Grind

by Sybil Bartel

  “What happened to your side?” she deflected.

  I dropped my hand and pulled my shirt over my head one-handed. “I was stabbed.”

  Her gaze cut to my ribs then to my shoulder. She tried to hide her surprise. “And your shoulder?”

  “Shot.” She was no longer the inconvenience I’d encountered an hour ago. She was a fucking disaster about to detonate my life to hell. Every instinct I had said she was going to shred my careful existence worse than any fucking IED.

  She scanned the other scars on my chest, then she pressed the kitchen towel to my ribs. “Your stitches aren’t holding.”

  I lifted my arm to give her better access because I was a goddamn fool. “I broke through them in the barn.” Her scent was pure woman and desire, but she smelled like fucking trouble.

  Oblivious to my thoughts, she nodded once. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

  I peered down at her, wondering how far I would let this go. “Would you know what to do with it if I did?”

  “I guess you’re about to find out. Where is it?” Her straight white-blonde hair covered her face as she pulled back the towel to see the wound.

  Already pushing at the last boundary I had in my life, I brushed the strands behind her ear.

  She flinched, then sucked in a breath and glanced up at me.

  “You okay?” I quietly asked.

  Her chest rose and fell, and she looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. “Yes.”

  I didn’t do affection. Affection was complication and complication was attachment, and I didn’t get attached. Fucking ever. “Linen closet, top shelf.” I brushed the back of my hand across her cheek.

  Her small fingers closed over my wrist then she placed my hand on the towel. “Hold this.” She walked to the closet a second time.

  Every step she took, she transformed from a spoiled Goldilocks to a woman I wanted to fuck. Despite the pain in my side, despite the fact I shouldn’t even be thinking about touching a woman as fucked-up as her, my dick took notice of her every movement as she set my kit on the counter.

  “Wash your hands.” I clipped out the order, then gave Hunter a hand command to do an interior patrol of the house.

  The dog took off, and she did as I said without comment.

  “There’re gloves and peroxide in the kit. You good with a needle?” I hated staples, almost as much as I hated complications.

  She put on a pair of gloves. “No.” She opened the peroxide. “This is going to sting.” Not waiting for a response, she pulled the towel back and poured the liquid all over my wound.

  I inhaled through my nose. “Grab the skin stapler kit.”

  “You already have stitches.” She took out one of the packaged sutures that was already pre-threaded with a needle.

  “Stapling will be easier.” I shouldn’t have cared about wanting to make it easier on her. She wasn’t going to make my life easy.

  She shrugged and ripped open the preloaded single-use stapler. “Whatever.”

  “You need to—” I didn’t get the rest of the sentence out.

  She’d already pinched the sides of the wound and pressed the handle. “Staple. I got it.” She put in another one.

  I clenched my jaw. “You’ve done this before?”

  Another. “No. But I sewed my mother’s finger together when I was twelve.” She put in one more, then leaned back to look at her work. “We grew up poor. I didn’t have much choice. She’d cut it cooking dinner.” She grabbed two sterile gauze pads and antibiotic ointment. “And I saw one of Viktor’s bodyguards put staples in another bodyguard after a fight once.”

  Fuck. I needed to remember who she was. “Do you know why your husband needs personal security?” I looked down at my ribs. Two staples would’ve held the wound shut.

  “He is Russian. Does he need a reason?” She smeared antibiotic ointment all over my stapled wound, then pressed the gauze over it. “Hold this.” She put more of the ointment on the second gauze pad, and rested it on my shoulder. “Where is the dog?” She grabbed the tape from the kit.

  “On guard.” I whistled and Hunter came over. “Hunter, lie down.” He lay down at my feet but kept his gaze on her. “Do you know what your husband does for a living?”

  “He is in real estate.” She put tape over both gauze pads. “There.”

  “That isn’t how he makes his money.” She had to know what he did.

