I left the office and went to her room. Opening the door, I found her curled beneath the covers, asleep. I shut the door and went back to my room.
***********
“Plans have changed,” I stated as I entered the library where Alina was. She sat with a book in her lap.
“To what?”
I had shared the Dimitri findings with her earlier in the morning, leaving out the part about doubling her security. But the plans then have been tentative, and none of them included the bombshell I was about to drop on her.
I sighed, folding my arms as I stood in front of her. “You’ll come with me. It’s the only way draw Dimitri out.”
“As bait,” she mused, and I clenched my jaw.
It was an option I wasn’t fond of, but it was the surest way to go. I couldn’t let the bastard slip out of my hands. The idea of watching my back every single moment for what he could do to her was unbearable. I didn’t want it.
She blinked and her face went pale. Then her face hardened with resolve as she said, “Well, I won’t hide while you fight my battles.”
That’s my girl.
**********
Hours later, after two cars had gone ahead to the docks, we were on our way there. Sergei and my other men, including some guards, followed closely in different cars. Alina was beside me in the back while a guard drove.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I promised her. “I’ll protect you with my life.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” she remarked, chuckling.
“Things might get ugly. I need you to know that.”
“I know,” she said, shrugging. “But we can look forward to celebrating together after this.”
“We can.”
She sighed and looked out the window for a moment before turning towards me again.
“Do you ever think about the raid where Siroc died?” she asked, her voice almost quiet.
“Yes,” I confessed. “Every time I look at you.”
It was the first time I admitted my guilt, and I could feel the air between us shift from accusation to grim intimacy.
“I’m sorry for taking him from you. But I didn’t think I’d have any reason to be then,” I told her. “I was just doing my job, and Siroc had been stealing from me.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
We sat in silence for a few more seconds as we neared the docks.
“Does that mean you’ve forgiven me?” I questioned.
She smiled at my question but didn’t answer.
“We’re here,” I told her.
“Of course. I already saw—”
A sniper’s bullet hit the window, showering us with glass. The guard in our car and those in the others scrambled around us, and I shot my right hand out to shove Alina down, pulling my gun out with my left hand.
Let it begin.
