Darker Than Love
Anna Zaires
Charmaine Pauls
Contents
Prologue
Part I
1. Mina
2. Yan
3. Mina
4. Yan
5. Mina
Part II
6. Yan
7. Mina
8. Mina
9. Mina
10. Yan
11. Mina
12. Yan
13. Mina
Part III
14. Mina
15. Yan
16. Mina
17. Mina
18. Yan
19. Mina
20. Yan
21. Mina
22. Yan
23. Mina
24. Mina
25. Yan
26. Yan
27. Mina
28. Mina
29. Yan
30. Yan
31. Yan
32. Mina
33. Yan
34. Mina
35. Yan
36. Mina
37. Yan
Epilogue: Mina
Excerpt from Dubious by Charmaine Pauls
Excerpt from Tormentor Mine by Anna Zaires
About the Authors
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2020 Anna Zaires and Charmaine Pauls
All rights reserved.
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Except for use in a review, no part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
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Published by Grey Eagle Publications
www.greyeaglepublications.com
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Cover by Najla Qamber Designs
www.najlaqamberdesigns.com
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ISBN: 978-1-64366-071-4
Print ISBN: 978-1-64366-142-1
Prologue
30 kilometers outside of Budapest, 23 Years Earlier
Publisher’s Note: If you’ve read the prequel novella Sweeter Than Hate, you may wish to go directly to Part III.
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“Mommy.” The little girl tugs on her mother’s sleeve from the backseat. “Mommy, can I have a cookie?”
She’s bored and hungry. It’s getting dark, and all she can see through the car window are trees and snow. They’re taking the scenic route, Daddy said, a pretty route. But it’s a longer route, and she doesn’t find it all that pretty. She’d much rather they took the train to Grandma Hanna’s place, like always.
“No, my darling. We’ll be having dinner soon.” Her mother turns around in the passenger seat to glance at her. The corners of her blue eyes crinkle with a warm smile, her white-blond hair waving softly around her face as she says, “Just wait a little longer, okay?”
“Okay.” The girl sighs and looks out the window. Trees, snow, trees. The black ribbon of the asphalt winding through the forest. All boring, boring, boring. But she’s a good girl, and she knows better than to whine.
Proper meals are important. Listening to parents is important. And if her mother says there will be dinner soon, she trusts that it is so.
She’s zoning out, half-dozing, when her father suddenly slams on the brakes, bad words she’s only heard on TV flying from his mouth. Her small body jerks forward, kept in place only by the seatbelt cutting into her as the car screeches to a halt.
“Ow!” She rubs her forehead where it hit the hard cushion of the back seat. “Daddy, that hurt!”
“Hush, Mina.” Her father’s voice is strangely tight as he stares straight ahead. “Just be quiet, okay, sweetheart?”
Blinking, the little girl lowers her hand and follows his gaze. Two men are standing in front of the car. Where did they come from? Were they just standing on the road like that?
Is that why Daddy hit the brakes so hard?
One man approaches and knocks on the driver’s window with something hard and pointy.
Her stomach swoops down like a bird, and she suddenly feels cold and dizzy. Because the hard, pointy thing is a gun. And the other man, the one in front of the car, is also aiming a gun at the windshield. Both weapons are black and dangerous-looking, like the ones they show in movies, not bright blue like the toy gun Daddy got her for playing soldiers-and-captives with the neighborhood boys. She’s really good at those types of games, fast and strong despite her tiny build. She can beat all the boys, but she doesn’t have her blue gun with her. And these aren’t boys.
She can hear her father’s breathing. It’s fast and ragged as he presses the button to lower the window. The stranger leans down, and her mother chokes back a sob as he presses the gun—the scary-looking black gun—to her father’s temple.
“Get out.” The stranger’s voice is low and mean. “We need the fucking car.”
“P-please.” Her mother’s voice is thin and high, as shaky as her breathing. “Please, don’t do this. W-we have a daughter.”
The stranger’s eyes cut to the girl in the backseat, his cold, cruel stare slicing through her like a knife before he returns his attention to her father. “I said, get the fuck out.”
“Okay, okay. Just a sec.” Her father sounds out of breath as he unlatches his seatbelt. “Come on, honey. Let’s just… let’s go.”
He opens the door and the man yanks him out of the car, causing him to sprawl on the asphalt. Crying audibly, the girl’s mother scrambles out of the car on her own and jerks open the back door, reaching for her daughter’s seatbelt.
The little girl is also crying. She’s never been so scared. It’s freezing outside, and the icy wind bites into her as her mother pulls her out, then reaches back in to grab her coat. She doesn’t understand what’s happening, why these bad men are allowed to do this. Why Daddy doesn’t have a gun of his own so he can stop them. If she had hers, she’d try, even though it’s bright blue and doesn’t look dangerous at all.
