The Darkest Temptation (Made 3)

“I didn’t promise you anything,” I muttered to myself.

It went silent for a moment, and then his imploring tone became cold, hard fact.

“You want the truth for once? Fine. If you want to play games and do not tell me where you are, Mila . . . I’m a dead man.”

He sounded so serious, I actually believed him. For a moment at least. Surely, he didn’t think my papa would murder him. This was more likely just a desperate attempt to keep me from finding out he had a secret family.

Too late, I thought bitterly.

But I was a pushover, so I called him back to leave a message and put him out of his misery, only to realize I had no bars. I raised my phone in the air, turned it upside down—all the tricks—and nothing. My cell was supposed to work in Moscow, but I didn’t know service would be this unreliable.

With a sigh, I slid my phone into my coat pocket. Then, looking up, I stopped. My shoes crunched on gravel as I turned in a slow circle. The sun had fallen, more than half of it hiding behind the horizon. Only a crumbling apartment complex and a few concrete buildings surrounded me.

I was completely lost.

Fighting the shiver that rolled through me, I started to walk.

The wind whistled.

The shadows grew darker.

And I suddenly missed Ivan very badly.

A crawling sensation stroked the back of my neck and slid down my spine. It was the feeling of being watched. I gripped my bag tighter, fighting the urge to look behind me, but the suspense turned into an anxiety that tightened my lungs, and I couldn’t resist the pull anymore.

A man—undoubtedly, by the size and swagger—followed me. He wore jeans and a dark coat, and his eyes held steady on the black driving gloves he was pulling on, though I somehow knew I had his full attention.

I turned my head forward, my chest cold.

A gust of wind whipped at my ponytail, and with it, one word rode through my mind on a whisper that sounded like a pitch-black room and goose-bumped skin.

D’yavol.

I glanced behind me. He drew closer with every step, his strides much longer than mine. Only a few yards away now, I could see a jagged scar slashed across his face, from ear to jaw. The last ray of sunlight glinted on a silver knife in his hand.

Facing forward again, my breath escaped in pants, misting in front of my face, while my blood froze to solid ice. When parked cars and light from the windows of a building came into view, I dropped my bag and ran.

My long legs had always put me at the front of the pack during cheer practice in high school, but the footsteps hitting concrete behind me now were close on my heels. I wasn’t going to make it to the front door, so I changed course for the back and prayed it wasn’t locked.

Please, don’t be locked.

I came to a halt in front of the door, and in an instant, one of those black riding gloves wrapped around my ponytail and pulled. I cried out in pain as I went flying backward. My head hit the pavement, and a kaleidoscope of lights flickered behind my eyes.

Rough hands tore at my clothes.

“No,” I moaned, but my consciousness was stuck in sticky black sludge, and I couldn’t get out. Pain and icy air wrapped around my body, rousing me from darkness. I peeled my eyes open.

Scarred face.

Dark coat.

Denim-clad legs straddling my hips.

“No!”

I fought his hands, but my body wouldn’t work right. My head—it felt like it was split open.

The man ripped my blouse down the middle.