Shaking him off, I push the door open and storm inside.
A young lady with auburn hair and freckles stares at me with round eyes. But it’s not on her that I focus. It’s on the beautiful woman who sits in a chair near the changing area, a woman with golden hair and eyes the color of jade.
My woman.
For a couple of heartbeats, as I take her in, reassuring myself she’s real and not some fucked-up figment of my imagination, the world comes to a standstill.
When our gazes lock, she gets to her feet. Her face is pale, and her cheeks are hollow. Dark circles mar her wide, luminescent eyes. Her arms, legs, and clothes are streaked with dirt and covered in dust. The outfit she wears isn’t familiar, but it looks like something I would’ve chosen for her down to the flat shoes on her feet. Blood sticks to her hair on the side, just above her temple.
A fuck-ton of emotions assault me at once—disbelief that I’ve finally found her, terror that she’s not flesh and blood but a hallucination taunting me, relief that she’s alive and within my grasp, and uncontrollable rage at the sight of the blood that has dried on her face.
But perhaps the biggest of the feelings hitting me from all directions is the fear that she won’t come to me willingly.
Reaching out carefully, I hold out a hand. “Tatiana.” I approach her slowly. “Come to me, darling.”
As if she was only waiting to hear those words, a sob tears from her chest. And then she does the one thing I expected her to do the least. She runs straight into my arms and flings hers around my neck, holding on as if she never wants to let go.
I wrap her up in an embrace. “I’ve got you, darling.” Inhaling the scent of smoke and an unfamiliar smell of soap in her hair, I convince myself that she’s not a cruel apparition but real. “You’re safe now.”
Her legs give out as her body goes slack.
Scooping her up, I lift her into my arms. Her head lolls back, her eyes closed.
Reino’s strained voice reaches me through the white noise in my ears. “She passed out.”
The woman I assume to be the shop assistant hovers next to the counter. “I think I should call the police.”
I fix her with a hard smile. “Thanks for your help. I’ll make sure you’re rewarded.”
“Oh, I didn’t—” she starts.
Ulysses takes a thick roll of banknotes from his pocket, takes her wrist, and slams the money on her palm. “For your trouble.”
She stares at the hundred dollar-bills with a slack jaw.
Reino makes eye contact with me. “The doctor is here.”
As I make my way to the door, the woman calls after me.
“Wait.”
I turn with a scowl, eager to get Tatiana to safety where I can examine her injuries properly.
The woman falters under my stare. “Can I, um, get your number?” She shifts her weight. “To check on your wife later.”
“She’ll be fine,” I say as I walk from the store, needing to believe that like nothing before.
The doctor is getting out of his car, which is double-parked in the street, when I step onto the sidewalk. The tight white T-shirt and skinny jeans emphasize his athlete’s build. With graying hair and a matching goatee, he has the whole silver fox thing going.
He takes a doctor’s case from his trunk and motions at the car where my driver is waiting. “This yours?”
Tightening my hold on Tatiana, I nod.
“Let’s get into the back.”
He throws the key to his Lexus at one of my men with the unspoken understanding that the man will drive his car to my house.
My driver takes the wheel. Reino gets into the front to keep watch while I get into the back of the SUV, carefully holding Tatiana on my lap. The doctor takes the seat opposite us. Cradling Tatiana in my arms, I stretch my seatbelt around both of us and secure it before giving the driver the signal to go.
