I watch her hands and feet find their way around the stonework as she tries to lower herself down in all that expensive clothing. I know what a person with a plan looks like, and I can’t see that kind of drive in her. She’s improvising, because she has nothing else to turn to. Hell, if I hadn’t bribed the guards to stay away from this area, an alarm would already be going up.
She scrambles down a few steps, and I watch her pull the window shut behind her. That’s clever. It might only buy her a few seconds, but a few seconds can be the most valuable thing in the world at times like this.
No sooner has she shut the window than I see one of her feet leave the stone it was resting on, and when she lets her weight back down, she loses the purchase she had a second ago.
Every muscle in my body acts at once.
I burst from the hedges like a maniac, abandoning my covert hiding spot, abandoning the plan, abandoning the chance at revenge I’ve waited so long for.
Because the girl is falling, and there’s about ten feet of nothing but air to the stone below.
I leave my rifle behind. It can’t be traced to me, so the only thing that I will lose from this is the cost of one of my favorite weapons. My legs carry me quickly through the brush, every millisecond passing like a full minute as I watch her body fall. She puts her hands to her mouth, not wanting to scream and raise an alarm prematurely. At least she has good sense, but it will all be in vain if I can’t get to her in time.
I don’t even perceive the obstacles between me and her. Every instinct in my powerful body works together to clear the distance between us. There is a low stone wall between the patio her small frame is headed for and the rest of the garden. I put a leg up on it and kick myself up into the air as she falls.
For a split second, I can hear her quick, sharp breath as she braces to hit the ground.
My arms wrap around her mid-air, and I intercept the fall, turning my back to hit the stone wall of the house with the girl in my arms.
Her whole body is frozen solid as a rock, her eyes wide open and staring up. She must have no idea what just happened to her. She might even be expecting that she is dead. I look down at her and give her a shake, trying to get her attention. Frightened eyes turn to me, and her face goes pale as she recognizes the eyes looking down at her. I can sense her body tensing up, about to scream, so I reach up to my balaclava and pull the mask off, glowering down at her.
“You,” she breathes, her voice thin and fragile.
“We need to run,” I growl. “Now.”
Anastasia
I stare up into my savior’s face, stunned to silence. The same enchanting, blue, oceanic eyes that caught my attention at the airport are gazing down at me now. His black hair is slightly ruffled from pulling off his balaclava, and I follow the sharp cut of his cheekbones cast in shape contrast by the light of the moon and shadows of the night. There’s a wildness to him that unsettles and intrigues me at the same time. Like I’m staring into the eyes of a mighty beast, and I’m not sure yet if he’s a protector or a predator.
Something tells me he is the former, though. Especially since I now know acutely what a true predator looks and feels like. Liev is a predator. I am his prey. Or at least, I will be if we don’t get the hell out of here fast.
The world is silent except for our breathing, and the thumping of my heartbeat. It seems as though the entire atmosphere has frozen, crystallized in place as we look at each other. The recognition in his eyes warms my heart even though I know how foolish that sounds. I don’t really know this man. He’s a stranger. I saw him once in a crowded airport and that’s it.
We didn’t even get a chance to exchange names, or even really words, and yet, I have the strange sense that he knows me. Not just on a shallow, surface level, but he knows my heart. My soul. My intentions. My fears. He knows why I’m here, why I just fell from the window. He knows how much danger I am in, and how much danger he is in for catching me. I’m dangerous to know. I realize that. And the second I fell into his arms, he became a target, as well.
But something about the ferocity, the fire crackling in his blue eyes tells me that this man, my mysterious protector, is more than capable of handling it. And that’s a good thing, because suddenly, I hear a terrible sound that breaks the silence.
A creaking noise.
The door opening to a room above us, the room from which I just escaped. My eyes go wide and I gasp, but the man instantly puts his hand over my mouth. His jaw tenses up and the fire in his eyes intensifies. He gives me an almost imperceptible shake of his head, warning me not to make a sound. But it gets worse. I hear loud music blasting from the room, and it gets louder when the window squeaks open. My heart sinks down to my stomach and my blood runs cold in my veins. Liev. He’s opening the window.
