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She doesn’t even stir, and I’m happy to see she must be deeply asleep. She needs the rest after what she’s been through.
Silently slipping back into my clothes, I then tiptoe across the carpet and steal back onto her small balcony. No one’s outside yet, so I make my way to the far end and climb up onto the ledge. Around the corner is the fire escape leading down from their rooftop, and with a good stretch and a decent amount of dexterity, I swing from her balcony to grasp the iron railing.
It takes all of three seconds to climb down, and I stalk quietly away from the house before anyone can catch me. My white 4Runner is waiting for me several blocks away, and I climb in behind the steering wheel before bringing the engine roaring to life.
Exhausted after everything that’s happened recently combined with a sleepless night of holding Alina and guarding her while she slept, I head back to my flat with the intention of sleeping the day away. I don’t know that even Viktor’s phone call is going to raise me from the dead.
It takes a good amount of focus to keep my eyes open and seeing straight as I make the drive back to my flat. Each stair I climb to my fourth-story apartment feels like a chore. But I finally reach my front door and pull my keys from my pocket.
The space is empty and quiet, a stark contrast to the room I spent the night in with Alina and her dog. It makes me ache with longing to go back to her. Suppressing the urge, I toss my keys into the bowl on my entry table and throw the deadbolt to my front door home.
As soon as I do, a tingling sense of foreboding sweeps over me, raising the hair on the back of my neck. I get that same odd sense as if someone’s watching me, and when I turn back to look at my studio apartment, I’m once again struck by the notion that someone’s been here.
I don’t know why I think that. Everything appears to be exactly as I left it, nothing missing or out of place. I give a cursory inspection of the space once again, this time without being interrupted by a phone call from Viktor. But I don’t find any sign to support my strange sense of intuition.
Maybe I’m just suffering from too many hours without sleep and too much unfinished business hovering over me like a guillotine. To be honest, I’m too tired to care much if someone actually did decide to break in and steal something. I don’t have much of value to my name, and whatever they took must not have meant much to me because I can’t recall what it is.
Kicking off my shoes right by the door, I don’t bother stripping my clothes. Instead, I head straight for bed, fully dressed. Flopping onto it, belly down and without using the covers, I close my eyes.
Sweet oblivion washes over me before I even have a chance to think about whether I ought to double-check that I locked the door.
I wake with a jolt, my senses suddenly on high alert.
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep.
Or what woke me.
But something is definitely wrong.
My eyes snap open, and an instant later, I realize that instinct I had when I entered my apartment was right. Someone is watching me.
With a cocky sneer curving his lips, the blond svoloch I fought outside Plastique stares at me, two men flanking him. He’s got an impressive shiner to match my own, and it gives me some small sense of satisfaction to know I dealt some damage to him before he sucker punched me and knocked me out cold.
But what the hell is he doing in my apartment?
My muscles tense, and I jump up, ready for a fight.
I don’t know why he and his buddies broke in. At a glance, nothing’s been disturbed, which means they’re here for me. I do know that they had something to do with Alina’s kidnapping, and I’m ready to eviscerate them for laying a hand on her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I growl, raising my fists defensively.
“Well, hello to you, too, sunshine,” the blond prick quips.
19
ALINA
“Are you sure? No one’s going to blame you, honey, if you want to take a few days off school to recover.” My mom’s words over breakfast echo in my ears, the memory of her blue eyes widening with concern.
“I’m sure,” I insist because I don’t want my life to change over what those men did. I can’t buckle to the fear, let it control me. And I know if I start giving in, I won’t be able to stop.
“Serg?” Mom always drags my father into discussions when she wants him to change my mind, and this morning is no different.
Chewing his mouthful of eggs, my father sets down his silverware to study me for a moment. “I think it’s fine if you go.”
“Really?”
The heady combination of relief and nervous butterflies that erupted through my body still lingers as I now ride in the back of my family’s Escalade. I wasn’t confident he would let me.
