Page 37

So this is how it ends. A state trooper on a back road in the middle of nowhere, and a woman beside me who has wanted nothing more than to be free of me since the moment I dragged her out of that basement. My near-perfect reputation is going to end with an ugly black mark that will fester inside me. Dragan won’t believe his fucking ears. Viktoriya’s husband will tell everyone far and wide that Zevran Komarov can’t manage one blonde slip of a thing. I’m not even surprised this job has gone sideways. It’s been bleeding out ever since Viktoriya made me do CPR on a dead girl. I let her into my head, broke every rule I have, and now I’m paying for it.

I glance at Viktoriya, letting her know now’s her moment. Her grand performance, when she hurls herself out of my car and into the trooper’s arms, tearfully pointing fingers at the bad man who took her prisoner.

It’s going to burn like hell watching her run from me.

It’s not even professional pride that makes my chest tighten. The truth is that I don’t want to lose her to a state trooper on a dirt road at dusk.

What did Scava say when he saw us holding hands? Not just holding, but gripping on for dear life.

You’re so fucked.

And that was before I tasted her. I’ve never once felt possessive over an asset, especially one as bratty and difficult as Viktoriya, but the moment she sobbed on my chest, I was done for.

The cop raps again, harder, a man whose patience just ran out.

10

Viktoriya

In the passenger-side mirror, the trooper gets out of his car.

He takes his time, carrying himself with the unhurried manner of a man who has never once in his life rushed for anyone.

I know this swaggering walk. I know the face that goes with it. The arrogant set of the jaw, the flat, dead eyes that have already decided the what, why, and how before hearing a single word.

My fingers curl in my lap, and I press them hard against my thighs. All the warmth that Zevran gave me upstairs in Lorenzo’s house suddenly evaporates into thin air.

“Ma’am, all I’m saying is you don’t seem very upset for someone making accusations of this kind. Your husband is a hardworking man, and you’re in here making trouble for him. Seems more like a…silly misunderstanding. One of them petty moments you women have because you’re feeling annoyed and feeling ignored. Am I right?”

The cop’s mocking smile is as vivid as the day I sat across from him in the interview room, my hands clenched between my thighs, trying my hardest not to cry because tears are manipulative, you’re trying to manipulate me. Troy had gotten so far inside my head that I was dry-eyed and still as stone, which was apparently the wrong way to plead for help.

“Making false allegations carries very serious charges. So does wasting police time. Just have a think about that. Nothing more to say? Yeah, I thought so.”

I watched the officer tear that report sheet in two, and then again, and throw the crumpled pieces in the trash.

I’d never felt so small in my life. I’d worked up the courage to walk into the station, say the words out loud, and it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t sad enough or broken enough. I hadn’t performed my suffering correctly for a man who’d already made up his mind about me before I opened my mouth. Maybe I bored him. Maybe I interrupted his lunch break. I’ll never know. What I do know is that my pain didn’t matter to him, and no one was going to save me.

The knock on the window makes me flinch, a full-body startle that makes my heart pound too fast and too loud.

Zevran is looking at me, and his expression is bleaker than I’ve ever seen. The cold hardness he wears like armor has slipped completely. He looks like a man saying goodbye, memorizing my face because he knows how this is going to end.

I don’t know what we’re all waiting for.

The cop raps his knuckles on the glass again.

A dark look flashes across Zevran’s face. He stabs his finger into the button that rolls the window down.

“Do you mind? We’re in the middle of something.”

The trooper leans down into the window, filling it. Up close, he’s younger than I thought, mid-thirties, maybe.

“License and registration,” he drawls. “Now.”

“How about,” Zevran says, conversationally, “you eat my entire ass?”

The trooper’s neck turns a dark red above his collar. I watch it happen and feel a completely inappropriate urge to laugh, because this man has clearly never in his life been rudely dismissed by someone he’s pulled over. I press my lips together hard.

“Step out of the vehicle.”