Page 149 of Dancing for the Minotaur

“There was a surveillance device somewhere inside this domicile. I have not yet located it, but I saw the feed myself. He was watching us work together.”

A shiver ran down Terra’s spine. The idea of Orlov sitting one floor below them, spying while she worked beside Taurex and ate lunch with him and laughed with him, made her feel physically ill.

“He watched us?”

“Yes. Mostly you, I believe.” The growl in Taurex’s voice became more pronounced. “He watched you, believing that eventually he would find a way to force you into his possession.”

Terra’s fingers tightened around her tea mug.

“And he almost did. He knew I would do anything to keep my kids safe—that bastard!”

“Don’t worry—he will not watch you or your family ever again,” Taurex finished.

There was something final in the way he said it that made her stomach clench. Terra looked at him for several seconds before lowering her voice and asking,

“Does…does that mean he’s dead?”

Taurex’s expression revealed nothing.

“For legal reasons,” he said at last, “it might be best if I say no more about Viktor Orlov’s fate. But I promise you this—he will never bother you, your mother or your younglings again.”

Terra remembered Cody’s excited claim that the Bull-man had “taken out all the bad guys like a video game,” and suddenly she suspected she didn’t really want the details. It was enough to know that Orlov could never hurt her or her family again.

Relief rushed through her so powerfully that for a moment Terra felt almost dizzy.

It should have bothered her more, she thought distantly—the idea that Taurex had killed a man for her. She supposed perhaps later it would, once she had enough emotional distance to think about what Taurex’s carefully chosen words implied. Right now, all she could think about was the text of her children crying in that strange car and Orlov’s message telling her that all she needed to do to get them back was submit.

Orlov would never touch Cody or Lisa again. He would never follow Terra again…never watch her house and never put his hands beneath her skirt while telling her she belonged to him.

Terra felt no grief at the thought—only relief.

She reached across the table and placed one hand on Taurex’s enormous forearm.

“Taurex, I’m so sorry.”

He looked down at her hand, then back at her.

“I was wrong about you,” Terra continued, the words coming faster now that she had started. “I was frightened and I let everything that happened with Jackson and Orlov and the men at the club get into my head. I treated you like you were the same as they were when you’ve never—” Her throat tightened. “You’ve never treated me like that. And after what you did today…I don’t even know how I can thank you. If you want me to, I can⁠—”

Taurex raised one large hand.

“Stop.”

Terra looked at him in surprise.

“What?”

He frowned.

“I do not want you to offer yourself to me in gratitude for your children.”

Her mouth fell open.

“That wasn’t what I⁠—”

“I would be no better than Orlov if I expected you to pay me for their lives with your body,” he said shortly.

“Taurex, I never meant—” she began, wanting to explain. But just then, her phone rang.