there hunting you down.”
“Because of you.” She pointed at me. “Before I ever met you, I was fine. I wasn’t a target. I wasn’t an accomplice or anything like that!”
Fuck. Fuck this!She was correct and I hated it.
“Too late to hit fucking rewind now,” I growled. “It’s not like I was awake to pick which damn doctor worked on me that night.”
And it wasn’t fair of her to dismiss everything else. The intimacy. The desire. The pull to be near each other as enemies under the same roof.
“I can’t…” She held her hands up as she lowered her gaze. “I can’t do this anymore, Mikhail. I can’t be dragged in any further and… I just can’t.”
Watching her practically flee for the door, I fisted my hand and resisted the urge to punch the wall.
“I have never felt so lost and confused.” She lifted her tortured gaze to me as she opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “I can’t do this.”
20
CLAIRE
Run.
Just go and don’t look back.
I strained to swallow, my throat so thick with too many emotions. They consumed me, choking me, as I plotted how to get the hell out of here. How to reclaim sanity and act like an educated woman with common sense again.
Anger. Frustration. Fear. Guilt. Shame.
I wasn’t ready to handle all of this and I doubted I’d ever be able to lower my standards and force myself to be okay with staying here. Being in Mikhail’s world would never suit me when I remembered how normal people were supposed to behave and get through their lives. It wasn’t by playing God and killing whoever they wanted. It wasn’t with corruption and violence.
Get out.
Run and just go, dammit.
Walking up to the gate at the back, I lifted my hand to the guard. He’d of course know not to let me out, but I had to try.
Thinking of how I was leaving Anya, I resisted the urge to give up this idea and “fall in line” with what Mikhail ordered. But then I remembered how shocked and upset Andre was when I told him that his sister cried to me about how no one cared whether she was alive or dead. Maybe the siblings would be there for each other and the teen would get over my abandoning her.
Just like I told her I wouldn’t.
“Excuse me,” I said with as much firm authority as I could manage. “I need to get through.”
He shook his head, not bending at all.
“I need to rush out to get more supplies for Anya,” I lied, putting a hint of urgency in my plea.
“The boss would order it.”
“No.” I shook my head, my heart racing with the danger of lying and trying to escape. “Not for this stuff. My car isn’t far, and I know I can get the right supplies and equipment from the hospital. Please. She’s suffering!”
He furrowed his brow. “Let me call this in and check.”