  She pulled her gloves off. “I learned a long time ago not to interfere.”

  “Why did you call him?” Her phone call made me angrier than my mark getting the jump on me earlier today, exponentially angrier. And that was a bad fucking sign.

  Her back stiffened slightly as she looked around for the trash can. “He is my husband.”

  “Second cupboard under the sink. You said he kicked you out.” I didn’t know why I was asking, let alone talking to her. I should’ve stayed in my command center and let her husband come for her, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that would be the end of it with a man like Viktor Fedorov.

  She threw the gloves away and ignored my statement. “He will be here soon.”

  “Give me one good reason to let him on my property.” I’d closed the gate at the end of the driveway, but it wouldn’t stop him or his men for long.

  “So you can get rid of me, so he doesn’t put more holes in your body, and so you can have your house back. There are three.”

  I didn’t give a fuck about the second one. It was the first and third reasons that were pissing me off. “I’m going to change.”

  “Watch the bandages.”

  “They’ll be fine.” I walked to my bedroom, and Hunter followed. I couldn’t reconcile the woman who’d put four staples in me with the woman on her knees on my kitchen floor. I threw on clean clothes and boots and switched out my holster for a dry one.

  My instincts had already fucked me twice today, with the mark and with my first impression of the woman in my house. I wasn’t taking any more goddamn chances. Grabbing my retrofitted AR15 out of my closet, I walked back into the kitchen with Hunter on my heels.

  Alarm spread across the blonde’s face when she saw the gun. “What are you doing?”

  I pulled my phone out and set it on the counter, then I sat on one of the stools at the island. Hunter lay down at my feet and I eyed her. “Waiting.”

  She glanced at my dog then my rifle. “You are not going to shoot him.”

  “Not unless you tell me to.” Or he fires first.

  She exhaled, then tried to look unaffected. “Why do you have a gun like that?”

  Who she was married to, why she’d landed on my doorstep, what was about to happen—I made a calculated decision. “I kill people.” I told her the truth.

  Her gaze drifted to my arm and then my haircut. “You’re in the military?”

  “Former.”

  “Marines?” There was no surprise in her tone.

  “He tell you that, or are you making a lucky guess?” I’d bet three of my bank accounts that Fedorov had run a background on me the second he’d realized where his wife was.

  Heat hit her cheeks. “How do you know my husband?”

  I checked the ammo clip. “Who says I know him?”

  She watched my movements. “You know of him.”

  Who fucking didn’t, besides Vega? “I know a lot of people.” I slammed the magazine back into place.

  She flinched. “In real estate?”

  I stared at her for two breaths. “Gun trafficking.”

  The tint on her face turned red. “My husband is not into that.”

  “Isn’t he?” My phone lit up with an alert. “Company.” My rifle in one hand, I walked to the security panel on the wall by the front door just as the intercom buzzed. I pulled up the video feed on the panel and zoomed in to the front windshield of the car parked at my gate. It wasn’t Fedorov. I glanced over my shoulder at her. “Who is this?”

  She gracefully moved next to me and peered at the screen. �
��I can hardly see through the rain, but it looks like Peter.”

  I peered down at her. “Last chance,” I warned. I wouldn’t suffer one second of hesitation or guilt over killing Fedorov. “You don’t have to do this.”

  She looked up at me with colorless blue eyes as her throat moved with a swallow. “Let them in.”

  I knew fear when I saw it. “Do you need me to make the decision for you?” I dropped my hand from the security panel.

  “I already told you to let them in.”

  Her determination made her even more stunning. “I’m looking at a woman who thinks she doesn’t have a choice.”

  “You’re not my choice,” she whispered.

  “He is?”

  She hesitated. “Yes.”

  Goddamn it. I tried another tactic. “Do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

  “You live in the middle of nowhere. You have a trained attack dog. You’re shot, stabbed and armed. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you’re capable of… except murder.”

  So she had taken me seriously. “You think you know Fedorov?”

