I swallowed. “Yes. I’m fine, though. I’m just—just going.”
I tried to step past him, but he shifted to block my path.
“You are lost?” He switched to accented English that would have sounded almost charming if my heart weren’t pounding in my throat. “I can help you. Pretty girl like you should not walk alone.”
“I’m okay,” I repeated, firmer. “My friends are waiting for me.”
“Friends?” He chuckled and leaned in closer. “Then why are you crying?”
His hand lifted—too fast, too familiar—and brushed my cheek with the back of his knuckles.
I jerked back immediately. “Don’t touch me.”
He didn’t listen.
He stepped closer, crowding into me, murmuring something about how beautiful I was, how he could show me a good time, how American girls liked?—
“No,” I snapped, voice breaking. “Please. Leave me alone.”
He grabbed my wrist.
The sound that came out of me was somewhere between a gasp and a cry. I tried to pull back, tried to twist away, but he justgripped tighter, pulling me closer, his other hand sliding toward my waist and?—
“Get your hands off her.”
The voice hit like thunder.
I didn’t even have time to turn fully before the man was ripped away from me—ripped—like Alex had materialized out of thin air.
My back hit the wall behind me as the two men crashed into each other, Alex slamming the stranger into the pavement with a force that made my stomach drop.
“Alex,” I choked out, disoriented, shaking so hard I could barely speak.
He didn’t look at me. He didn’t look at anything except the man he’d already pinned, his expression pure fury.
The stranger tried to scramble up, but Alex grabbed him by the collar and punched him. Hard. Once, twice, three times.
Everything blurred.
I couldn’t follow what was happening—the sound of fists hitting flesh, the man groaning, Alex snarling something in English and maybe Russian, I wasn’t sure.
My vision wavered with tears.
My knees trembled.
I slid down the wall until I was crouching, palms pressed to the cold stone as if it might steady the world.
The man eventually went limp.
Alex shoved him away and rose to his feet, chest heaving, jaw clenched so tightly a pulse jumped along the edge of it.
Then he spun toward me.
The second he saw my face—whatever rage had been burning him alive flickered, dimmed, softened.
“Frankie.”
My name sounded raw in his throat.
