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To prove my point, I gently lifted her out of the backseat, holding her in my arms a fraction longer than necessary before placing her in the wheelchair Kas unloaded from the trunk. She sighed, dropping her chin to her chest. Her words were so quiet I almost didn’t hear them.
“I need to be able to stand on my own two feet again, even if one of those feet is made of plastic and metal.”
She was right. Of course, she was right, but the idea of her being out of my sight made my skin crawl.
“I’ll come visit you every day.”
“Actually,” she grimaced, “could you write letters instead?”
“Letters?”
“You know, words written on paper.”
“Smartass. I know what a letter is. What I don’t understand is why you’d rather get mail than a visit?”
My mind spun in a thousand different directions. Did she not want a relationship with me? Was this her way of letting me down gently? A sharp pain lanced through my chest at the thought.
“I haven’t changed my mind about us, if that’s why you suddenly have a sour look on your face,” she smiled, but it didn’t take the sting away.
“Then why do you want me to stay away?”
“You’ve seen me at my worst, Zak.”
I opened my mouth to disagree, but the argument died in my throat when a tear fell from her eye. And another.
“I have to be comfortable with the new me before I’ll be comfortable with you seeing the new me.”
“Please don’t cry.”
Her tears were my undoing. Bracing my hands on either side of her wheelchair, I moved without thinking. Cupping her cheeks, I swiped the wetness away with my thumbs, then lightly brushed my lips against hers. My cock immediately began to stiffen behind my zipper with the contact. Not wanting to embarrass myself—or her—by walking into the rehab with a hard-on, I pulled back hesitantly.
“Sorry. That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for our first kiss.”
“You planned our first kiss?”
“Baby, I’ve got plans for all our firsts.”
Kas cleared his throat behind me. “On that note, your room is ready, Pru.”
We stayed long enough for the whispers to start among the staff. They recognized my face. They knew my name. And when they figured out that Pru was someone important to me, they began to scamper around like mice, doing whatever they could to gain my favor. Still, it wasn’t enough to ease the ache in my gut when we drove away several hours later.
“She’ll be safe, Zak,” Kas reassured me as the SUV roared down the highway.
“Our people are in place?”
“Before we even stepped foot on the grounds. Mak set it up. Two are with security; another two are posing as housekeepers.”
“Good.” The twinge in my chest eased slightly. No way in hell would I fail to protect my woman again. Some of Machail’s men had escaped death when the warehouse exploded. Whether or not they were a threat remained a mystery. Until we knew for sure, she’d be covered, so would her family. “And Daria?”
“Landed an hour ago. She had a few choice words for Aleksei when he met her at the gate.”
“Stubborn,” I grunted.
Halfway through our drive, Mak texted. One of Machail’s men had finally surfaced, just not where I’d expected. He was clocked by our advanced facial recognition software at my roulette table the night before. I had to hand it to him, he was bold. He was also a dead motherfucker.
My men had already made their move by the time we strolled through the back entrance of The Four Kings. Adrian Kuznov never knew what hit him. He woke up in my underground interrogation room directly beneath the table where he’d lost it all on red nineteen, swinging from the rafters by his wrists. Three of my enforcers––Luka, Sergei, and Rurik––surrounded him, systematically working him over. To me, his agonized screams were like a symphony of retribution. His voice was hoarse from begging for mercy. But mercy would never come. Neither would death. He didn’t deserve a quick end after what they’d done to my Pru.
Kas and I joined Mak where he leaned against the wall looking bored, twirling his favorite blade between his fingers.
