Most of the men shake their heads. Only one is stupid enough to add words into the mix. “You need to be reasonable, Dimitri. We’re only trying to support our families.”
Dimitri gives the gray-haired man a look as if to say he isn’t as stupid as he’s implying. The bounty on my head isn’t the only mine these men are drilling. They’ve got their hands in as many pots as Dimitri.
“I’m well aware what you need money for, Mark. It has nothing to do with that pretty little wife of yours and everything to do with the underaged girls you beat and sodomize once a week.” His lack of denial exposes Dimitri is on the money. “As for the rest of you, I’m willing to negotiate more suitable terms. How does fifteen million sound?” The excitement building in the room skyrockets as high as my blood pressure when Dimitri adds, “That’s the amount I’ll pay when you bring me the people responsible for the bounty on Roxanne’s head. If they’re brought in alive, I’ll double it.”
“Dimitri…” I can’t say more. I’m too shocked. He’s put thirty million dollars on the line for my safety. That’s insane. I’m not worth that much.
Before I’ve worked through half my shock, Dimitri instructs Smith to do a final once-over of the room. Once he’s confident his offer is more enticing than that of his enemies, he grips the top of my arm and drags me out of the room. I don’t think he means to hurt me. He’s just too doped up on adrenaline to realize how strong his grip is. I’m feeling superhuman, and I did nothing but stand at his side with my jaw hanging open.
Halfway down the hallway, Dimitri’s brittle tone snaps me out of my shock. “Take them out to the Hole. There are men out there waiting.” His comment exposes he knew at least one of the men would test him. “We should arrive in around thirty minutes.” During the ‘we’ part of his statement, his eyes drift to me. “Is everything ready?”
I discover the reason he suggested for me to take a jacket when he throws open the front door of his compound and guides me outside. Although it isn’t as cold here as it was in New York, there’s a brisk coolness in the air.
The goosebumps coating my skin augment when Dimitri assists me into the front passenger seat of a fierce-looking sports car. It’s warm in the cabin of his sleek ride. My body just couldn’t help but respond to him leaning across my frozen frame to fasten my seat belt. Even with the smell of a recently fired gun lingering in my nostrils, his scent is scrumptious. It grips my senses for the next several minutes, only relinquishing its hold when Dimitri pulls down a familiar-looking road twenty minutes later.
Although this isn’t the most direct route to my grandparents’ farm, it’s the one people use when they want to be discreet. My mom went this way when she abandoned me, and I used this off-beat track when I snuck back home after my failed meet-up with my father. My nanna told me not to go. I thought I knew better as I do again now.
“Why are we here?”
Dimitri flashes his headlights three times before he drifts his eyes to me. “My enemies think this is friendly territory. They’d never believe I’d shelter anyone here.”
“You just put up thirty million dollars to guarantee my safety. You don’t need to hide me anymore.”
My shock shifts to panic when Dimitri says, “I’m not hiding you, Roxanne. I’m letting you out of our agreement.”
“Why? Our agreement was supposed to end once you got your daughter back.” I don’t know whether to scream or cry when a reason for his unusual bend of the rules smack into me. “Is this a test?”
“No.” His curt reply does little to slacken the noose in my stomach, but before I can continue to interrogate him, the quickest flash in the corner of my eye steals my devotion. “Sniper,” Dimitri informs like it’s an everyday occurrence to have men lying in wake in overgrown fields. “There are two covering the front and back entrances and one on the main gate. They’ll remain until the threat has been neutralized.”
I’ve barely gotten over my shock when I’m smacked for the second time. This surprise doesn’t come in the form of violence. It’s too beautifully sweet to have an ounce of disdain attached to it. Or should I say,sheis too beautifully sweet.
“Estelle.”
I throw open Dimitri’s car door before he comes to a stop. Not even the slop of a recently dug-up ground can slow me down. I race Estelle’s way, my feet moving as fast as my heart.
The collision of our bodies is as brutal as the rain falling down on us when the heavens open up. Although it has nothing on the wetness that fills my eyes when it dawns on me why Estelle’s hair appears as red as my natural hair coloring.
Dimitri’s car is no longer rolling toward my grandparents’ ranch. It’s heading in the opposite direction. His eyes aren’t seeking potholes in the sloshy road, though. They stare at me in the side mirror, watching me as adeptly as he did in the alleyway all those months ago. It’s a beautiful stare that could only be more appealing if it weren’t cloaked with darkness. It feels so final like tonight will be the last time I’ll see him.
If the dip of his chin before he pulls onto the main road is anything to go by, I’m reasonably sure it will be.
Eighteen
Dimitri
Paranoia can make the sanest man feel unhinged. It eats away at you worse than low self-esteem, depression, and all that other whacked-up shit therapists toss around when seeking new patients. It sees a once-stable man freeing the only person who’s ever made him feel normal, so he can become a creep who crawls into voids above seedy restaurants to spy on his enemies.
When you lose the ability to tell the difference between your rivals and your comrades, you should consider shutting up shop. But since this is me, and nothing ever comes easy for me, I’ve done the opposite. I opened my doors and invited my enemies inside, aware that a meal shared with a rival is often less disastrous than one shared with family.
My focus shifts back to the present when Rocco’s boorish tone sounds down the earpiece lodged in my ear canal. “Clover’s big ass will have you receiving company in five… four…”
The manhole I closed after crawling into a roof of a restaurant that’s heydays are long behind it pops open just as Rocco hits three. The lack of concern in his tone weakens the itch of my trigger finger. If he were worried about my pop-in visitor, he wouldn’t have announced his arrival only seconds before it was set to occur. He wants us to meet up. For what reason? I don’t know. But I will find out. You can put your money on it.
Once my guest squeezes through the tight opening like his shoulders are the width of mine, his identity is immediately unearthed. All agents have the same putrid scent, but Brandon James is more perverse since he attempts to mask the smell with a pricy cologne.
“You need to change your aftershave. I could smell that shit long before you crawled through the vent.”
I’m lying, and Brandon fucking knows it. I can feel the arrogance beaming out of him, much less see it on his face when he switches on the torch mounted to his Bureau-issued pistol. “You know I’m well within my right to shoot you, right?”
