“I didn’t witness anything!”
“It does not matter,” he says, and I see his thick forearm swell through his sweater as he clenches his fist. “It only matters what they think you witnessed,” he explains to me, his voice getting darker, more serious. “Do you think someone has a congressman killed without wanting to make very sure it never comes back to him, hmm?” he says, his eyes boring into me with their intensity.
It sends a shiver down my spine, and I swallow hard.
“I can’t stay here forever. What are you going to do to me?”
“To you?” he asks, eyes wide before he laughs and looks away. “Nothing. But I do not send pretty, young women to their deaths. No matter how dense in the head they’re being,” he adds, that patience eked away a little as he puffs up his broad chest and sighs.
“I’m not dense. But how many kidnapped women have you saved that are just totally fine with being your captive, huh?”
He gives a light, exasperated sigh and finishes off another generous bite before looking back at me.
“I do not make a habit of this, if it’s what you’re meaning. You are the first. But too much time and money had been sunk into getting the target where he was needed to be. If I didn’t do the job then, a messier hit would’ve happened as they all left, and you’d be dead instead of complaining,” he says, revealing all that info so calmly.
A storm is brewing within me, emotions surfacing that I didn’t know even lingered beneath my skin. My heart pounds, and I stare at the man ahead of me. I know what he meant about what he did. He killed people. He still does.
I’m here, having a quaint little dinner with what is possibly the sexiest killer in the world. Not that I know a lot of killers. Any, actually, before him.
My skin flushes, and for a second, I feel like I’m going to be sick again, but I swallow it back as I force myself to stand. Tears are stinging my eyes, but I blink them away, fury and terror swirling within me.
“You want me to thank you or something, Mikhail? Is that what this whole dinner business is about?”
He takes one of the napkins in hand, unfurls it, and calmly wipes his mouth.
“I do not want your thanks or your gratitude,” he says, still sitting there at the table. “What I want is for you to sit tight until it is safe for you to go. Or until I figure out where you can go that won’t get you killed,” he says, looking right at me with those dark eyes of his.
The eyes of a murderer.
He should make me sick. He does make me sick. So why am I so drawn to him, and what does that say about me? Normal girls don’t feel drawn to their murdering kidnapper.
I take in another deep breath of air as I continue to stare at him.
“I’m not staying here. If you were supposed to kill me and you didn’t, they’re going to be looking at where you led them. It’s only a matter of time before they find this place, if they don’t already know of it.”
I have no idea who they are, or if I’m correct, but I’m taking a giant stab in the dark in order to gain my freedom. To plead with him for a way out.
His brows furrow a little, and he looks at me.
“Only a handful of men in this city know who did the hit. You’re sitting with one. The others are all well under my influence,” he says with that stoic gaze of his, unflinching and serious. “And furthermore, they do not know about this place. This is my safe house. A place where nobody in my life knows how to get to. Where if everyone in the world turned on me, I could come here and last out a long, long wait. This place,” he says, jabbing his long index finger into the table, “is my insurance. And now, it is yours.”
I hate that somehow, he’s making me feel bad for taking this all for granted, and I fidget under his hard stare.
“People... people who hire hitmen don’t just forget about murder witnesses. I’ve seen the movies, you know. The ones where people are sitting and having breakfast twenty years after the fact, and they get a gun in their face. This is never going to leave me.”
His broad jaw sets tight, and he looks at the food, taking a deep breath.
“I’ve told them that there were no witnesses. That you must have left the scene before I hit. The local boss is paranoid and wants to take you out just in case,” he explains, turning his gaze towards me, staring hard. “But when you don’t show up for a while, and nothing comes of it...you will be forgotten. Business moves on, as usual. As it must,” he explains firmly.
I shift forward. This is dumb. I shouldn’t be getting closer to him. I shouldn’t be placing my hand on his jaw, my fingers caressing him tenderly.
And the worst part is I don’t even know if it’s all just a ploy to get him to let me go or if I just want to touch him. To know he’s real, to feel that stubble beneath my palm.
“You’re trying to do the right thing,” I say more softly, and I truly believe that’s what he thinks he’s doing. Hell, maybe that is what he’s doing. Maybe, beneath that gruff exterior and hard gaze and that gun on his hip, he really is my knight in shining armor.
My fingers trace back over his jaw towards that red scar on his face, and I watch as his rugged features contort into a look of curiosity. He’s almost as confused by my actions as I am.
“I am not a school boy to be manipulated,” he says, his voice a little quieter. “I am looking after you, not because I’m out to be the hero. Not because I expect some big thank-you.” He reaches up and wraps his hand about my wrist, that grasp of his so tight as he rises up to tower over me again. “I saved you because I wanted to. I’ll keep you alive because that’s my desire. It is no more complicated than that, and I expect nothing else than for this to end with you alive and well, if cranky.”
My breathing quickens despite myself as my gaze is forced upwards. He’s just a hair’s breadth away from me, and if I leaned forward just a little, my chest would be pressed against his abs. It’s tempting, for all the wrong reasons.
“Why did you want to save me?” I ask, surprised at how quiet and shaky my voice has become.
