“Get in. Go.” Sergei didn’t lower his arm, keeping his gun up to ward the men back. Not until we’d gotten into my building did he look at me.
“Sergei, I?—”
He shook his head. “Not now.”
“Thank you. I— You—” Words failed me. I wanted to cry with relief that he’d saved me, but he was too tense and still in a protective mode to listen.
Shocked and stunned, I couldn’t even think of what to do, much less to say.
“Mommy, is he a good guy?” Maisie asked in a small voice.
I licked my lips, willing my heart to slow down as Sergei guided me across the lobby, further from the front door as if he were bracing for someone to bust in.
Good guy?
He had to be a good guy. He’d saved us. He protected me before and he risked his life to do so again. In the unlikeliest moment, when I hadn’t expected him at all, he was there as my hero.
“Yes,” I whispered to her, pressing her head against me as I held her and carried her.
But as I watched him with wary eyes, I had to wonder how bad he was, too. How dangerous and sinister he was to be able to act like a militant and warrior, armed and clearly practiced withshooting. At ease and unworried about the fact that he’d killed at least one person tonight.
Shivers tracked through me. Being this close to violence, to a street fight and senseless deaths, terrified me. Maisie had already lost her father to a street fight.
I couldn’t stomach how close she’d come to losing me, or her own life, in the same way.
She didn’t. I didn’t.
We’re alive.
Forcing down a hard swallow, my mouth so dry, I stared at Sergei and knew I owed him for that miracle.
I was alive because he’d saved me…
But at what cost?
11
SERGEI
The small girl clung to Natalie as she backed up in the lobby. She was so little, just a slight, barely-there child.
But the fact that she was there at all stunned me.
“Mommy?” she asked in that tiny, trembling voice full of fear as she shyly turned her head to peek at me instead of smashing her face into Natalie’s chest. “Is that a good guy?”
I wasn’t. No one would ever confuse me with a “good guy.” I was one of the deadliest killers in the Orlov organization. As Mikhail Orlov’s enforcer, I was the opposite of good.
But labels didn’t count right now. That young girl no doubt saw me as her hero, preventing her from being kidnapped off the streets. I had stopped those men from taking her. I’d blocked her with my body to spare her being hit.
Natalie probably wanted to tell her that I was a good guy because I’d saved them.
But I was not good. I was a villain, unflinchingly willing to kill anyone who crossed me.
“Yes, Maisie,” Natalie told her in a hushed voice. “This man is a good guy.” As she held Maisie close and stroked her hair, she stared at me with so much fear and relief that the combination shouldn’t have been possible. The incredulity in her expression spoke volumes, like she had no idea what to think.
“He’s a good man for getting us home, inside. We can be safe at home now,” she told her.
Her use ofwestruck me. This wasn’t just any child. This scared little girl washers. Natalie’s daughter. The idea that she could be a mother hadn’t crossed my mind. As shy and timid as Natalie was, as young as she was, I figured she might be a virgin. But she had a child. She belonged with her. I hadn’t wanted to consider that she could belong to anyone because I wanted her to be mine. But I had the indisputable proof right here.
