Dimitri left two hours ago, and I haven’t heard anything since.
Mikhail stands watch at the door, looking so bored he might actually fall asleep standing up. To be fair, he’s been bored for the entire two hours, leaning against the reinforced steel, occasionally checking his phone, probably scrolling through social media while I slowly lose my mind. He’s a soldier but he’s apparently been cosigned to being my babysitter.
My own phone sits on the table, taunting me with its silence. No calls. No texts. No “hey babe, still alive, just wounded and hunting my uncle, back soon.”
Not that Dimitri would say “hey babe.” He’s more the strong-silent-type who expresses affection through intense staring and strategic murder.
But I’d take anything right now, any sign that he’s okay.
He’s fine, I tell myself.He has to be fine.
The finger-shaped bruises on my arms from where Alexei grabbed me have turned an impressive shade of purple-black. I scowl at them. I’ve always bruised easily and it’s always irritated me because any injury looks way worse than it actually is.
I touch one bruise absently, wincing. Alexei did this. He put his hands on me hard enough to leave marks. He called mebreeding stocklike I’m livestock at a goddamn county fair.
Meanwhile, Dimitri kissed me like he loved me, like I’m not just a convenient womb for his nephew or niece.
The contrast would be funny if anything about this situation could be considered funny, which it absolutely cannot.
God, I hope he comes back.
The thought of losing him makes my chest tight, which is completely batshit because three months ago I was crying over Alexei’s “death.” And now I’m?—
No. I was never in love with Alexei. I was in love with a carefully crafted performance, the world’s longest con job with me as the mark who never saw it coming.
What I feel for Dimitri is different. It’s the way he looks at me like I’m a person instead of a pawn. He claimed my baby without hesitation and he makes me feel safe even when literally everything is falling apart around us.
Ineedhim to be okay.
Shouting erupts upstairs.
Mikhail’s bored expression vanishes like someone flipped a switch. He straightens, hand going to his weapon, suddenly transformed from phone scrolling guard to lethal professional.
More shouting with boots thundering. The distinctive sound of multiple men moving with the kind of purpose that usually precedes violence and property damage.
The secure radio crackles. “Breach at the north entrance. Multiple hostiles. Boss is not responding.”
I freeze.
Not responding. That’s military-speak for “we have no fucking clue if he’s alive.”
Mikhail curses in Russian that sounds extremely creative and anatomically improbable.
“Stay here,” he orders. “Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone except the Boss or me.”
“What’s happening?” I demand, my mouth growing dry as I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly feeling cold. “Where’s Dimitri?”
“Lock. The. Door.” He’s at the door. "And Mrs. Volkov?” I startle, looking into Mikhail’s piercing green eyed gaze. “Whatever you hear up there, don’t open this door. Not for anyone.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m alone with my spiraling thoughts and the distant sound of my Monday night going from bad to catastrophically worse.
I lock the door. The deadbolt slides home with a click that sounds far too quiet for something that’s supposed to keep me safe. And then I wait in my luxury bunker that’s starting to feel more like a very expensive coffin.
The gunfire starts thirty seconds later and I jump like a cat who’s just gotten wet.
It’s distant at first—muffled by concrete and steel and probably several very expensive Persian rugs, but the sound is unmistakable. The rapidpop-pop-popof automatic weapons.Shouting. A scream that cuts off mid-sound in a way that makes my stomach lurch.
I back away from the door, hand flying to my stomach, as if that will somehow protect the tiny life inside me from bullets and violence and the general shitshow my life has become.
