“Give me my daughter,” my warrior enchantress snarls. Her icy blue eyes snap with fear and fury, every bit the fierce guardian of her child.
“She’s safe with me,” I soothe, betting my words alone won’t satisfy her protectiveness.
“Give. Me. My. Daughter,” she repeats, each word snapping between us like a hammer striking an anvil.
“Come here,” I instruct instead. She looks at the man still writhing at her feet, her hesitation obvious.
“Don’t worry about that. He’ll be taken care of,” I promise. I don’t personally know George Peterman, but I’ve seen his name, and the name of this diner, on thepakhan’sbooks. The guy pays his dues. He ain’t one of us, but he’s adjacent enough I know we can rely on him when he says he’ll handle this mess.
She doesn’t want to trust me. It’s obvious in the mulish tilt of her chin and her irritated huff as she drops the taser from her right hand onto the face of the whimpering piece of shit she lit up. Still, she does as I instruct, and something about thatunwilling obedience makes my dick harden in my slacks so fast I get a little dizzy from it.
I heft the little girl higher in my arms and will my cock to obey. It doesn’t take much. I am holding a little kid after all, and that’s enough to douse any decent human being in cold water. When the woman gets close enough to reach me, she makes a grab for the little girl. I keep a firm hold on the kid and stride toward the door, bringing her mother along with me.
Sticking around to negotiate or debate will only widen the window of opportunity for cops to show up or worse, the little one glimpsing the carnage around us. Plus, Peterman needs to deal with the remaining sack of shit who wanted to rob the place with the women inside, and it’s best we leave him to it. He knows damn well who Zinovy and I are, which means he knows his vow to handle things better be ironclad. The penalty for crossing the men of Pakhan Balakin is severe. He’d be a fool to risk it.
“Wait! Where are you taking us?” the woman demands as I swiftly lead us toward the SUV I left parked a block over.
“Someplace safe. You need to clean up, and that’s best handled where I know the necessary equipment is available.” She probably hasn’t realized it yet, but she’s covered in a fine sprinkling of red spray from the dead man’s blood.
My go-bag has cleanup and sanitation materials, as well as a spare shirt she can change into. It’s far enough from the diner I’m sure her quick cleanup there won’t attract attention , and it’ll be dark enough her daughter won’t have the chance to see her mom covered in blood.
Not sure why I care so much about the kid’s psychological wellbeing when I have never cared two shits about anyone else’s. But the lizard brain part of me insisting the woman belongs to me is just as convinced the little girl is mine, too.
“Oh. I guess… I guess that’s okay then.” Her grudging acquiescence is still acceptance, and I’ll take it.
At my SUV, I use my thumb to unlock the doors and gesture with my chin toward the trunk area. I’ll buckle the kid into the seat in the back while her mom gets cleaned up. This way, I can keep her distracted, so she doesn’t spot the blood all over her mom.
“There’s a bag back there with supplies in it. Use what you need. I’ll get this one bucked in. You’ll help me get the seatbelt on, won’t you,Kroshka?” I ask the girl in my arms.
“I’m not a croaksa. I’m a girl!” she pipes adamantly at me, rearing back from my chest to give me an incredulous look.
“It iskroshka, not croaksa. And it means ‘little one’ in my first language. Your mama has not yet introduced you to me, but you are a little one, and thus this term of endearment,” I say.
It occurs to me that I’m probably not speaking to her the way an adult speaks to a small person. But I have no experience with children, and there’s no way I’ll copy the baby talk I’ve seen in movies or television.
“I’m Dru. I’m four,” she says confidently as I slide her onto the leather bench behind the driver’s seat of my SUV. My hands fumble a little with the straps of the seatbelt, and I wonder briefly if it’s safe to transport her without one of those rear-facing seat contraptions I’ve seen.
“Dru, hush now. He’s a stranger,” comes my woman’s voice from the back of the SUV. I still don’t know her name, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking of her as mine.
Chapter
Four
Hollis
I didn’t even know they made hydrogen peroxide wipes. Much less that it was possible to buy them in travel packs for on-the-go murder scene cleanup. The snort that escapes at my ridiculous train of thought catches the attention of the man quasi-abducting Dru and me.
He cocks a brow at me over her shoulder where he’s leaned into his SUV fastening her into a seat. I don’t answer his unspoken question. Whoever he is, there’s a dark sensuality about him that pricks at my libido, despite the absolute absurdity of this whole situation.
“What’s your name, Champ?” he asks.
“Hollis,” I answer. At this point, it’s obvious the man will get his way whether I volunteer the information or not.
“And I’m Dru, ‘member?” my daughter adds, never one to be overlooked.
“How could I forget, mykroshka, when you just told me?” he responds patiently to her even though his eyes never leave mine.
He finishes her buckle and gently shuts the door before rounding to the open lift gate at the back where I’m almost done cleaning up. I look down at my t-shirt, the red spatters bright against the pale blue fabric.
