Killing for Her Page 7

  Had I not been here to save her, there’s no telling what would have befallen her.

  But she has the good sense to make a move quickly and decisively. That’s rare. Most failures in missions like this come from hesitating too long.

  Who am I to say? This little girl might yet have surprised me.

  She has already impressed me.

  I hear the sound of her perfectly manicured nails dig into the leather seat as I make my way through the neighborhood. I can tell that she’s anxious, not just because of our situation, but because I am not blazing a path through these suburbs so fast that I burn the rubber of my tires.

  If I drive too fast and too erratically, someone will report my car to the police. And if they get involved, it’s all over. I can dodge the Ovechkin soldiers, but I cannot evade two hunters at once. Not without a firefight that I’m hardly prepared for.

  I weave in and out of the winding roads around the stunning manors, staying away from headlights and trying to keep quiet. As I come to a stop at a stop sign, she whips her head over to me, eyes bulging, and I can tell that she’s barely holding herself back from asking why the hell we aren’t moving. I don’t even look at her. I wait a moment at the stop sign, then turn left and carry on my meandering path.

  Headlights appear in my rear-view mirror, and I hear the girl suck in a breath. I calmly take a turn right, and I accelerate just enough to take another left further up ahead and loop around a small public park. I move us behind a set of dumpsters and kill the headlights, holding still there until we watch the other black sedan pass us by.

  I hear the girl clap a hand to her mouth as we get a glimpse into the car hunting us. The windows are down, and there’s a man leaning out of one with a gun in his hand, cruel eyes scanning the area.

  I reach over to her, and I put a hand on her knee in silent warning. I can almost hear her heart pounding. She starts to shiver in my hand, and I give her a gentle squeeze. Finally, the car passes, and she allows herself to breathe.

  I wait for a full minute before I slowly pull around, following the car that just passed us.

  Finally, it seems, she can’t hold it back any longer.

  “They went this way!” she hisses.

  I simply nod, but I say nothing. She stares at me for a long time, and when she finally realizes she isn’t getting an answer, she crosses her arms and looks ahead, worrying her lip.

  I’m following the other car because they’re unlikely to double back. If I went in the opposite direction, there’s a good chance I would run into one of the other cars that’s undoubtedly also searching for us. Instead, I follow the car at a safe distance for some time before turning off down another road.

  The houses all around us are stunning displays of wealth. Each street seems lined with gorgeous tree formations, tall hedges line many of the homes that want to remain private, and there are fabulously expensive cars in every gated driveway. Most of this neighborhood is old money.

  I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye every now and then, and each time it happens, I feel like she electrifies me, like I’m getting a shock of energy each time I dare to look at her. She looks like a wild deer being hunted, from the frantic, haunted look in her eyes to her narrow chest rising and falling in short, quick breaths. Her jeans are torn, her hair tangled, and I feel the urge within me to reach over and smooth it out.

  I realize how distracted she is making me. It isn’t her fault, of course, but she has an energy around her that I can’t explain. She is almost otherworldly in her aura. I have never been so affected by someone in my life.

  I have rescued people before, but I have never felt like I am pulling an angel out of the jaws of hell.

  My car fits in with the luxurious scenery all around this neighborhood, which is good, because nothing will get us caught faster than looking out of place in an area like this. Still, I wind through the neighborhood as carefully as possible. I can still hear the occasional sound of wheels on the road, police sirens in the far distance, and it’s much later than most respectable people are out at night.

  I block out the sirens. There’s no way that Ovechkin called the cops in to deal with his dirty business. His hunters will be like me, like those we followed a while back. They’ll blend in.

  I feel like I’m guiding her through shark-infested waters, doing as much work to keep her from knowing just how close to danger we are as actual work avoiding that danger.

  More than once, I can sense that we’re merely a block away from running into our pursuers, but I stay quiet and calm.

  Moreover, she stays quiet too. I like that, not because I don’t like the sound of her voice, but because it gives me time to think.

  The plan is out the window. Months of plotting and weeks of preparing for this night, all gone up in flames faster than I could blink. It is a setback, but I have long since trained myself not to be affected by such things. Being angry would only lower my already slim chances of surviving this. In my line of work, you can get angry, or you can be successful.

  The plan was a very quick and clean hit. I had expected to put a bullet in Ovechkin’s head, make my escape, and let none be the wiser. I don’t usually carry out hits with a sniper rifle from the bushes—that’s much too close a range than is necessary, and anyone who knows me would know it does not fit my MO.

  Ideally, nothing would be traced to me. Koroleva would then let his guard down, thinking some rival of Ovechkin’s dealt with his biggest enemy, and I would exploit that sense of security to deal with my second man.

  Now, I have nothing.

  Well, that isn’t entirely true.

  The scent of the girl’s hair reminds me of her every few seconds, a subtle reminder that she’s with me, willingly or otherwise. This is an element that I could not have prepared for.

