“That you should shoot first instead of running your ugly fucking mouth.”
Gunfire cracks the air. Artyom screams and staggers back. Two more shots and my cousin’s stumbling backward, running at a crouch. His men from further down the ridge open fire, shooting up into the woods, as Artyom screams in garbled, pain-fueled Russian.
Gabe turns and drags me deeper into the woods. We run at a stumbling, loping stagger, through brambles and stickers, until the gunfire comes to a sudden, deafening halt, and we burst into a clearing on the far side, barely fifty feet from a run-down house.
Daniel’s waiting nearby with a sniper rifle. A truck’s idling, its doors standing open.
“You missed,” Gabe says, holding my hand tightly as he helps me into the back of the vehicle.
“I was shooting through trees at eighty yards.”
“Still should’ve gone for the head.”
“Center mass saved your life, boss.” Daniel winks at me. “Glad you’re okay.”
“Get my wife home.” Gabe touches my leg, but doesn’t follow me into the truck. “Make sure she’s safe.”
“Where are you going?” I find my voice at last. The idea of being parted from him wrenches something primal in my stomach. An ugly, pathetic panic response.
“I need to catch and kill Artyom if I can.” He leans into the truck and plants a brutal kiss on my lips. It tastes like iron and burning ash. “I’ll see you later.”
Then he’s jogging off, back into the woods. Men materialize around him, and I realize it’s the security detail from the arms deal pushing for a counter-attack.
I collapse back onto the seat as Daniel gets behind the wheel. I catch his eyes in the rearview mirror.
“What’d you think of your cousin?” He flashes me a grin and puts the truck into gear. “Nice guy, once you get to know him.”
CHAPTER 14
GABE
Iget back to the hotel hours later. Nika’s asleep, her minor wounds already cleaned and dressed. I change into clothes that don’t stink of blood, fuel, and mud, before slinking down to the hotel bar to debrief.
I’d rather be in bed with my wife. I want to curl myself around her, pull her soft, warm body against my own, breathe her smell. There was a moment earlier today, when Artyom first attacked, when I thought I lost her. She was in the trees, running for her life, and one of Artyom’s soldiers was on her tail. I almost got my head blown off sprinting after her.
I risked everything. One step sideways, one steadier hand aiming a gun at my face, one stupid mistake, and I’d be dead. The smart move would’ve been to hunker down, stay in cover, and wait for my security detail to arrive.
I can’t be Dragon with a bullet in my head.
I went after her anyway. What the fuck was I thinking? Nika’s beautiful, she’s funny and fascinating, the way she seems to be at war with herself all the damn time. I love kissing her, teasingher, being around her. But she’s still only a pair of tits with a big checkbook attached. I can’t lose sight of what I need from her.
There’s a reason I can’t forget relationships are nothing more than a series of transactions.
I have one goal, and nothing is as important as sitting on that throne.
For a brief moment in those woods though, panic ripping into me, fear like a steady spike in my guts, a feeling I’ve never experienced in my entire life, nothing else mattered but Nika.
That’s fucked and dangerous in a way I can’t abide.
I’m in a bad mood as I sit at the bar and order a vodka. Daniel’s late, but that’s fine. Let him blow off steam however he needs to. I sit hunched over my drink, glaring at the mirror behind the bottles, thinking about how I almost threw it all away for some fucking girl.
When a woman sits to my left.
I don’t recognize her at first, too lost in my own self-pity and anger. Nika’s the only woman I can think about, at least until I finish my vodka and another appears at my elbow.
I frown, looking over. Lucy smiles at me, her chin propped on her fist. “Thought you could use it.”
I flinch back in surprise. I don’t know how the hell I didn’t realize it was her. That’s how fucked I am right now. “Where did you come from?”