The other man, the one in front of the car, comes toward them. Up close, he’s even more terrifying than his partner, his face unshaven and his darting eyes filled with a kind of madness.
“Stop dicking around,” he hisses, his gaze bouncing from his buddy to the girl’s crying mother, who’s putting the coat on the girl with shaking hands, to the girl’s father, who’s hurrying around the car toward his wife and daughter. “We need to go.”
The cold-eyed man gets behind the wheel. “Then let’s go. Get in.” He slams the door shut.
The terrifying man’s gaze darts to him, then again to the girl’s parents—who are now in front of her, shielding her with their bodies.
“Please.” Her father’s voice quavers as he pushes the little girl farther behind him. “Please, you have the car now. Please, go. We won’t tell, I swear. Just… go.”
The terrifying man smiles, the madness in his eyes glowing brighter. “Sorry, no witnesses allowed.” And he lifts the gun.
Pop! Pop!
The gunshots punch the girl’s ears like a blow. Dazed, she stumbles back as her parents crumple in front of her and a sharp, burning smell fills the air, mixing with something coppery and metallic.
“What the fuck?” The other man sticks his head out the window. “That wasn’t the plan!”
“Wait,” the killer says, taking aim at the little girl, but she’s already running. She might be small, but she’s fast, so fast she darts behind the trees before the next shot rings out. Behind her, she can hear the hijackers arguing, but she keeps running, her heart beating
like a hummingbird’s wings.
She doesn’t run far into the forest. Instead, she finds a clump of above-ground roots and hides there, all the while telling herself it’s just a game she’s playing. The tears freezing on her face and the tremors wracking her tiny body belie that story, but she ignores them.
She’s strong and fast. She can beat all the boys. Even the adult ones with black, scary-looking guns that make her ears hurt. So what if she’s hungry and so cold she can barely feel her nose and toes? She’s going to wait for the bad men to leave, then go back and find her parents. And they’ll hug her and tell her what a good girl she is. Then they’ll all go and have dinner.
So she waits and waits, shivering in the coat her mother put on her. By the time she climbs out of her hiding place, it’s completely dark, with only the full moon lighting her way, and she’s afraid something will jump out at her from the trees. A wolf or a bear or a monster. At six, she’s still young enough to believe in monsters of the non-human kind.
Choking down her fear, she retraces her steps, like she would in a game of soldiers-and-captives. The car and the bad men are gone, but her parents are there, lying by the side of the road in the exact same way as when they fell: her mother on her side, white-blond hair covering her face, and her father on his back, his face turned the other way.
The girl’s heart skips a beat, then starts racing so fast it hurts. She feels dizzy again, and cold. But it’s not her nose or hands or toes that are freezing now; it’s something deep inside her. Trembling, she kneels by her mother and tugs on her sleeve. “Mommy. Mommy, please. Let’s go.”
There’s no response, and when she looks down at her hand, she sees a smear of red on her fingers. And on her jeans.
She’s kneeling in a puddle of blood.
Her stomach turns over, and she feels like she might vomit. Backing up on all fours, she bumps into her father’s side. “Daddy!” She grabs his hand and squeezes it with all her strength. “Daddy, wake up!”
But he doesn’t answer either. His hand is stiff and icy in her grip, and when she turns his face toward her, his eyes are open, as if he’s staring at the full moon above.
Only there’s no expression in his eyes. They’re blank, unseeing. And in the middle of his forehead is a hole.
Trembling all over, the little girl rises to her feet. She doesn’t feel hungry anymore, but she’s cold. So very, very cold. It’s as if the snow is inside her, filling her stomach and chest. It feels good in a way, numbing. The painful, hummingbird-like fluttering of her heart seems to quiet down, edged out by the iciness that fills her lungs with every breath she takes.
The girl doesn’t know how long she stands there, staring at the dead bodies of her parents. All she knows is that by the time she turns and starts walking, there’s no more pain or fear inside her.
Her heart is snow and ice.
Part I
1
Mina
Budapest, 15 Months Earlier
A wave of dizziness washes over me, and the tray I’m carrying wobbles in my hands, causing the beer bottles to topple over, spilling the foaming liquid.
Dammit. When is this going to end?
Gritting my teeth, I sink to one knee behind the column and set the tray on the sticky floor, pretending to tie the shoelaces on my Doc Martens while I wait for the dizziness to pass and my hands to stop shaking.
Thirty seconds pass. Then a minute. And my stupid hands are still shaking.