  I still don’t know what to think of her. She fills my every spare thought, invading my mind like nothing has in a long time, but I’ve barely spoken a word to her. The way her body is perfectly sculpted with the best resources money can buy tells me a thing or two about her. She lives a life of ease, and the fact that I have barely heard mention of her until recently tells me that Nestor Koroleva keeps her busy out of the picture. My guess is that she has spent most of her life traveling the world, putting carefully-engineered pictures on social media and soaking up an international education.

  But everything else? She is a teenage mystery. Such people never get involved in bratva business, and I have nothing to equip me to handle her. I can try to read her mind, but it will do me no good. All I know is that she is desperate, no friend of Liev Ovechkin’s. They say the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but I tend to play my cards more cautiously than this.

  I feel her eyes on me periodically. She has questions. Dozens of them, I’m sure. But I will not override her and make her my prisoner. One could call her my hostage, but if she wants to draw that conclusion, she can do so herself. The more compliant she is with me, the easier the near future will be, whatever that is.

  The fact that she is now bound to me fills me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, it is a risk. Someone like her is not trained to handle this sensitive of a situation. She could be one big liability, a bullet in my head waiting to happen. She slowed down my escape, made me reckless, made me... care about something other than survival and revenge. My life has been fueled by those two for so long, I’ve nearly forgotten that there’s other pleasures in this world.

  On the other hand... there is the issue of the effect she has on me. The thought of having her near to me makes my heart pound harder.

  I know my body well, and I have been with many women before. I know when I want someone. This girl is beyond forbidden. She is mafia royalty, a princess in her own right. She has lived and breathed a world that I have only watched and preyed upon from the shadows. She is a lamb being abducted by the wolf.

  She is the daughter of one of the two men I most want to see dead. We should be enemies. I should use her as a paw
n, a resource to be traded off or used as leverage to lure my prey into the open. But all my body wants is to claim her for myself.

  The way she looks at me tells me volumes about her thoughts, too. Silence is often more honest than conversation.

  But at last, she breaks the silence of the drive.

  “Are you with them?”

  I arch an eyebrow at her, glancing at her briefly.

  “I saw you at the airport. At JFK,” she says. There is nervousness in her voice, but she does a decent job of channeling it into boldness. “When I arrived in the States, I saw you there, in the shadows. You were watching me. Are you with them?”

  There’s more force behind the question a second time. Her fear is catching up to her, and she wants to know just who she’s dealing with.

  “You’re an important woman,” I say simply. “There were probably many people at the airport. What makes you sure you saw me?”

  “Your eyes,” she says without missing a beat. “I could even recognize them under the ski mask earlier.”

  I am mildly surprised by that. She has a sharp attention to detail, it seems. Still, I show no reaction. Another silence falls between us, but her eyes never leave me. I feel her scrutinizing me, searching for more. She is hungry for knowledge, and I know this girl isn’t going to let secrets lie easily.

  “No,” she finally says, “you’re not with my dad’s people. You wouldn’t have disappeared when you did. I keep track of the handlers my dad assigns me better than he thinks.”

  Now, I am more than mildly surprised. This is not the spoiled, wilting flower of a mafia princess I was expecting. Or if she is, she is a particularly astute one.

  “You’re not with the police, either,” she says, and I can’t help but crack a smile. “I’ve seen how deep some sting operations can be, I know it’s not impossible. But you’re not.”

  “Who, then?” I ask.

  She is silent for a long pause, glaring hard at me.

  “This isn’t a game,” she finally says.

  “I am with nobody,” I say, and it’s the most honest I’ve been with anyone in a long time.

  “Oh,” she replies.

  Of all the possible answers to that statement, I wasn’t expecting one so simple and truthful to be the one she accepts. I have to fight the urge to let out a chuckle.

  I have to wonder what the life of a mafia princess like her is like. Being a pawn of the bratva bosses like Nestor and Liev is one thing. Your life is always on the line, and bosses like them never care, not truly. Only in my line of work can a man have some independence in how he handles things, and even then, my relationship with them is brittle on the best of days, no matter how warm the smiles and the handshakes are.

  But a girl like her never feels such freedom, even less than the men who work for them. This girl is both the resource and a source of pride for Nestor—a liability and an asset all in one. She is someone to spoil and someone to worry over. She has been pulled around like this her whole life, and I realize that she must be more aware of how strong her leash truly is than I ever expected.

  I might not even be the first person to abduct her.

  “Why were you down there?” she asks.

  I say nothing. I let my eyes go to her, and I make eye contact that says a hundred words. She can figure that out, if she really wants to know.

  Another long silence.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asks.

  “I do, Anastasia,” I say.

  “Where are you taking me?” she finally asks, an uneasy edge to her voice.

  “Somewhere safe,” I say.

  “Am I safe with you?” she asks. The question sends a shiver through my body of desire mixed with intrigue. The way she puts her questions is strange. She seems to be angling for something that I can’t put my finger on.

  “We’ll see,” I say, and I watch her manicured hands squeeze the seat again.

  The drive takes us close to the highway, our ticket out of here. I can see the exit up ahead, and I maintain a steady speed, drawing a deep breath.

  And just a hundred yards from the exit, my eyes snap up to the rear-view mirror.

  Blue and red lights flash behind us.

