Alena has flattened herself behind the table, silk and diamonds suddenly meaningless in the middle of gunfire. Her mask finally slips. She looks frightened now. Really frightened.
Aleksei rips a gun from the inside of his jacket. Of course he has one. He glances toward the shattered window, then back at Alena with murder in his eyes.
“You brought them here.”
Her face drains. “No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I didn’t.” For the first time, she sounds genuine. “I swear I had no idea.”
Another shot cracks from outside, punching into the wood above us.
Aleksei starts to rise, fury rolling off him, but his focus is wrong. Not on the shooter. On her.
He’s going to kill her.
I grab his arm with both hands. “No.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t understand the word. “She could be lying,” he says.
“She could,” I shoot back, ducking as another round hits somewhere too close, “but maybe deal with the person actually trying to shoot us first?”
That earns me a look that is somehow both furious and almost offended. Then he exhales once through his nose, cold control dropping back into place. To Alena he says, “Leave.”
She hesitates.
His voice turns lethal. “Now.”
This time she moves, crouching low and scrambling toward the far stairwell without another word.
Aleksei waits two beats, gun raised, listening. Then he shifts his attention fully to me. “You pushed me.”
“Yes.”
“For a bullet.”
“Yes!”
He stares at me for one surreal second in the middle of all this chaos, and something in his expression changes.
Amusement. Actual amusement. Then he hooks one arm under my knees, the other around my back, and lifts me straight off the floor.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Relocating you.”
He kicks open the suite door with one hard shove and carries me inside.
The suite is absurdly elegant. Cream walls, dark velvet, a fireplace, a bed I absolutely do not look at. He sets me down just inside, locks the door, checks the adjoining corridor, then finally turns back to me. His tie is half off, glass dusting one shoulder, and he still looks devastatingly composed for a man who was nearly shot thirty seconds ago.
I’m breathing too hard. My hands are shaking.
He notices both. Then his gaze drifts around the room.
The suite.
A slow, dangerous smile touches his mouth. “You booked this for us.”
