“Instead of?” He prompts when I trail off.
Instead of the man who married me for revenge. Instead of my captor. Instead of my dead boyfriend’s brother who I’m not supposed to feel anything for.
“Instead of always in control,” I finish quietly and a bit lamely.
He studies me for a long moment, and I can see him weighing my words. Then his hand moves, just slightly, and his fingers brush mine where they rest on the center console between us. My heart hammers and there’s a throbbing in between my legs that’s almost painful. It’s not quite holding, but he’s not quite letting go either.
“You make me feel out of control,” he admits, so quietly I almost miss it.
My breath catches. “I?—”
“You’re making fun of my music,” he says, but there’s no anger or irritation in it. If anything, he sounds... amused? Fond? His thumb traces a small circle on the back of my hand and I’m ready to pass out now from his touch. “You’re mocking Creed.”
“Someone has to,” I manage faintly, trying to ignore the fluttering in my stomach that has nothing to do with morning sickness. I need to focus on anything except the feeling of his skin against mine. “You’re a crime lord who listens to?—”
Dimitri suddenly jerks the wheel, his whole body going rigid and his hand leaving mine. “Get down!”
The word barely registers before the world explodes.
BOOM.
The sound is physically painful, rattling through my skull and chest like my bones are trying to shatter. The SUV lurches violently to the left, tires screaming against pavement. I’m thrown sideways, my seatbelt cutting into my chest and shoulder hard enough that I can’t breathe.
Then everything is spinning.
The world tilts sickeningly—once, twice—and I’m screaming but I can’t hear myself over the roar of twisting metal and shattering glass. The SUV is flipping, and we’re airborne for one horrible second before gravity slams us back down.
The impact drives the air from my lungs. My head cracks against something hard, stars exploding across my vision. The seatbelt cuts deeper, crushing, and I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but scream and scream and scream?—
We hit something else, metal shrieking, and suddenly we’re upside down. I’m hanging from the seatbelt, my hair brushing the ceiling that’s now the floor, and smoke is everywhere. Thick, acrid smoke that burns my lungs and makes my eyes water.
“Vera!” Dimitri’s voice cuts through the chaos, raw and terrified. “VERA!”
I try to respond but I can’t form words. There’s something wet on my face—blood, probably—and everything hurts. My chest where the seatbelt crushed me. My head where it hit. My stomach?—
Oh God, the baby.
“I’m okay,” I gasp, though I don’t know if that’s true. “I’m—Dimitri?—”
I turn my head, and through the smoke, I see him. He’s also hanging upside down, blood streaming down his face from a gash on his forehead. One arm is braced against the roof, keeping himself from falling completely. His eyes are wild, frantic, searching for me through the haze.
“Don’t move,” he commands, his voice strained. “Don’t try to—fuck—” He’s fumbling with his seatbelt with his free hand. “Just hold on, okay? I’m coming?—”
Something explodes behind us, the sound muffled but close. Too close. Through the shattered back window, I can see orange and red flames reaching toward our vehicle.
That’s when I realize the decoy car that was following us, the one meant to look like Dimitri’s vehicle, it’s nothing but flaming wreckage now. Completely destroyed. If we’d been thirty seconds slower, if Dimitri hadn’t swerved when he did?—
That would be us.
“Out! NOW!” Someone is shouting. Roman, maybe, though I can barely process anything through the shock and the ringing in my ears. “Boss, we need to get you out NOW!”
Hands reach through my broken window, unfastening my seatbelt. I fall, pain exploding through my shoulder as I hit theroof, and then those hands are dragging me out. Glass cuts into my arms, my sides, but I can’t focus on that because I’m being pulled through smoke and fire and chaos.
“Dimitri,” I sob, fighting against whoever is holding me. “Where’s?—”
“I’ve got her!” Roman is there, his face white. “Boss is right behind us. Move, GO!”
We’re running and stumbling, half-dragging each other away from the wreckage. I look back and see Dimitri being pulled from the vehicle by two guards, both of them supporting his weight as he staggers away from the smoking ruin.