Cursing under my breath, I mop at the spilled beer with a rag. That much I can manage. Lifting the tray itself, though, is beyond me. It weighs only a couple of kilos, but I’m so weak it might as well be a hundred. And this is only the start of my shift. I have no idea how I’m going to last until the bar closes tonight. Maybe Hanna was right. Maybe this is too soon, and I should—
“—pop that fucker right in the head.” The words, spoken in Russian in a gruff male voice, jolt me like a gunshot. Instinctively, I freeze in place, my military training kicking in as I scan my surroundings, searching for the threat.
There. Two o’clock, a round table behind the column, in Ella’s section. The column is hiding most of the table from my view, but I can tell there are two men sitting there.
“One shot, that’s all we’re likely getting, Sokolov said,” the speaker continues. “And since the target’s likely to be wearing a vest—”
“I know,” the other man interrupts, his deep voice smooth despite the hint of annoyance in his tone. “Aim for the head.”
A chill skitters through my veins. I didn’t misunderstand. These are indeed professionals discussing an upcoming hit—and I’m crouching right there, less than two meters away from them.
The same column that’s blocking them from my view is hiding me and has been for the past couple of minutes, which must be why they’re talking so freely. Though the bar is fairly crowded, they’re in a nook of sorts, shielded by the column, and with the noise level in the room, nobody at the other tables can hear them.
I can, though.
And if I get up from where I’m crouching, they’ll realize that, and I may not walk out of here alive.
A year ago, I wouldn’t have blinked twice, confident in my ability to handle whatever comes my way. But in my current state, I’m no match for an aggressive rat, much less two men who specialize in killing.
Men who are as dangerous as I am.
Quickly, I assess my options. I can stay here and hope no one sees me until the Russians leave, but odds are, Ella will come upon me at any moment.
The other alternative—and the one I’m leaning toward—is to get up and feign total ignorance. After all, it’s entirely possible that I don’t speak Russian well enough to understand what they said. It’s highly likely, in fact, as most Hungarians of my generation learn English in school instead.
Yes, that’s it. I’m just going to play dumb. And to do that, I have to expose myself rather than wait to be exposed.
The surge of adrenaline steadies my hands. Picking up the tray, I rise to my feet, loudly muttering curses in Hungarian. Because that’s what an innocent, ignorant waitress would do if she spilled beer all over her tray and had no idea she was within grabbing distance of two killers.
“Mina, are you okay?” Ella asks, passing by with her own tray of drinks, and I give her a reassuring grin.
“Yep, just clumsy today.” I’m purposefully not looking in the direction of the table, but I can feel the men’s eyes on me as I step behind the column and head back to the bar to swap out the beer bottles.
As I walk, my heart hammers in my chest, and a trickle of cold sweat runs down my spine. I can sense their stares following me, but I keep the smile on my face as I swing behind the bar, throw the bottles in the recycling bin, and start cleaning off the tray.
See? I’m just doing my job. That’s what I’m hoping my casual actions say. I’m an innocent waitress, that’s all.
When my tray is clean, I load it up with more bottles and sashay over to my section, still avoiding looking in the direction of the column. My pulse is much too fast, but the expression on my face is bright and cheerful, as befits someone working for tips.
Fifteen minutes pass. Twenty. After a half hour, I risk a glance behind the column as I deliver cocktails to a group of college girls.
Shit.
The two men are still there, and they’re still looking at me.
I quickly look away, but not before I register their appearance. One is huge, both tall and broad, like a linebacker in American football. His head is shaved, and his skull is decorated with tattoos, emphasizing his strong, almost brutish features. He’s dressed casually, in a pair of jeans and a black hoodie over a dark T-shirt. The other one is of the same height but a leaner build, and is wearing a stylish pair of dress slacks with a white button-up shirt, as if he’s just come from a business meeting or an interview. His hair is dark brown, but his eyes are light and striking, though I can’t tell the exact color from this distance.
In general, everything about the leaner man is striking, from the strong, chiseled lines of his darkly handsome face to the power and self-assurance evident in his deceptively indolent pose.
Instinctively, I know he’s the one I need to fear.
He’s the one who’ll decide if I get home alive.
To my shock, my heartbeat jacks up, and a frisson of heat blooms between my legs as I picture myself fighting him. My body clearly didn’t get the memo that danger—something I’ve always been drawn to—is a bad thing for me right now. Even worse, my brain seems to be interpreting the effects of adrenaline as sexual arousal… as attraction to the man who’s likely considering whether he needs to slice my throat or not.
This is not good.
Not good at all.
I can feel his gaze following me as I move about my work. The other man is looking at me too, but it’s the dangerous stranger’s stare I feel most viscerally, as if he’s already touching me. Electricity skates over my skin, and more heat floods my core as I imagine him actually touching me, and not with the sharp edge of his blade.
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