Page 109 of Cruel Demands

I pull the knife from inside my coat. He understands then. His body jerks with a sudden, useless burst of strength, his chest twisting uselessly against my men’s grip. I watch him for a moment before driving the blade into his stomach. Once. Deep enough that his breath leaves him in a wet gasp. His eyes widen, fixing on mine as if there’s still something left to ask for.

There is not.

I hold him upright while the blood spreads hot across my hand and darkens the front of his clothes and mine. He weakens slowly, his knees folding beneath him, and I take him from the men holding him until I’m carrying nearly all of his weight.

“Sir.” Vladimir’s voice is wrong, nervous, behind me. I turn around, still holding the man upright against me, his weight inhuman now, a thing instead of a person, a body. I look at Vladimir, and his eyes shift downward. I look and see her.

A woman. Small. Dark coat. Hair caught across her face. For one absurd second, I don’t recognize her. Vladimir has one arm locked around her waist from behind, holding her tightly against him, his other hand clamped over her mouth. Her feet are planted beneath her, but barely. She looks like she would fall if he let her go. Then she lifts her eyes to mine, and my heart drops into my stomach.

Taylor. My Taylor.

The sensation is so violent that the room seems to tilt around me.

She is terrified. I have seen terror thousands of times. In witnesses. In enemies. In men who realize too late that the person they betrayed has survived. I have never seen it on her. I thought I had seen it on her in my office that day that I told her not to tell anyone what she knew. I was wrong. This is terror.

She is quiet and motionless in his grip. She doesn’t kick or struggle. She doesn’t scream against his hand. She doesn’t try to pull away. Her eyes are not here, and her mind is even further.

Every thought inside me goes silent. Behind me, Arkady says nothing. I slide the dead man to the ground, and Taylor’s eyes slide with him, fixed on him, fixed through him. The only clue I have that she feels anything about it is a flare of her nostrils and a quiver of her bottom lip.

“I found her outside snooping,” Vladimir says. His voice carries a hint of satisfaction. He believes he has done well. Under normal circumstances, this would be good.

“For how long?” I ask.

Vladimir shrugs. “Long enough.”

Taylor’s eyes find mine. There is no confusion in them. No question. She knows. The drugs. The blood. The dead body. Me. I feel something cold spread through my chest.

Taylor makes a muffled sound behind Vladimir’s hand. Her gaze never leaves my face.

“Let her go,” I say. Vladimir hesitates. It is only half a second. Too long. “I said let her go.”

He removes his hand from her mouth but keeps his other arm locked around her waist, holding her against him. Taylor drags in a breath. Then another. Her lips are pale.

I want to cross the room. I want to take her from Vladimir, examine her wrists, ask whether he hurt her. I do none of these things. Every man in the warehouse is watching. They already know she matters because I have not had her shot. I cannot allow them to know how much.

Vladimir looks down at her, then back at me. “Do you want me to take care of her?”

The cold inside me becomes absolute. Vladimir does not realize what he has said. Arkady does. He shifts his weight almost imperceptibly, preparing for the possibility that I kill Vladimir where he stands. Taylor goes still in his grip. Her eyes move between us.

“Take care of her,” I repeat. Vladimir nods once. “I will take care of her myself. Give her to me.”

“Ah. Understood,” he says with a slow smile. I know what he thinks I mean, what he has in mind for the young girl.

So I will kill Vladimir later then.

Taylor’s gaze snaps to mine. I cannot explain. Not here. Not in front of men who will interpret every word, every hesitation, every weakness. I look at the arm Vladimir still has wrapped around Taylor’s waist, his hand spread against the front of her coat as though she belongs there. “Yes. Remove your arm and give me the girl.”

Vladimir releases her. Taylor immediately pulls away from him, but her legs seem to have forgotten how to support her and she stumbles forward. I catch her by the elbow. The movement is small, but she recoils from my touch and wraps both arms around herself. There is dirt on one knee of her coat. Snow melting in her hair. Her breathing is too fast.

I tighten my grip and walk her toward the exit instead. “Walk,” I growl into her ear.

She does. “Mikhail—” she whispers, her voice hoarse.

“Tikho.” Quiet.

The word cuts harder than I intend. She flinches. The night air hits us when I push open the door. Snow is falling harder now, coating the parked cars and softening the industrial landscape beyond the warehouse. My sedan waits near the wall. Taylor looks toward the road. I see the calculation happen. The distance. The snow. Her shoes.

She runs anyway.