  This time she didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “How long you been married to him?”

  “Five years.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a marriage. It sounds like a sentence.”

  The intercom buzzed again as the driver pressed the gate button impatiently.

  She crossed her arms. “Well, it’s my sentence.”

  Realization dawned. “What are the terms of your arrangement?”

  Her eyes cut to the screen and she shifted nervously. “What are you talking about? Let them in.”

  “What did he offer you to marry him?” Bribe or blackmail. It was one or the other. “Tell me,” I demanded.

  “Five years, five-hundred-thousand dollars,” she snapped. “Okay? Now you know. Hurry up and open the gate or he’ll be mad.”

  I opened the gate, but I made a decision.

  She wasn’t getting in that fucking car.

  His rifle in one hand, he calmly tapped on the touchscreen, and I saw the gate open on the video feed.

  His intense gaze never left mine, and I realized his eyes weren’t brown. They were the color of the storm raging outside. Forest green, charcoal gray and deep woods brown, the colors swirled together and confused me.

  “You don’t need his money.” His deep voice wasn’t just quieter than Viktor’s, it was frighteningly more commanding.

  “You don’t know what I need. Viktor does.” The lie didn’t just taste like a bitter mistake, it filled my mouth and spread through my veins like poison.

  He scanned my face. “No, he doesn’t.”

  I watched with sick dread as the small security panel on the wall switched camera angles every few seconds, showing the big black SUV as Peter drove it up the driveway. “I need to get my suitcase.” I turned.

  He was so quick, I didn’t expect it. With silent precision, he’d stepped in front of me and his gunshot arm rose as he gripped the side of my face. “Do you want to be his slave?”

  Chills ran up my back and spread at the sound of his voice and the commanding precision of his touch.

  I shuddered.

  Not wife. Not submissive. Not property.

  Slave.

  Five letters. One syllable. One definition.

  He knew.

  This man had spent only minutes in my company, but he knew.

  No one knew.

  Not Peter, not my mother, not any of the other bodyguards. They took me shopping, they drove me to Alex’s, they watched what Viktor did to me, but they saw a woman who appeared to be free to come and go. They didn’t know. They didn’t know the first month of my marriage was spent in a single room. They knew nothing except what Viktor told them, and he said I was his wife.

  But this wounded marine knew.

  I wanted to hate his touch, but oh God, I didn’t. “Who shot you?”

  As if he knew we were beyond lies, he answered truthfully. “A mark.”

  I knew Viktor wasn’t only into real estate. I saw guns around the house. I knew women were sometimes kept in the carriage house for the bodyguards. I ignored all of it. But I wasn’t going to ignore what this stranger who touched me with more gentleness than anyone else in five years was telling me.

  “You’re a hit man or an escort?” Because he’d given me more than one piece of information.

  “I make people’s problems go away. For a price.”

  “Because you like to kill?” I wasn’t stupid. I knew why he was telling me this, and I knew the consequences of ever uttering a word about it to anyone. I would find myself on the other end of his rifle. Stupidly, that wasn’t what alarmed me.

  He kept up the honesty. “Because I have a skill set not many people have.”

  “And not fucking for free?” That’s what alarmed me. Not what he did with his rifle, but my reaction the second he’d said he charged money for sex. I never got jealous. There was nothing in my life worth being jealous over. But the thought of him doing to other women what Alex had done for me made tight spasms churn in my gut.

  “My release.”

  Two words and I wanted to clutch my arms against the riot in my stomach. “Release.” I drew the ugly word out because releases in my world didn’t come without strings.

  His stormy gaze studied me like he could see every demented thought in my head, but he called me on none of it. “I charge women for sex, but I’m not Vega. I don’t do repeat clients.”

  I didn’t know which hurt worse, the thought of him with other women or that he would never be with me more than once. Not that either was based in reality, because I wasn’t going to ever feel this man above me and I had no right to be jealous. Viktor was coming.