  Anastasia gasps, turning her head and then looking to me with a wild look in her eyes.

  I clench my jaw. So close.

  But there’s nobody else on the road, not a chance in the world that the officer could be pulling anyone else over. The cruiser gets closer to us, and I realize there’s no way out of this.

  “What are you doing?!” Anastasia blurts as I put on the brakes and slowly bring the car to the side of the road.

  Time to do some acting.

  Anastasia

  Terror and panic floods through my body just like it did before. I was foolish to think I might be safe with this man. But as terrified as I am, he seems equally calm. A placid, easy smile warms his features and he gives me a wink.

  I frown at him.

  “Are you insane? While are you so okay with this?” I hiss frantically.

  He snakes his large hand across the center console and grabs my hand, giving it a squeeze. Then he shrugs, shaking his shoulders as though he’s an athlete loosening up his muscles before a big hurdle. Like he’s getting into character.

  Yeah. He must be crazy.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask, turning in my seat to stare at the bright flashing lights of the police car. I can just barely make out the figure of the cop behind the wheel as the squad car squeaks to a stop behind us. The lights don’t cut out, even as the siren goes silent.

  “We’re going to play it cool,” says my escort, smiling beatifically.

  “Play it cool?” I repeat, eyes going wide. My mouth falls open as I splutter for a response. “Wh-what the hell do you mean? How can we possibly play it cool? There’s a damn police officer coming to arrest us. Or you. Or me. Probably both of us.”

  “Anastasia,” he says. But I can’t stop rambling, my thoughts are so tangled up.

  “Oh my god. I can’t go to jail. I-I won’t survive. I don’t even like sharing a bathroom with a friend. What if they put me in solitary confinement? With no phone? No Internet? Oh god. And I’m not a fighter. I don’t know how to throw a punch. I’m going to get my ass kicked,” I whisper.

  “Anastasia,” he says again, ineffectually.

  “Maybe not jail. Maybe the cop will just drag me back home to my father so he can kick my ass instead. Or worse—he’ll take me back to Uncle Liev and let him deal with me. Oh no. I can’t face that. My father’s going to be so angry and whatever Uncle Liev does with me will be a million times worse than anything that could happen in prison,” I whimper, tears burning in my eyes as I begin to tremble.

  “Ana,” says the mystery guy, more emphatically this time. He gives my hand a quick little shake to get my attention, then slowly raises it to his lips. Without breaking eye contact with me at all, he lightly kisses my fingers and smiles.

  “What are you doing?” I murmur. A tingling warmth is radiating through my entire body from his gentle touch. No one has ever touched me this way before, not even the boys I’ve dated off and on throughout the years. I have never let any of them get close enough. Nowhere close. But somehow, nonsensically, despite all the craziness and danger of the predicament we are currently neck-deep in, the way he touches me feels… natural. It feels right. In a way that nothing ever has before.

  “Here’s the story,” he says calmly. “You and I are newlyweds.”

  “What?” I hiss, tilting my head to one side.

  “Just listen,” he tells me. “We’re newlyweds taking a night drive. We were supposed to have a big lavish wedding with all our friends and family but we got impatient. Decided the hundred-thousand-dollar wedding on a Caribbean beach just wasn’t for us. So we eloped, just the two of us and a witness down at the courthouse. And now we’re making a getaway, riding off in the middle of the night to go to our honeymoon.”

  “Wow,” I mutter
, shaking my head. “You really thought of all this right now? On the spot?” He smiles at me and winks again.

  “Yes. Everything is going to be fine. Just play along,” he instructs me. My heart skips a beat when I hear the faint clacking of the cop’s shoes on the pavement. He’s out of the squad car now, coming our way, with his hands at his belt. Is he reaching for a gun? I’m too afraid to look and find out.

  “Wait—what if he asks for our ID? What if he asks our names?” I insist.

  “Well, my name is Nikolai. And yours is Anastasia,” he says matter-of-factly.

  “Nikolai? Really?” I ask, squinting at him. “Is that your fake name for the purposes of the massive lie we’re about to tell, or—”

  “It’s my real name. Nice to meet you,” Nikolai says, smooth as velvet.

  “Oh. Um. Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for saving my life. But how the hell are we going to survive this? I’ve never even been pulled over before. I-I don’t know what to do,” I admit, blushing.

  “Doesn’t matter. Just leave the talking to me. And don’t forget to smile. Look happy. Remember, we’re on the way to our honeymoon,” he says.

  “Oh my god,” I breathe, closing my eyes and willing my heart to slow down from its rollicking pace as the cop saunters up to the car and bends down slightly to peer in the window. Nikolai rolls down the window, cool as a cucumber, even though I’m doing my best not to even make eye contact with the cop. I’m worried that if he sees my eyes, he will be able to somehow read my mind and know we’re lying.

  “Good evening, officer,” greets Nikolai, holding out his hand for the cop to shake. The police officer gawks at it in confusion for a moment, clearly unaccustomed to his potential perpetrators greeting him with such affability.

  “Good evening, sir,” the cop replies. “How are you doing tonight?”