He’s still holding my hand, and though I can no longer touch his jaw where he keeps it, I could reach out, touch that broad, hard chest of his if I wanted. If I wasn’t quaking before the towering Russian.
But that question seems to stump him a little, or maybe he’s just not sure if he wants to be honest, because he doesn’t answer right away.
“Because I chose to, that’s all there is to it,” he says, releasing my arm. But even this stoic brute doesn’t do a good job of hiding the truth this time, because I can tell there’s more.
It hangs between us, but I don’t push. Not this time. Not if I hope to see him let me go from my prison cell.
And do what? That voice in the back of my mind nags at me. I want to be free just because I don’t like being trapped, but even I understand the risks, if those men are actually after me. But on the outside, there’s people I can go to for help. People I know and trust.
“I can’t stay here, Mikhail,” I say softly. I don’t know if it frightens me more to stay with him or leave, but at least on the outside, I’m free.
“But you have to all the same,” he says to me with a tone of finality, stepping around me and going right for the door. “There’s plenty of leftovers, and more food in the cupboards and fridge,” he reminds me, but I don’t care about those things.
“Wait!” I say, and try to follow after him, tugging at the door. But it’s no use, he pulls it shut tight against my resistance, undaunted by my feeble attempts to stop him. And it slams shut. Leaving me alone inside.
“Damn it,” I curse, and I find myself staring at the closed door, picturing him on the other side, filled with a sense of longing that definitely should not exist. I can still feel the imprint of his hand on my wrist, and I touch it tenderly before my heart drops and I return to my bland captivity without the spark of his presence.
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Description
I was supposed to protect her. Now,
I'll kill the men who took her.
I’m leaving my dark past behind me, where it belongs, and it seems like fate has finally smiled on me when she comes into my life.
Innocent, pure, and with a bright future ahead of her, she’s the girl I always wanted and never deserved.
Then, those scumbags steal her right from under of my nose.
But they don’t know who I am, or the lives I’ve taken. They’re out to make some quick cash by selling a pure bride, and there’s no way I’m going to let that happen. Not to her.
I have to risk everything to save her.
Then, I’ll try to win her heart and make her mine.
A full length Standalone Romantic Suspense novel. No Cliffhangers. Safe from cheating. Explicit language & swearing.
Prologue
I step out of the black sedan and into the midnight rain that’s drenching all of Paris tonight. The raindrops roll down my black leather jacket, trailing down my gloved hands to trickle in thin drops onto the dark cobblestone of the streets beneath my feet.
It’s past midnight, and most people are already either sleeping or shuffling out of the bars to get ready for the next day’s drudgery in the city of lights.
The apartment building in front of me is an upscale kind of place, not unusual for some of the city’s wealthier residents. The stone on the outside might have been white once, but it is now faded, the lion statues near the entrance having lost their bite long ago. As I step towards the door and swipe the cardkey, the glass doors open for me, and I make my way in swiftly, my weapon low at my side.
I pull my collar up and keep my gaze down as I make my way to the stairs leading below ground level. I have one stop to make before seeing to the main event for tonight. A short flight of stairs brings me to a door, and I can hear a television playing behind it. Raising a fist, I pound on the door.
“What?” comes the superintendent's surly French voice from within the room. I wait a moment before pounding on the door again, a little more demanding this time. I hear an angry groan from the other side before footsteps approach the door. “If the internet is out again, it can wait for the morning,” he says as he opens the door, but his eyes widen at the sight of me for only an instant before I’m upon him with a cloth to his mouth and nose, his whole body seizing up as he draws a sharp breath before slipping into unconsciousness.
Closing the door behind me, I carry the limp body back to the chair he’d been sitting in. There are reruns of old football matches playing on the television, giving me a backdrop while I shuffle through the man’s belongings, knowing I only have a small window of time to find what I’m after.
In another few seconds, I discover the apartment master key sitting under a soiled napkin, and I take it, leaving the room as swiftly and silently as a phantom.
My footsteps make little noise as I ascend the staircase, key clenched in my hand. The stairs go in a spiral up the side of the building, and a glass pane window gives me a full view of the world outside as I move.
As I near the top floor, my gaze glances out over the cityscape to my right, and the soft glow of the remaining city lights hover over the Parisian skyline like a corona. I slow my steps for just a moment, my cold gaze pausing to appreciate the tarnished jewel of Europe before I pick up my pace again.
The soft glow of the city lights have only an instant to shine on a glint of metal on the silenced-pistol I’m drawing from my jacket pocket.
I soften my steps to near-silence as I reach the top floor, a wide and polished foyer leading to a single ornate door with a large man posted outside it, his arms folded as he thumbs through a dirty magazine.
He has time only to raise his head while I raise my pistol. When he crumples to the ground a second later, I wonder if he even had time for fear to swell up in his heart. His is the only life I might have had a shred of remorse for taking tonight, if I hadn’t hardened my heart to such business long, long ago.
I walk over to the man’s body, and the roaring laughter and music coming from inside the door tells me that not a soul heard my approach. I bend down to check the bullet hole in the guard’s head before pressing an ear to the door.
