Why would you go to such a risk to save me?
He didn’t even know I had a daughter until now, but that hadn’t stopped him from stepping up to save her from danger, too.
Who are you? Why is any of this happening?
He spoke with murmured replies to whoever was on the other end of the call. Boring me with his sober and steady gaze, he kept those blue eyes locked on me while he mostly listened to whatever the other person said.
I couldn’t look away.
I didn’t know what to do, but watching this man warily and nervously, I wanted to convince myself that I wasn’t making a mistake by being in this car.
Maisie stayed put on my lap quietly with her chest rising and falling steadily. I stroked her hair back as the car sped through the night with a smoothness no bus or subway would ever pull. That was what Maisie and I were used to. Between my hold on her body with my arms, how I caressed her head, and the lull of being in a car like this, it wasn’t any surprise that she fell asleep.
She had been so terrified, and she had to be crashing after all those emotions. It was late, in the middle of the morning, and way too early for her to be up. Glad that she was asleep and that she didn’t have to trouble her young mind with any of what was going on, I felt free to watch Sergei.
Looking out the window might have given me some context clues about where he was taking us, but I doubted I would create a reliable map in my head that I could refer to later.
Instead, I watched him. I stared at him studying me, all while he spoke on the phone.
As the car crossed through the city in the early hours of the morning, I grew more and more convinced that my instincts were right about him. Hewasa dangerous man. He wouldn’t have had a gun and known how to use it so well if he hadn’t faced any perils in his life
He was a serious and lethal man. That dark and brooding aura made more sense now that I could recall how effortlessly and willingly he’d killed those men.
I shouldn’t be here, with a killer.Even though it was in the name of defense, he was capable of killing.
I shouldn’t want to be near any more violence.
Fitz had been killed by a man who was good with a gun, too.
Like Sergei.
That one night that Fitz was in the wrong part of town trying to get home, he had been caught in a street fight. Gangsters and thugs filled this city, and while it was usually safe, he had unfortunately been in the wrong place at the wrong time that night to get in the line of fire in a fight that had nothing to do with him.
Getting over the death of my late husband seemed impossible some days, and for that reason, among many others, I should’ve been trying to run in the opposite direction of any more violence. My job was to spare Maisie from any further bloodshed.
But it was too late.
I was in this car.
Driven away under Sergei’s say-so.
Having second thoughts about agreeing with his orders wouldn’t do me any good now. I couldn’t reach for the door handle and then launch myself with my daughter out into the street. The doors were probably locked anyway.
The only thing that could calm me from this lingering sense of danger was if Sergei could explain who the hell he was and how he could keep me safe tonight. The little I knew about him wasn’t enough.
He was dangerous. He was armed. He was able to accept the surprise that I had a daughter and risked his life to save her.
He’s wealthy, too.
Riding in this car was an experience I never imagined having. Nobodies like me didn’t ride in the back of limos. Nobodies like me weren’t treated to bodyguards.
As I waited for Sergei to stop speaking on the phone, this person he asked about disposing of bodies, I thought back to how he always tipped me generously at the bar.
Of course, he was rich.
No one tipped a hundred dollars for one beer if they weren’t loaded. That was every time he came in, too. He always gave me at least one hundred, and he often left another for Rosa even if all she did was say hello to him.
When the car began to slow down and turn into what looked like a private garage, Sergei finally got off the phone
