Page 26 of Fractured Ties

He only looked like fear.

It was not the same.

• • •

“Oh, my God,” Maya huffed as Kolya pushed her along the west side of the warehouse. “You were actually serious.”

“About you coming with me? Yes.”

“But-but—”

“Do you splutter often?” Kolya asked.

“What?”

“You, and the spluttering as you try to figure out your words. Does it happen often?”

“I—”

Maya didn’t see the fucking rock coming before she tripped over it. She could practically taste the dirt coming for her mouth, and even threw her hands out to catch herself before she hit the ground. And yet the dirt never came, nor did the hard, cold ground.

Kolya’s arm saved the day as it easily wrapped around her midsection. He righted Maya to her feet without as much as a word about her tripping like an idiot. He hadn’t even missed a step as he’d kept on walking with his hand pressed firmly against her lower back just like it had been before.

She was hyperaware of that hand, too.

Of the warmth that bled through.

Of how rough his palm felt overtop the thin blouse she wore.

Of how he wouldn’t seem to remove it.

“Now,” Kolya said as they waded overgrowth and dead grass, “but, what?”

Maya blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You were trying to get something out—to tell me something, no? What was it?”

Oh, yeah.

That.

Not that she figured it was going to make any kind of difference, really. Here he was, and there she was. He had made his stance on this whole thing pretty clear up in the office, and it seemed Maya wasn’t going to get much of a choice at all.

“You said I wasn’t property,” she muttered.

“You’re not,” he agreed.

“Then why do I still have to go with you?”

“Nyet. You’re not coming, Maya. I am taking you.”

His words contrasted brightly against the backdrop of his actions, though. In ways … He posed it like she didn’t have a choice, yet refused to label her as property like another man would have in this kind of circumstance. It gave the impression she could come and go, or leave, should she want to, but he didn’t seem to be giving her that option, either.

So, what was happening?

What was she to expect here?

“Again,” she said quietly, “then why do I have to go with—”