“Thank you for taking in my people while I was…detained.”
“Of course.”
My hand returns to the back of Nina’s neck, and a weird sense of comfort trickles into my chest. I didn’t even notice my heart rate had kicked up a gear until I touched her and it returned to normal.
When we walk toward the row of vehicles, Adriano and Augusto give me chin lifts.
“You good?” Augusto asks, a worried frown on his forehead.
“Yeah.” I smile to set them at ease. “You can interrogate me on the flight home.”
“You bet your ass we will,” Adriano says, his eyes flicking between Nina and me.
We all get into the cars, and I reach over Nina to adjust my shirt so it covers Simi.
“There will be blankets on the plane,” I murmur to Nina as I pull back.
She’s so fucking tiny beside me, the top of her head barely reaches my bicep.
How the fuck could those assholes hurt her?
I’m struggling to wrap my mind around it because I’ve been raised in a family that loves their women and treats them like gold.
Men who prey on women are filth, and filth gets scrubbed from the earth. Boris and Anton might have escaped, but I’ll hunt them down and drag them out of whatever hole they’re hiding in.
My body protests as my muscles tense.
Once I get my hands on those fuckers, I’ll make them suffer before I feed them to the rats.
Nina shoots me a cautious glance, then lowers her head, her expression filled with apprehensiveness and uncertainty.
“You’re safe,mishle.”
Calling her little mouse in Bulgarian has her eyes snapping back to my face. Her fearful gaze searches mine.
“You’ll both be okay,” I whisper as I lift my left arm.
When I brush some of her hair behind her ear, her eyes lock on the white bandage peeking out from beneath the cuff.
“I’ll look at your wounds on the plane,” she says before lowering her head again and pressing a kiss to Simi’s forehead.
During the drive to the airfield, I’m constantly conscious of the woman and child beside me. Nothing draws my attention away from them until the convoy of cars stops near the private jet and I get out.
Seeing Raya climb out of another SUV with Adriano and Augusto, shock shudders through me.
Raya has always ridden in the same car as me. She’s always been at my side.
I fucking slipped up and didn’t even notice she wasn’t with me.
My head turns sharply to Nina, and I don’t know what she sees on my face, but it makes her step away from me, only to bump into the side of the open car door, the top sharp corner hitting her head.
I react without thinking. Grabbing hold of Nina’s bicep, it feels as if I’m holding something breakable as I pull her and Simitoward me. I quickly lean over her and gently check her head, while asking, “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
Before my brain can catch up to what I’m doing, I bend at the waist and press a kiss to the spot.
I’m naturally a very affectionate person, and my love languages are touch and taking care of people. Still, the instant I feel her soft hair against my lips, I’m knocked back on my ass by the intense feeling of possessiveness shuddering through me.
