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"Stay the fuck out of this, pretty boy," he snarled at me, shifting his weight so I could see the gun tucked down his pants. I took a step towards him, eyes darting to the weapon at his side. I needed to move fast. I wasn’t armed, and if he clocked that, then I was in trouble...
"Alex, please," Olya begged me, trying to kick at her attacker once more – and the sound of her voice, so desperate and helpless, brought something out in me I hadn’t felt before. I lunged for the man holding her, grabbing his arm and twisting it up behind his back as I snatched the gun from him – Olya leaped away from him, and I spun around, pointing the barrel at his foot and pulling the trigger.
The sound of the bullet leaving the barrel exploded around us, ringing in my ears – and, as it cleared, I heard the howl of pain her attacker was letting out, the leather of his shoe shattered, the bullet buried in the top of his foot. He collapsed to the ground, and I lifted the gun, aiming it at the other two men before me.
"Get the fuck out of here," I snarled at them. They exchanged a look and then took off into the night – knowing better than to try and mess with me. I tucked the gun into my pants and grabbed Olya’s hand. She was staring, wide-eyed, at the man on the ground before her; I knew it was only a matter of time before someone came out of the club to see what was going on here, and I didn’t want to hang around to be caught next to an injured man like this. I knew how it would look, and I wasn’t going to try my luck.
"Come on," I told her urgently. Her face was pale, her lips parted, as though she was trying to talk some sense into herself.
"Olya, now," I snapped, and she finally looked back at me. Fear flashed in her eyes – this was the first time she had seen me use my skills, and I figured it must have come as a shock to her. But, if anything, I hoped this would drive home to her just how important it was that she play by our rules. One night without us, and look at what had happened – if I had arrived even a minute or two later, she would have been stuffed into the back of that car, being driven off to God only knew where.
I marched her back to the car and opened the door, and she slipped into the front seat with no protest – she knew better than to piss me off right now, after what she had pulled. I pulled us away from the club, praying to God there were no cameras out the back where I might have been caught firing that shot. I might have to call in some favors from people I knew in the local police department, old colleagues of mine from the military who’d be willing to cover for me when I explained the situation.
Gripping the wheel tight, I glared at her in the mirror. She didn’t meet my gaze.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" I demanded. I needed her to explain it to me. Needed to hear it, right from her lips, what she had been planning when she had walked out of that apartment and gone out on the town without telling us. How did she think all of this was going to go down? How did she think it was going to work? She was crazy. And she was lucky that things hadn’t gone any worse than they already had.
"I just wanted to get out for a while, and see my friends," she muttered, shaking her head. "I...I didn’t think..."
"Why the hell do you think your father employed us in the first place?" I pointed out. "You think it was just for the hell of it? You think you’re not in danger out there, the daughter of an Antonov?"
"I can see that now," she shot back, her voice taking on a sharp edge. I flexed my fingers on the wheel, trying not to let my anger get the better of me. But this bratty attitude she had...God, it pissed me off, stirred something in me I didn’t know if I could control.
Something in me I had promised Solomon I would be able to handle.
"Yeah, you pull something like this again, we might not be able to get to you in time," I warned her. "And then..."
I trailed off. She shivered. I could see the cold horror of the situation hitting her then, the reality of it sinking in. She had gotten away with it this time, but she might not be so lucky if she tried something like this again.
We drove the rest of the way back to the apartment in silence, and when she climbed out of the car, I could see she was still shaking slightly. As I followed her up the stairs, I noticed, all at once, a few marks on the top of her arms – in the shape of his fingers, the man who had been holding her.
As she pushed the door open, I felt another flare of anger hit me. Anger at him, not at her – anger that someone else had laid hands on her, someone else had touched her. It wasn’t right.
She glanced over her shoulder at me as we entered the apartment together, seemingly noticing the look on my face. She frowned.
"What is it?”
I nodded to the marks on her arm.
"You’re going to bruise."
She glanced down towards the spot, just above her elbow, where he had been gripping her, and her face sank.
"Shit," she muttered, and she rubbed at the marks like they could be removed with a little elbow grease. "I...I don’t know..."
"Fuck, Olya," I cut her off, reaching out to brush my fingers over the glaring red marks on her skin. "You know how much danger you put yourself in?"
She glared up at me but didn’t pull back.
"Yeah, I get it now," she fired back. "I get it. I know I shouldn’t have been so stupid, but I-"
"If something happened to you," I replied, moving towards her, drawing her closer to me. "You don’t know what that would do to me."
She stared at me.
"What, you would lose your job?" she demanded, shooting the question at me like she was daring me to contradict her. I shook my head. The adrenaline was still coursing through my system from the attack I had managed to shut down earlier, and right now, it was all focused on her – focused on this woman, standing before me, this woman who I wanted more than I could make sense of. This woman who’d been hurt because she’d left me – this woman who drove me crazy, in every sense of the word.
"You know it’s not about that," I told her. Her eyes flickered with something – understanding. I knew she got it. I knew she understood what was going on inside my head. Both of us could feel it, hanging in the air between us, but we couldn’t quite put it into words. Not yet.
