“My sisters,” I gasped in fear, suddenly remembering them. “They’re still in there!”
“Security will get them out,” Viktor assured me, still leading me away from the building. “But we need to go before the fire spreads.”
I felt like I was leaving them stranded, but the sight of flames now visible through the club’s windows sent another wave of panic through me.
Maybe Viktor was right. Our bodyguards were there too. So was club security. They’d be fine.
I just needed to get the hell out of here.
I slid into the car without a second thought.
Chapter 3 - Arko
I didn’t believe my damn luck. That fire my men set off couldn’t have been timed better. Beatrice and I were huddled up in a corner when it started, right next to the service passage, and just like that, the Lebedev princess allowed me to lead her right out of the club, away from her family and bodyguards.
Either the girl had no self-preservation, or she thought she was invincible.
It couldn’t have been that easy, but it was. It was unbelievable how smoothly everything went. No one saw us. Her entire fucking entourage, right about then, must be wondering where the hell she went.
I held back a smile, not wanting a single glitch in my plan that would require her to trust me just a little longer, and turned to face her.
She was pale, curled up into herself with her back against the door, staring at her shaking hands as tears poured down her face.
“Beatrice?” I asked, scooting over to lay a gentle hand on her arm. “You okay?”
She barely registered my touch, let alone my words. She just kept staring at her hands, her entire body trembling. I hit a wall of confusion, replaying what happened. The fire was meant to serve as a distraction to whisk her away, yet somehow, she looked like she’d been through hell.
Had I missed something?
“Beatrice?” I asked again. “Are you hurt? Did something happen?”
She shook her head and began to breathe in a wild, panicked manner, completely out of rhythm. Dear god. She was falling apart in my backseat. I only meant to take her, not to scare her.
A voice in my head screamed at me for being such an idiot.A fire, Arko? Did you really have to go start a god damn fire?
“Hey, you’re safe,” I whispered, reaching for her hands. Only when I took them did she gasp and look into my eyes, all wide-eyed like I’m the surprise of the century.
“You’re okay,” I said fiercely, willing my confidence to seep into her. “You hear me? You’re okay.”
“I can’t—” she gasped, pulling her hands away and clutching at her throat. “Can’t breathe—”
Fuck. She was having a full-blown panic attack. I knew the signs because my sister Anja had them when she was a teenager, after our mother died. I’d spent years learning how to talk her down from the ledge.
“Look at me,” I commanded, taking her hands in mine again. They were ice cold to the touch. “You need to match my breathing, okay? It’s the only way to calm down. Take a slow, deep breath through the nose and exhale gently through the mouth. Just follow my lead.”
I set the pattern in practice and pulled away a hand to demonstrate. I rested it on my chest, let her see just how much it expanded, before I breathed out.
After a few rounds, her eyes locked into mine, the wildness pulling me even deeper in her orbit, but she started following along.
“That’s it,” I said calmly. “Slow and steady.”
God, she looked so small, so vulnerable, sitting in my back seat, looking at me like I was her salvation. Her breathing was still too quick to be called safe, and I knew if we didn’t get in under control, she could soon pass out.
My driver kept to the route, taking us toward the safehouse where the next part of our plan was to be completed. In that moment, watching Beatrice panic, I felt that dreadful guilt rise up in my chest.
It was just business, I told myself, but look at what I was doing to the poor girl. If a fire freaked her out so much, I wondered what signing the marriage license would do.
But we needed to stick to the plan and get to the safehouse before anyone realized she was missing. So, we kept on driving, and I never offered to drop her back home.
