“If I’m not there when the door opens, you have to leave,” I told her. “There’s a car in the garage with keys under the workbench. Take it and drive west, and just keep driving. Don’t go to the police. Don’t, under any circumstances, tell anybody your real name.”
“Oh, God, Jett,” she’d moaned.
“But that won’t happen,” I growled.
I touched her chin and tipped her gaze up, forcing her to look into my eyes.
Tears glistened in hers, wavering across her irises, dancing and alive.
“I am not going to leave you,” I snapped. “I need you to believe me. I need you to trust me.”
“I do,” she’d gasped. “I …”
I love you, I roared in my mind.
But something inside of me stilled the words.
I couldn’t tell her that – I couldn’t reveal how I truly felt, how I’d felt since I first laid eyes on her – when there was a chance I might die.
She might be left without me.
Whatever I told her, and told myself – whatever I believed – no man can take a bullet to the skull and live.
After breakfast, I take them back down to the safe room.
Patricia is cradling Rebel close to her chest, her eyes downcast. I sense that she doesn’t have the same trust in me as Juliana, but what matters is that she’s going to support her friend no matter what happens.
I take Juliana off to the side, conscious that I might be able to calm the vicious fury of my emotions somewhat, but I can’t do anything to stop my body’s constant pounding need for her. She’s wearing a baggy hoodie and some sweatpants, but that doesn’t stop me from mentally peeling her clothes off, from revealing her beautiful big creamy tits and her bite-me thighs.
We’ve fucked like addicts these past couple of days, only stopping when Juliana needed some time for her body to recover.
I move close to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, pulling her close to me so that she lays her cheek against my chest in that close, special way she has.
“Tell me you trust me,” I whisper, smoothing a strand of hair behind her ear.
She tilts her head toward the movement, a bright smile spreading across her cheeks, flashing for a sunlit moment before anxiety makes her lips all wavy.
She squeezes close to me, looking up, biting her lips for a moment.
“I trust you,” she says, releasing her lip. “Please come back to me.”
“Always,” I growl. “Every day for the rest of our lives. You’re not getting rid of me now, Juliana.”
She smiles, blinking away a tear.
“I’m holding you to that,” she says.
I wipe the tear from her cheek with my thumb, and then lean down and lay a kiss on her lips, the most tender kiss I can summon. Otherwise, I just know that I’m going to lose control and consume her lips with mine, capture her tongue and the thousand tastes of her mouth.
She backs up into the safe room, keeping her eyes locked on mine with every step.
I keep mine fixated on her, staring right into her soul, muttering a silent prayer that I’m back here in a couple of hours to let her out.
Otherwise, the door will release in twelve hours and she and Patricia will have to start an adventure of their own, one that has nothing to do with me.
My heart tightens at the prospect.
I close and lock the door before I change my mind.
Igor has contacts in every single law enforcement agency in the country.
He has spies everywhere.
In a perfect world, I’d be able to get somebody else to handle this problem for me.
But the only person I can rely on to handle this evil bastard is myself, the same way I’ve relied on myself my whole damn life.
I turn away from the safe room, gritting my teeth, getting my mind ready for war.
I heft the duffle bag full of cash over my shoulder and make my way to the backyard, careful to keep to the edge of the property where I’m least likely to be seen.
If everything goes well, Igor will take my bribe and back off. It’s not like he has any real stake in Juliana except for his twisted code of honor.
And even in the Bratva world, three hundred thousand isn’t an amount to be laughed at.
I walk to the woods that border the garden and enter them, memories of my childhood surging up inside of me.
I was a lonely wanderer, making my way through the woods, becoming part of them, alive to every tiny noise, every broken twig, every stirring animal.
But then my mind shifts and I see myself and my children walking this same path. I imagine four or five of them, of various ages, but the one that’s clearest in my mind for some reason is a young boy with Juliana’s thick brown hair and my blue eyes. He has an open smile as he stands there in his chunky walking boots, staring up at me.