I hear him bark my name. “Anastasia?”
He sounds angry and confused. We have seconds before he glances down and figures it out. We are slightly obscured by the hedges, but we have almost certainly left an impression in the pristinely-kept foliage. Again, Liev calls out my name, this time louder and more insistent.
“Anastasia!”
I close my eyes tightly, too terrified to look. My mystery man stands stock-still, holding me in his arms. And then, through the dark veil of my eyelids, I can detect a bright light passing over us.
A floodlight.
The man from the airport hisses in my ear, “Take my hand. Run.”
In one swift, fluid movement he sets me on my feet, grabs my hand, and yanks me along behind him as he takes off through the thick hedges, weaving in and out of the topiary bushes with me stumbling a step behind.
My heart is racing, my shorter legs struggling to keep up with my much more athletic escort. He moves with the speed and agility of some apex predator, a silky black panther or a wolf, darting in between the flashes of light. I whimper with terror as the adrenaline floods through my veins, and we’re moving so quickly it feels like my heart might explode.
My entire chest is on fire. I’m not out of shape, but I am no athlete either, and I can’t keep up with him. He tightens his grip on my hand, dragging me along as the sharp twigs and thorns of the hedges scratch at my clothes, skin, and hair. I feel a lock of my long, wavy hair get ripped out of my scalp to dangle from a thorny branch behind us and I can’t help but yelp in agony and surprise.
My designer blouse is being ripped to shreds, my feet aching in my hot pink Balenciaga slingback pumps, which are absolutely not made for this kind of frantic escape. Every cell in my body is aflame with fear and pain, mingling together to reach a screaming fever pitch inside me. I was not prepared for this. For any of this.
Hell, a week ago I was lounging around a beautiful marble palace on the Black Sea coast, not a single care or worry in the world to weigh me down.
Now it feels like the entire earth itself is bearing down on my delicate shoulders, and I don’t have the life experience or physical strength to carry it. How was I supposed to know a week ago that my father, the man who has doted on and cared for me my entire life, has been plotting for years to toss me away? He has been grooming and preparing me for a fate I have no say in, like I am some mindless, empty-headed object he can trade off to the highest bidder. I’m nothing but a shiny, pretty asset to him, even though I am his own flesh and blood.
The sting of betrayal slinks in underneath the panic and pain, adding another dose of bitterness to the shit cocktail that has become my life. I have spent my whole life comfortable in the role of a spoiled, sheltered little rich girl, and nothing I have done or seen has come even close to preparing me for this moment right now.
I can’t even believe this is my life: running away from the man who wants to make me his submissive, domestic little wife to dominate and manipulate to his heart’s content, all thanks to my father, who I have always trusted to take care of me.
Is he not the man I thought he was? Have I been living a lie all these beautiful years? All the gifts, the lovely clothes, the d
esigner shoes, the makeup, the handbags, the gourmet dining, the trips around the world in first class—always first class.
It’s all been a series of coins fed into the vending machine that would pump out the finished product: a demure, pampered, agreeable young woman who does whatever she is told because she has no reason not to trust.
Me.
I’m the finished product.
I never saw any of this coming. I never knew what to expect. How could I? At what point in my happy, easy existence was I supposed to notice the malicious evil behind my father’s every decision? The motivation for his kindness? The silent, unspoken exchange of power that took place every time he promised me something shiny and new and beautiful?
Right now, I feel like the biggest idiot in the world. And I also feel like I might pass out or fall over at any moment, because my body is not ready for this kind of hasty, dangerous escape. But luckily, my mysterious rescuer seems to have been born for this.
“Come on!” he whispers back at me, glancing over his shoulder.
