And then everything else went in slow motion as the other man reached into his pocket as he moved toward me.
He was on me before I could escape, pressing a cloth over my mouth and whispering Russian in my ear.
“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. The fact he thinks you’re his—” he leaned down and smelled me, inhaling deeply at the side of my neck, “—meant his death.”
I struggled and fought until the heaviness started to claim me, when a sickly sweet scent filled my nose and saturated my head.
And then everything went dark.
Chapter
Twelve
Ruin
I knew they were already looking for her.
They could try, but they wouldn’t take her from me.
There was no doubt Igor had called it in when he heard her scream. But it didn’t make a difference if Vladimir sent an army. Anastasia was mine.
And although I’d bought this place using a fake name and credentials, Vladimir had a lot of fucking connections and could pull a hell of a lot of strings.
But I’d slaughter every single one of the fuckers before they touched a hair on her head.
Her father was a ruthless Pakhan of the Bratva, and Anastasia was his light and joy despite him pawning her off to a piece of shit like Ivan.
I lifted her out of the back of the SUV and carried her inside and straight toward the bedroom. My room. When she was on the bed, I took a step back and just stared down at her.
Fuck, ten long years I’d yearned for her, the only part of my humanity left leading straight to Anastasia.
And although I wanted her to be in my bed, a part of me knew it wasn’t possible. How could it be, given my life?
I allowed myself only another minute to just stare at her before I left the room to grab her a bottle of water and a couple of ibuprofen for the headache she’d have when she woke.
Once I had them set on the table beside the bed, I left again, closing the door behind me and walking over to my duffel. I unzipped it and started pulling out my weapons.
A 9mm Beretta, a .38 special, and a Glock.
I grabbed my two hunting knives. Rope, zip ties, and several boxes of ammo for each gun. I kept myself busy as I went around and checked the security cameras I had stationed around the outside of the house, then stood on the porch for a suspended moment in the darkness.
I wasn’t surprised she didn’t recognize me as I’d pressed her against the mattress in her bedroom and we stared into each other’s eyes.
For a moment I thought I’d seen a flare of familiarity, but her fear had been too prominent to allow anything else in.
But I had to believe there were some parts of her subconscious that would never forget the connection that we shared.
But I had changed a lot in the last decade. Tattoos covered me from head to toe. I was scarred, the humanity stripped from me like a knife peeling the skin off an apple.
Although I didn’t need any of these weapons, seeing as I could kill a man with my bare hands, I wanted to make sure I had all avenues checked that were concerned with keeping her safe.
I didn’t want to keep her hostage or a prisoner. I didn’t want her to grow to hate me, which she probably already did, and I sure as hell didn’t trust myself when the time came to talk to her.
Because I knew everything would come out in the open. I wouldn’t lie about the kind of deviant I was, what I’d done, and what they made me do.
I’d tell her everything, how the world we lived in was even more fucked up than she could ever imagine. I didn’t want to tell her any of that because I knew she probably wouldn’t be ready to hear it. Who would be?
I sat down, eyes trained on the bedroom door, and proceeded to clean my guns, knowing that when they came for her I’d be fucking ready. I’d have corpses littering the ground by the time it was all said and done.
Chapter
Thirteen
Anastasia
Consciousness was a slow friend, a soft touch, that I wanted to cling on to because it just felt like nothing could hurt me.
But then when reality slammed back in, it was painful, causing my head to throb, my stomach to clench and roil, and my mouth to be bone-dry. And that’s how I felt right now as I slowly woke up, my throat aching, my entire body feeling as if I’d been put through a meat grinder.
I groaned and burrowed my face deeper into the pillow, breathing in and out slowly to try and stop the wave of rolling nausea that tried to rise up.
But as I inhaled, I took in the dark, spicy scent. It was an aroma that had my heart racing and had that familiar fear claiming me once more.