The voices within are mostly older men, some slurred, some merry, but all speaking in Russian, my mother tongue. But I hear some of them speaking to women.
“Boris, tell that bitch of yours to bring another beer and take a seat on me.”
“She doesn’t speak Russian yet —the only language these French girls understand is cock, don’t you know?”
“Well shit, she’d better start giving me some poetry then, unless she wants to be given to the help outside!”
There’s a sound of a terrified, quiet voice in French I can’t quite make out, but it’s followed by laughter from the men. “Hey, maybe she should meet her date for tonight, go get the guard and have him come strip her for us, I’m bored with poker for tonight.”
As they’ve been speaking, I’ve been sliding the master key into the lock and turning it quietly, slowly. My muscles tense as I hear heavy footsteps approaching the door, and I see that my chance is coming faster than I expected.
Just before the footsteps reach the door, I throw it open, cracking the corner against the face of whomever was being sent to fetch the dead guard, and he crumples to the ground as I move in and bring my heel down on his throat and hold up my pistol.
The room is a haze of cigar smoke in the palpably tense instants I enter the penthouse. It’s a luxurious suite, with marble floors and mahogany furniture giving the place the look of an upscale antique store. There’s some art hanging on the walls, all rather high-quality forgeries. At least ten men turn their eyes to me, many of them in recognition. Some are old, some are young. Three are sitting around a table, playing poker. Another few men are sitting around on couches and armchairs, apparently having been talking before I came in. There are two women in the room, one of them on a man’s lap in an armchair, the other holding a tray of cocktails.
“You bastard,” one of the men playing poker has time to growl at me before three rounds of my weapon strike true on all three men at the poker table, my aim moving with deadly precision before one of the women screams, and I duck behind the half-wall that leads into the room as chaos breaks loose.
The remaining men stand up, some of them reaching for their guns as they dive for cover, and shouts in Russian fill the room. I hear footsteps and movement the moment I’m out of sight, and I make a note to watch for those who’ve left the room. Bullets hit the wall behind me as I duck, but I can tell from the number of shots fired that not all the men have weapons at the ready. Meaning I have only a matter of moments to end this before this becomes a full firefight.
I hear a cry from one of the men and the sound of glass breaking on the ground, and I seize my opportunity, popping out of hiding.
One of the enslaved women had struck one of the armed men with her tray, and before he can get his bearings and retaliate, I put a bullet between his eyes and charge into the room.
Having been distracted by the scene, one of the armed men starts to turn to me, but I reach him first, grabbing his wrist and shoving his arm up as he fires, blasting a hole in the ceiling above before he cries out as I break his wrist and bring my pistol to his heart and pull the trigger.
Five rounds.
The gunfire had ceased, and I turn in time to feel a sting on my right arm as one of the older men brings a kitchen knife across it, and there’s blood on his blade as he finishes. I recognize the man, the one they’d called Boris, and his steely eyes lock with mine.
“You think this game of yours will go unnoticed?” he snarls. “You think the Bratva will just roll over and play along with your wishes, you fucking upstart?”
I have no words to waste my breath on, and even as he brings his knife in for another strike, my fist is faster, and I catch him in the stomach, doubling him over. I wrench the knife from his hand and ram it into his belly faster than he can react, and as blood runs down the
man’s front while he gasps, collapsing into the hot fireplace, I turn my attention to two younger men who are barreling for me.
Grimacing, I hurl the knife at the wall, not far from the first woman, who jumps back, her eyes wide as she looks at it while I brace myself to deal with the two men.
One dives for me, and I easily use his weight against him, hurling him to the ground as I swing to catch the second man with a blow to the chin, sending him staggering. He comes back around to tackle me to the ground, but a swift kick to the knee cripples him with a pained shout, and he falls to the ground with his partner.
While they gather their bearings, I reach down to one of the bodies of the armed men, picking up a pistol and putting a bullet into each of the men who dove for me. Their bodies thud to the ground unceremoniously.
With the room cleared, I move to the wall near the entrance to the hallway. My heart jumps to my throat as a man I’d missed stands up from behind the couch, pistol in hand, but before I can turn my weapon to him, I hear him grunt as the first woman sinks the kitchen knife into his back from behind, and she stands back as he falls to the ground, her hands shaking as the weapon falls from her grip.
My eyes watch her for a moment as she looks up at me, fearful. “Flee. You saw nothing tonight,” I inform her in French, and she simply nods before dashing for the door, her footsteps echoing down the stairs.
Returning my attention to the hallway, I brace myself before blind-firing two rounds with the pistol I’d picked up, and I hear two men shout and shuffle for cover as I turn around the corner. One of my shots catches the hip of a man diving into the bathroom, and swiftly, I follow him in before he can regain his bearings.
I point my pistol to his head as I press myself against the wall, and he holds his hands up in surrender, terrified. I nod to the hallway and mouth ‘how many?’ He glances to the doorway and holds up one finger. I nod and fire my pistol, catching him between the eyes before whipping around into the hallway and aiming for the far bedroom doorway.
Sights on the SEAL: A Secret Baby Romance Page 44