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And then do what? Plunge him do death?
She only just barely cut off the high-pitched hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up out of her throat.
And then the door was kicked in and she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Because suddenly there he was—her stalker come to get her.
And—her eyes widened—creeping up right behind him, Nicholas! Nicholas held up a finger over his mouth in the universal shhh sign.
Sloane didn’t dare nod or keep her eyes on Nicholas. She zeroed back in on Olly.
“Wait, Olly, calm down,” she said, her voice shaking. Who was she kidding, her entire body was shaking, she was so freaked out. “Let’s talk about this. You should’ve just told me you were coming. I c-could have prepared something. W-why don’t we go downstairs? I could make a p-pot of coffee?”
Olly paused, eyebrows drawn, obviously suspicious. But Sloane could also see that he was equally intrigued. This was what he’d wanted, after all. To get close to her.
When he’d presented as Olly, she’d always been the dominant in the power dynamic. He’d tried to flip it as Saint, but he was the soft-bellied Olly underneath.
Keeping eye-contact with him even as Nicholas loomed closer from behind, she slowly lowered her plunger—a symbol of acquiescence more than anything else since they both knew she couldn’t do him any real harm with it.
And in that moment Nicholas lunged with the syringe he held in his hand and shoved it deep into Olly’s neck, depressing the plunger before the shocked Olly could even turn around to see what was happening.
He held out a hand towards Sloane, shock and a look of furious betrayal on his face as he slumped to his knees.
He made only a slight gurgling noise before finally passing out. At least Sloane hoped he’d only passed out, for Nicholas’s sake.
As soon as it was clear he was out, Nicholas stepped back and Sloane rushed towards him. He lifted her over the prone Olly with strong arms and swept her into the hallway, where she promptly fell into his arms.
“Oh my God, thank you, thank you!” she cried into his chest. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t—”
But just then, Sloane felt a prick on her own neck.
She looked up at Nicholas in confusion, and then shock when it dawned on her as he pulled a second syringe away from her neck.
“Why—” she tried to ask with sluggish lips before collapsing into his arms again, this time a dead weight.
Chapter 9
Nicholas
Nicholas drove down the dark highway, his jaw clenched and hands white-knuckled on the wheel.
He’d been on the road for four hours already and it was nearing three in the morning, but he hadn’t relaxed once since everything had gone down and he’d loaded up Olezka in the trunk.
And… he swallowed and took a quick glance over at the passenger seat where Sloane sat slumped on a pillow against the passenger window. He had to drag his eyes back to the road.
Bringing her along had definitely not been part of his original orders. His boss hadn’t said anything about her, but Nicholas knew enough to know that his boss had likely expected him to dispose of her. Papa Vasiliev wasn’t a fan of witnesses and had no problem with collateral damage.
Nicholas had no delusions that he was the good guy in this scenario. But he didn’t believe in good guys. He believed in having enough to eat and a bed to sleep in at night. He’d managed to shut off that part of himself—the part that gave a shit about things like right and wrong—the day his mother died. It was an easy enough way to live.
Or it had been.
Until her.
It took discipline not to glance back over at Sloane. She looked angelic when she slept. Even in the unnatural slumber from the tranq. He’d checked her vitals before loading her up, and her pulse was a little slower, but steady.
As for the jackhole currently tied up in his trunk? Nicholas hadn’t been nearly as tender with him, or as careful with his dosing. Still, the tranqs should keep them both down for another couple hours.
Olezka Tereshchenko was a heavy bastard, that was for sure. Not that Nicholas bothered being gentle as he dragged the man down the stairs. If he woke up with a few bruises and bumps on the head, Nicholas wouldn’t feel any guilt.
Ramona meowed loudly from the backseat where she was locked in her carrying cage.
Nicholas muttered under his breath. He knew Sloane would be devastated if he left the little beast behind. Ramona had always been friendly enough with him, but the moment he walked downstairs with a limp Sloane in his arms, she’d all but attacked his legs.
Nor had she been a fan of him hunting her down to stick her in the old cat carrier he’d found stuffed away in one of the upstairs closets. He was still sporting the scratches on his forearm from the fiasco.