  I glanced over his shoulder at the video feed on the wall as the black SUV pulled up in front of his house. I didn’t remember Viktor having that vehicle, but the weather alone probably made him buy one.

  I sucked in a breath and pulled away from the man who’d offered me more in an hour than my husband of five years had. “He is here.”

  Dane let me retreat. “You have a choice.”

  Choice wasn’t in my vocabulary. “Do you know what happens when you hit bottom?”

  “You taste defeat and lose all desire for hope.”

  I blinked. It wasn’t his reply that scared me, it was the zero hesitation in answering. And I couldn’t top that with anything except affirmation. “Yes.”

  “Bottom isn’t an ex-Force Recon Marine standing in front of you offering a way out.”

  The dog jumped up with a growl and rushed to the front door a second before someone pounded on it.

  “Hunter.” Dane snapped his fingers without taking his gaze off mine.

  The dog quietly whined but sat.

  “You’re too late,” I admitted. “I hit bottom four years ago.” I opened the door.

  Peter stood in the doorway, soaking wet. “Let’s go,” he barked, his voice carrying over the roar of the storm. “I’m done cleaning up Viktor’s messes, you stupid bitch. Get in the fucking car. You’re going to regret you ever—” He stopped midsentence as his gaze cut to a growling Hunter then traveled over my head. He reached for his gun.

  “Irina.”

  Hearing Dane say my name for the first time made my heart jump. I turned, but I wasn’t quick enough.

  A thick arm went around my neck and Peter jammed his pistol into my temple. Pulling me back to his chest, he used me as a human shield.

  Dane stood motionless with his rifle aimed at Peter’s head. “Let her go.”

  Peter tightened his grip on my throat. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Dane’s lethal glare didn’t waver from Peter’s. “The last person you’ll ever see if you don’t let her go.”

  Hunter growled ferociously but stayed by Dane’s side.

  “You think I’m stupid?” Peter spit out.

  “Where’s Viktor?” I squeaked.

  They
both ignored me.

  “I don’t think,” Dane quipped. “I know.”

  Peter scoffed. “You won’t risk shooting her.”

  “You don’t know me very well,” Dane countered.

  “She’s Viktor Fedorov’s wife.”

  “I know who she is.” Calm, controlled, Dane said the words with absolute authority.

  I sucked in a breath past Peter’s punishing grip and tried to yell, “Where is Viktor?”

  Peter’s gun jammed harder into my skull as his arm crushed my neck. “You’re stupider than you look if you thought he was going to play fetch.”

  I gasped for breath.

  “Release her,” Dane demanded.

  “No.” Peter smirked. “She’s not your property.”

  “You think she’s yours?”

  “She’s Fedorov’s, and he’ll kill you if you harm her.”

  My lungs fought for air, my vision tunneled and I clawed at Peter’s arm.

  For a split second, Dane’s glare cut to Peter’s arm. “I’m not the one choking her out.”

  Peter loosened his hold only marginally. “We’re leaving. You shoot me, I shoot her.”

  “I’m not going to shoot you.” Dane’s aim and lethally calm tone never wavered.

  I saw the look in his eyes and I heard the threat in his voice. It made me suck in as much air as I could and force words past my crushed throat. “Dane, stop. Not worth it.”

  Peter snickered. “Maybe you should listen to the little slut.”

  “I’m not going to shoot you.” Eerily quiet, Dane’s voice carried across his entryway and canceled out the storm. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Everything went slow motion.

  Dane’s nostrils flared. Hunter lunged. The gun against my temple shifted. Air whipped past my cheek.

  Then hot spray covered my face.

  The scent of copper filled my lungs. The gun against my temple dropped, and I was falling backward.

  My ears rang, my heart pounded, and the muffled thud of a body hitting wood sounded right before I landed on top of Peter as his back hit the porch.

  Stinging rain pelted my face and I turned my head.