“No!” Logan locked his arms around her and hauled her up against his chest. “No, Simone!”
The Bentley Mulsanne braked. She saw the flash of its taillights as it backed up. Surely the driver was coming back to help? Simone struggled against Logan’s hold because she needed to help Harry, too. There was no way that she was just going to leave the man to bleed out in the street!
“I’m so sorry,” Logan whispered in her ear as his grip tightened even more. “I tried to tell you…over and over again in the suite. I said…don’t trust me. Literally said those exact words. But did you listen? No.”
“Logan, stop this! He is bleeding! That’s an MI6 agent!” He probably didn’t understand exactly who Harry?—
“I know.” Low. Rough. “And the man getting out of the car and aiming a gun at his head? That’s Konstantin.”
She stopped struggling. Just went dead still in his arms. Because the left, rear door of that sleek, black Bentley had opened, and Logan was right about the identity of the man who’d climbed out and who now pointed a gun at an unmoving Harry.
Konstantin. Dressed in a black overcoat. Hair cropped close to his head. Face intent and deadly with purpose. They were on a back street near the hotel, and no one else was around. There was no one to see what Konstantin was doing. No one to stop him.
Screw that. There is me.
Even though she loved Logan like a brother, she drove her elbow back into his ribs as hard as she could. His grip eased, and she shot forward like a rocket, screaming, “Stop! No! Don’t do it! Do not kill him!”
Just like that, the gun stopped being aimed at Harry’s prone form, and it pointed at Simone. She stumbled to a stop. Nearly wound up falling into Konstantin but she caught herself just in time.
“We meet again.” His native Russia drifted beneath the words. “Hello, Simone.”
“Hi, Konstantin.” Her heart nearly burst right out of her chest. “Fancy seeing you on this deserted street with a horribly injured man at your feet.”
He smiled at her.
Ice filled her veins. He was tall like Ryan, his shoulders broad. Fit. His brown hair was shorter than it had been when they’d met before, and sunglasses covered his green eyes. When he smiled, the scar under his chin stretched a bit. And when he raised his brows at her, the long, thin, white scar over his right eyebrow seemed to thicken. If she had to guess, she’d wager that both of those scars had come from the slice of a knife.
“Such a coincidence, isn’t it?” he murmured. “Almost as if…I knew where you’d be.”
Logan raced up behind her. His hands clamped around her shoulders, and he immediately jerked her back, putting her behind his body. “You aren’t shooting Simone! There is no world where you shoot her. That is not happening!”
“Fine, then I’ll just shoot you and the MI6 agent.”
“No!” Simone screamed.
Cars honked in the distance. She also could have sworn that she heard the sound of approaching voices.
Konstantin cursed in Russian, a guttural curse that basically translated to fucking tourists. Then he was motioning toward his car. When she looked toward the Bentley—surprise, surprise—Simone saw that his driver stood next to the front of the vehicle, and that driver had a gun clutched in his hand.
“Get in the vehicle,” Konstantin ordered. “Now.”
She locked her legs. “See, I have this rule about not going to secondary locations. The last time I went to a secondary location, I woke up and there was this seriously angry Russian who wanted to cut off my fingers and?—”
He’d just slammed his gun into the side of Logan’s head. Logan went down, hard, and Konstantin lunged at her. His left hand fisted in her hair even as he pressed the gun into her left cheek. Simone refused to let tears fall from the pain of his grip. “I know there are plenty of wonderful, amazing Russian people in this world. A few of them are my friends. One was even my college roommate.” His grip tightened even more and she almost yelped. “Lovely people who make the most mouth-watering medovik that you’ve ever tasted.” She tried for a hopeful tone as she asked, “Any chance you could stop being so scary and dangerous and become like those fabulous individuals?”
He leaned in closer to her. His hot breath blew over her face. “Alexei was my cousin.”
“That tracks.” Simone cleared her throat. She was pretty sure that she’d just seen Harry’s hand move. The right one. The left appeared broken. No way that twisted angle of his wrist could be anything but broken. “I totally see the resemblance.” She also realized that the driver bore a strong resemblance to Konstantin, too. Probably another cousin.
Logan jumped to his feet. But he didn’t attack Konstantin. Probably because Konstantin had a gun shoved hard into her cheekbone.
“You are useful to me alive,” Konstantin told her. “That is the only reason I allow you to continue breathing.”
“I’ve always found it great to keep breathing.”
He hauled her toward the car. Shoved her into the back seat. Climbed in with her and kept his gun pointed at her. Logan tried to follow, but…
“Kill the MI6 agent,” Konstantin barked at him. “Now.”