I can feel tears prickling up in my eyes as my legs start to go numb. I can’t tell if we’ve been running for five minutes or five seconds. Or five years. My mind is so cluttered with panic and adrenaline that it’s gone blank. My vision narrows down to a tunnel, to a sharp point. And in the center of what I can still see, what I can still feel, is the powerful man dragging me along dutifully, not abandoning me even though he could move so much faster without me. Holding onto my hand and refusing to let go even though I am just a liability to him. Because whatever the hell he was doing here, hidden in the hedges, I’m not too sheltered to realize it can’t have been for a good reason. A legal reason.
I wish I could ask him.
What is he doing here? Why is he skulking around Liev Ovechkin’s private gardens? Has he been watching me? Is that why I saw him at the airport? The way my father betrayed me has messed with my mind, made me paranoid. I suspect everyone and everything now. Perhaps this man has been watching me all this time.
But why?
Right now, it doesn’t really matter, though. Because either way, he’s helping me for the time being. I may not know his exact intentions and motivations for being here, but I know he can’t possibly be any worse than the cruel, ugly, misogynist pig up on the second floor of the mansion.
He’s saving me from the man I know for a fact is a bad guy.
Right now, the why is much less important than the how. As in, how the hell are we going to get out of here? I know Liev well enough to realize that he’s got eyes and ears everywhere, just like my father. And guards. There have got be guards around here somewhere. Clearly Liev has realized I’m missing. He knows something is up, and it’s only matter of time before—
“Stop!” shouts a loud, deep voice from somewhere off to our left. I gasp with horror as my fear comes true. A guard. But the man pulling me along doesn’t listen. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even hesitate for a second. Not even when we burst out of the hedges and into a clearing with a paved walkway, lit with moody bluish tiki torches. Our cover is blown. We’re no longer hidden by the greenery. We are totally exposed, and a single quick glance tells me that the guard I heard a moment ago is only about twenty yards away, and he’s not empty-handed.
He’s holding a gun. A really, really big one. And he looks like he knows what he’s doing with it, too. The guard is dressed in all green camouflage, like some kind of special operations soldier or something. He looks pissed. He starts chasing after us, the barrel of his enormous weapon pointed right at us. I let out a shriek of terror and my savior tightens his grip on my hand, shoving me in front of him so that his body is shielding me, in between the guard and me.
Only I don’t know where to go. I don’t know where to run.
“Weave!” he commands in a low, insistent growl. At first his command makes no sense to me, but he grabs me by the waist, both of his hands on my hips, and guides me first way off to the right, and then back off to the left, so that we’re running in a zigzag pattern across the grounds. It occurs to me somewhere in the back of my mind that the whole point is to make us less easy targets, to make the guard have a more difficult time aiming at us. That realization only frightens me more—I am not used to this level of true danger. I have never had a gun pointed in my direction before.
And my lungs are on fire. I struggle to drag air into my chest as we run so fast, my legs starting to wobble and go weak. My white blouse is stained with sweat and tears and greenish-gray stains from the foliage. The silken sleeves are torn into thin ribbons by the thorns, and I know I must look like a caricature of some desert island castaway right now.
Just then, the pointy heel of my left shoe gets stuck in between two jaunty cobblestones and I nearly stumble to my knees, the sheer momentum of our escape slamming me down. I scream out as the man behind me catches me in his arms for the second time, and the heel of my shoe breaks off, leaving my feet at uneven heights.
I make a split second decision to kick them both off, regaining my composure quickly and breaking into a barefoot, desperate run. My mystery man is hot on my heels, helping me remember to weave. The guard fires a warning shot into the air, and the sound is so loud it makes my ears ring. He’s closer now. My momentary stumble set us back a couple of seconds, and in a situation like this, a couple seconds is more than enough to ruin us.
It’s over. I can feel it. My body doesn’t want to try anymore. I’m so tired.
