Page 1 of Cruel Salvation

Prologue

Watchingthe men walk around like zombies had been the hardest part of the assignment that had almost taken her life. The dead look in their eyes, as they’d carried out every command they were given, had destroyed what was left of her soul. A sharp pain had her eyes springing open from her lost thoughts and she looked around the unfamiliar room, her breaths coming in short gasps.

It took a minute to get her bearings and she remembered where she was and why. For almost a week she had been in and out of this strange, not awake not asleep, state and every time she felt confusion for those first few seconds.

“Are you in pain?”

Her eyes moved to the corner of the room and she saw him, her dark protector, the man who terrified almost every person he met and yet he had shown her nothing but kindness. He motioned to her hand, which was resting over the bandage on her side.

“A little.”

Rykov stood and moved toward the bed, his cool assessment something she had come to expect of him. “I will have drugs brought up for you.”

“Do we know what the poison was that they used on me yet?”

Rykov shook his head. “No, my people are looking into it, but the fluids are slowly flushing it from your system, so this is good.”

“I guess so.”

His head cocked and he sat down beside her, his three-piece suit looking perfect as always. “What troubles you?”

“How do you know something is troubling me?”

It wasn’t in her nature to let people in, not since she’d lost her mother and found out that people, even those meant to love and protect you, couldn’t be trusted. Yet something about this man made her want to. It wasn’t a physical attraction she had to him, though God knew he was handsome and suave in a way only some men could pull off. No, it was something deeper than that. It was what she imagined an older brother would feel like.

“Ah, my little Lotus flower is closing up on me again.”

“I’m not a damn flower. I’m…” Nazareli stopped, not knowing how to describe herself anymore. She’d lost her identity in this operation for John Smith, and now it was over. He was dead, Rhea Winslow was dead, and she was a ghost. Only the devastation she’d caused was left to prove she lived.

“You’re what?”

His hand gripped hers and it was the first tender human contact she’d had since her mother died. Tears sprang in her eyes and she blinked rapidly to rid herself of the weak emotion.

“I had a sister once.”

Rykov’s statement cleared her mind somewhat as he gave her a little of himself. “You did? Where is she now?”

He sighed, his eyes holding so much sorrow and pain it was hard to look at. “She died. She was killed by my enemy in a war she had nothing to do with.”

Rykov Anatolievich was the new head of the Russian bratva but, to her, he was becoming a friend who looked out for her.

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded, acknowledging her sympathy. “You remind me of Masha. Her strength and resilience; she wore it like a crown, and so must you. I know you struggle with some of the decisions you’ve made, but none of us leave this earth without regrets, some more than others.”

“I’ve caused so much pain in my quest for vengeance.”

“Perhaps, but you also risked your life to rid the world of the greatest threat it has seen in hundreds of years.”

“Those soldiers, they were good men. They had families and friends and now I don’t know how they’ll carry on knowing what was done to them, what they were forced to become because of the drugs they were given on my watch.”

“There are always casualties in a war, Lotus, it is a fact. It’s how you move forward, and the next part of your life is what matters now. We cannot go back so we must go forward in a way that makes us feel good.”

“I have no idea what my life looks like moving forward.”

He was silent for a few minutes and she thought perhaps the conversation was over when he spoke. “A man in my position does not trust easily, there are many who would wish to dance on my grave.”

“I understand that.”