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I keep walking, trying to get us far enough away to not be noticed, knowing that Levin will be able to follow the pin I sent him. Sasha starts to come to, groaning slightly as she straightens, wobbly on her feet.
“Holy fuck, what happened?” she whispers, looking at me with glassy eyes. I glance around, helping her lean against a wall as I look her over for obvious injuries.
“A car bomb,” I tell her curtly, worry sharpening my tone. “How do you feel?”
“Bruised and banged up but–I think alright?” Her eyes widen as she realizes how close we came to something far more serious. “Oh my god–a bomb?”
I nod, a strange feeling settling over me. Looking at Sasha, her pale face and shaky hands, her scratched face, I realize how close I came to losing her forever–after one of the best nights of my life. It was one thing to go to bed with her, to taste and kiss her and enjoy her touching me, but tonight was better even than that. I would give up anything, if it meant keeping her safe and happy, and with me.
Even the promises you made?
The temptation feels closer than ever, harder to ignore. But at the same moment, I know that I’m the reason this is happening to her. The bomb was meant for me. Whoever is after us wants to hurtme. She’s collateral damage.
I should get as far away from her as possible, not closer.
I see Levin’s car pulling towards us and slide my arm around Sasha’s waist, helping her towards the car. There’s a dark expression on Levin’s face when I slide in, and he narrows his eyes at me as he peels away from the curb.
“Viktor is going to want to talk about this,” he says sharply. “This is a problem. First attackers on the street, and now a fuckingbomb? This has gone too far.”
“I’m sorry–” Sasha starts to say, and Levin glares back at her.
“This isn’tyourfault,” he says pointedly. “This wasn’t directed at you. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Then what–” Sasha’s eyes catch mine in the mirror, and I see her pale a little, but to her credit, her expression doesn’t change.
When we pull up in the courtyard at home, the door is flung open, and my heart stops as I wonder if something else happened while we were gone. As we get out of the car, a tall, muscular, dark-skinned man with a buzz cut strides towards us, one that I recognize, having seen before in Viktor’s new training program that Levin heads.
“Nico.” Levin nods to him, glancing over the man’s bulky shoulder. “What happened?”
“The alarm system went off,” Nico says grimly. “I got here as soon as I could, since I was on response duty. No one to be seen, but Viktor is pissed. You’re gonna want to get in there, both of you.”
‘I tense, following behind Levin as we walk in, only to see Viktor standing in the living room, looking thunderous. “Get the girls upstairs,” I hear him telling Caterina, who nods and starts to usher them towards the staircase.
“It was nothing,” I hear her telling them, and I catch a glimpse of their frightened faces, the trauma of what happened in Russia likely coming back all at once. “Just a false alarm. Your father and Nico and Levin are going to get it straightened out. We just need to go upstairs so they can do their work, okay?”
Sasha starts to go towards the stairs with Caterina, but I grab her hand. “Viktor is going to want to talk to you, too,” I tell her gently, and I see her wince, but she nods.
“Max.” Viktor’s expression is dark as we walk in. “Want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”
“I don’t know any more than you do,” I say carefully. “But it’s clear to me at this point that I need to leave. The danger is too close to home, and I’m putting everyone in that danger because someone is after me. I can tell from the look on your face that you agree,” I add, seeing the furious look on Viktor’s face intensify.
“Someone is trying to hurtme, too,” Sasha says suddenly, moving to stand next to me. “So I don’t see what good sending Max away is going to do.”
My chest aches, because I know she’s trying to keep me here with her. She’s said time and again that I’m the one who makes her feel safe, and I know that, at this moment, she’s desperate not to be left alone without the one person she sees as her protector.
But what she doesn’t realize is that I’m the problem, too.
Viktor’s lips thin. “Someone is trying to hurt you, Sasha, because they know Max cares for you. The brother of the man he killed, the reason he’s under my protection, is looking for him. Somehow he’s pieced together that you are important to Max. Max took someone he loved, and now he wants to do the same.”
Sasha blinks at me, and then at Viktor. “But Max doesn’t–”
Viktor waves a hand impatiently. “Platonically or romantically, Max cares for you, and thus you are a target. We don’t have time to argue the semantics of it. Max is right about one thing–it’s not safe for anyone for him to be here, but if he leaves and you stay, it won’t change that you’re a target.”
“So what are you suggesting?” I ask tightly, my own nerves feeling very close to being shot. I’d come closer than I ever wanted to losing Sasha today, and I don’t want Viktor’s family harmed because of me, either.
“You take Sasha to your estate in Italy,” Viktor says simply. “Tomorrow. You stay there until we can track this man down and eliminate him. We’ll send you back where he came from–a bait and switch. While he’s looking for where you went to ground here, distracted, you will both be out of the way while we close in.”
I hear Sasha’s gasp of surprise, and I shake my head.No. Absolutely not.Not only do I not want Sasha so close to my past, and the secrets I haven’t shared with her, but I know that being alone at the estate with her is a quick path to undoing what’s left of my efforts to keep from becoming closer with her than I should. We won’t just end up sleeping together; we’ll end up…together.