I look back over my shoulder, wide-eyed, and to my surprise and confusion, the guard isn’t there. The blue-eyed man urges me to keep moving, grabbing my hand again and pulling me along behind him. There isn’t time to second guess any of it. We just have to move. But I can see the wrought-iron gate ahead of us, looming tall and spiky. And what’s more, I notice that on this section of the perimeter, there’s barbed wire coiling around the top of the fence.
“Fuck,” I hiss to myself. But my mystery guy doesn’t slow down. He seems to have a plan. And as we come closer to the wall, I can squint and make out a dark shape draped over the top of the gate. A jacket. I catch a glint of moonlight reflecting off the shiny coat buttons. And lodged over it is what looks to be… a grappling hook? I grimace at the sight of it, unable to make sense of that in my head. Grappling hooks are the stuff of movies, not real life.
Did this guy seriously use a grappling hook to get over the wall?
There’s no time to ask. We run straight up to the wall, and I swivel around to stare at him in confusion. But again, he doesn’t hesitate. To my shock, he grabs me by the waist again and hoists me up as easily as if I might be a feather pillow.
I don’t have time to question it, only to react with pure instinct. I reach out and grab hold of the fence, my hands curling over the thick jacket to protect myself from the barbs. The man steadies my legs with his hands wrapped around my narrow calves and pushes me up so that I can clumsily climb over the top of the fence and drop to the other side. It hurts when I hit the ground, landing on my feet. The impact rattles up through my ankles, and I whimper in pain.
A moment later, the man drops down to the ground beside me and helps me up with one strong arm. He all but carries me away through the palm trees and scratchy underbrush. My bare feet sting as I stumble over thorns, and I can tell I’m slowing us down. I’m going to get us killed.
Without a single word, the man scoops me up over his shoulder and breaks into a sprint, carrying me down the road. In the near total darkness, I can hardly tell which direction we’re going, much less what our destination is. But it becomes clear a few seconds alter, when I see the reflection of shiny black finish in the moonlight: a sleek, elegant black car just barely hidden off the side of the road.
He yanks open the passenger-side door, cradles me into the seat, and then climbs in behind the steering wheel. He jams the key into the ignition and the engine roars to life. With a high-pitched squeal, the tires roll backward out of the brush and onto the road. He does a quick U-turn and takes
off away from Liev’s estate, the expensive car rumbling quietly through the peaceful residential neighborhood. I know enough about the area to realize that we’ve got a long way to go to the interstate. I assume that’s where he’s headed.
It hits me that I’m in a car with a stranger whose name I don’t even know. A man who was lurking in the bushes, who just happened to catch me as I fell. Who is he? What is his intention with me? How did we get here?
I glance over at him in the darkness, my heart still racing. He looks angry, his dark brows furrowed and his jaw tensing up as his hands white-knuckle the wheel. For a split second, I am afraid of him. But then he turns to meet my gaze, and instantly his features soften. He offers me a warm, reassuring smile, just like he did back in the airport, and a feeling of calm floods through my body.
I release the long-held breath burning up my lungs. Wherever we’re going, it’s got to be an improvement upon where I just came from. And whoever he is, I’m grateful to him. I know he knows how bad it was. How desperately I needed to be saved. Regardless of where we end up and regardless of why it’s happening, I’m glad he found me.
But my relief is short-lived, because before we even make it out of the ritzy neighborhood, I hear the unmistakable wail of police sirens somewhere in the distance, echoing eerily in the night.
Nikolai
I have dealt with jobs that didn’t go according to plan. I’ve even dealt with jobs that I’ve had to pull out of at the last minute, jobs that have gone completely haywire and up in flames.
But I have never pulled out of a job like this before.
And I have never done it so recklessly.
My livelihood depends on being prepared for every possible situation, but even with the weeks of preparation I put into this hit, I never expected that things could have unfolded in this direction. She should not have been delivered to Liev so quickly, nor could I have ever anticipated that she would do something as brazen as trying to escape with no plan. I can tell that she has only been thinking one step at a time, never knowing what’s around the next corner or who might be waiting for her.
Killing for Her Page 6