Recognizing the plates from one of the vehicles my guards use, I begin strolling over to it. My pace is relaxed. The same as my expression—calm. Inside, I’m roiling. The fury bubbling in my veins is close to exploding, but knowing that I’m almost away from that shitshow helps.
The back door slides open upon my approach, but a hand cups my elbow. My head whips to the side in fear, then I sag. “Oh, Rachel. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, of course. All set.” She escorts me to the vehicle. When Maxim spots us both through the open door, his brow furrows. “Try not to lose her this time,” she grates out, tone cooler than a January day in the Arctic. “Mr. Lyanov.”
I gape at her, at her fearlessness, at the bitter disregard she managed to imbue in his name.
Maxim’s nostrils flare but he concedes to her with a stiff: “Ms. Laker.”
I clear my throat when the staring contest grows crazy long. “Rachel? Maxim?”
Rachel presses a kiss to my cheek. “Don’t be a stranger, sweetheart.”
Surprised, I watch as she stalks off in six-inch-high stiletto heels and a pants suit so sharp it’d cut through glass.
My girl crush doesn’t have long to form, however.
“Thank fuck,” Maxim growls as he drags me into the car and straight onto his lap, arms immediately sliding around my waist. “Get us out of here, Georgi.”
“Take us to the brownstone,” I correct.
Maxim frowns but nods when Georgi catches his eye.
The privacy screen lifts and embarrassment and discomfort have me pushing myself off Maxim’s lap to take a seat opposite him.
“Korovka?”
I hear his wariness. I see his relief. I respond to neither. I feel like a hand grenade with the pin newly detached.
“You have a mole.”
The relief in his expression immediately fades, ire replacing it. His scowl is the lit match tossed onto kindling that will burn down the police station I just left.
And it lets me breathe easier.
Gaze flickering over me and catching on the marks Bordeau left behind as well as the distance I purposely placed between us, he inquires coolly, “They turned you against me?”
“They tried.”
“And failed?”
“I called you, didn’t I?”
“True. Your family wants to see you.”
“My family can wait. I want a shower, some food, and for a Russian Orthodox priest to be waiting at your house to marry us.”
This time, his eyes out-and-out bug. “What?”
“You heard me.” The words are seething. “I had no protection in there. None. And I’m yours. I want your last name. I want every fucking pig in this fucking state to know who they’re fucking with. Do you hear me?”
His lips take on the faintest of curves. “I hear you.”
“Those fucking ingrates. Talking to me like I’m a nobody. One of them thought he could touch me. I want his hands, Maxim.”
“You’ll have more than that,kotik.”
His seething indignation soothes my feminine rage but I still repeat, “He touched me.”
