Then there’s another explosion, smaller this time, and we’re all hitting the ground. Someone covers me with their body. It’s Roman, protecting me the way he’s been trained to protect anyone in Dimitri’s circle.
When the smoke clears enough to see, and the ringing in my ears finally fades to something manageable, I look at what’s left of our SUV. If I wasn’t already on the ground, I probably would have passed out.
The SUV is destroyed. The front is crushed, the back is on fire, and the entire thing is upside down in a ditch.
And behind it, the decoy car is nothing but a burning shell. Unrecognizable. If there were people in it?—
Oh God. There were people in it. Guards. Dimitri’s men. People who work for him, who trust him, who are supposed to be protected.
People who are dead now because someone bombed a car they thought Dimitri was in.
“The baby,” I gasp, my hands flying to my stomach. “The baby?—”
“You need a hospital,” Roman says urgently. He’s already on his phone. “Boss! She needs medical?—”
“I’m fine.” But I’mnotfine. None of us are fine. We’re alive by sheer luck and Dimitri’s split-second decision to swerve.
Dimitri appears beside me, dropping to his knees despite the blood still pouring down his face. His hands frame my jaw, his eyes scanning me frantically for injuries.
“Where does it hurt?” He asks desperately. “Vera, tell me where?—”
“The baby,” I sob, clinging to his shirt. “Dimitri, the baby?—”
“We’re going to get you checked right now.” He’s already lifting me into his arms despite whatever injuries he has. “Hold on to me. Just holdon.”
Sirens wail in the distance and more of his men arrive, securing the area, weapons drawn and searching for threats. But all I can focus on is Dimitri’s face, the blood that won’t stop flowing, and the way he has me cradled against him.
“Who did this?” I whisper, my arms around his neck as I press my face into his chest, breathing in his scent.
His whole body stiffens and I look up to see Dimitri the Monster returning, his eyes going cold and hard and deadly. “Someone who knew our route and which car I’d be in.” Each word is bitten off, sharp with rage and something darker.
Betrayal. He’s talking about betrayal.
Someone in his inner circle gave us up. Someone he trusts—or used to trust—sold us out to whoever wants us dead.
And they’re not going to stop. They’re getting bolder, more desperate. First the meeting bombing, now this. Next time, we might not be lucky enough to survive.
“I’ve got you,” Dimitri murmurs against my hair as sirens grow louder, his lips brushing against my temple. “I’ve got you both. I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear.”
I believe him.
And that, more than anything else that’s happened today, scares me.
Because somewhere between hating him and being trapped by him and watching him transform from monster to man, I’ve started to trust Dimitri Volkov.
And in our world, trust is the most dangerous thing of all.
14
DIMITRI
The left side of my face throbs with every heartbeat but I ignore it. Just like I ignore the way the bandage pulls at the stitches Dr. Petrov put in my forehead and the bruising that’s spread across my cheekbone in shades of purple and black. I ignore everything except the maps and timelines and personnel files spread across my desk like evidence at a crime scene.
Because that’s what this is. A crime.Multiplecrimes. And I’m going to find who’s responsible if it’s the last fucking thing I do.
The rage simmers just beneath my skin, hot and vicious and barely contained. It’s been there since the moment that bomb went off and I heard Vera screaming and saw blood on her face.
Someone tried to kill us.Mywife.My?—
