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“You’re really going to kidnap a woman for your boss?” I ask, trying to sound unbothered, even while my heart hammers on the inside of my ribs. “Must be some great health insurance to risk a felony.”
His breath is hot on my neck as he laughs. “You think this is bad, little girl? I’ve done far, far worse.”
Ice shoots through my veins. “Who the hell are you people?”
“No one worth knowing,” a new voice cuts in.
The guard holding me spins around. He shifts me behind him so I can’t see, but keeps a firm grip on my arm. “Stay out of this. It don’t have anything to do with you, Kirill,” the man snarls.
Kirill.His name slips through my mind like a sigh, followed by a wave of relief. I barely know this man, but I know I’m safe now. He won’t let anything happen to me.
… Right?
“I’d say this has a lot to do with me,” Kirill replies. I still can’t see around the burly guard’s back, but his voice sounds like it’s getting closer. “Let her go.”
“I don’t take orders from you. You aren’t my don.”
Kirill clicks his tongue. “Good thing, too. Because no one in my employ would be stupid enough to let an enemy get this close.”
Before I can even register his words, there’s the dull crack of bone on bone.
The guard’s head snaps with the force of Kirill’s punch. It’s so jarring that I yelp and recoil like I’m the one who got hit. His hold on me loosens enough for me to scramble to the side before he collapses on top of me.
“You should have listened,mudak,”sighs Kirill.
He and the guard are the same height, but Kirill looks like he is twice as tall as any human I’ve ever seen. He towers over the scene like a vengeful god.
The guard roars as he tries to make a move of his own, but Kirill plows into him with his shoulder. The guard flies back and smashes into the bike rack.
“You don’t work for me, but I’ll still offer you some advice,” Kirill says as he advances on the whimpering idiot where he lies on his ass in the mud. “When choosing where to place your loyalty… follow the man who can gut you with his bare hands.”
The man’s groans shift into a scream as Kirill drives the heel of his dress shoe into his shin. The crack of his bone reverberates through the air. I feel it in my own skeleton. My leg suddenly aches in a sympathy I don’t actually feel.
“You should get that checked out,” he advises with a dark chuckle.
The man on the ground just wails.
With that, he turns and heads towards me. “Come on, princess,” he says. “The night awaits.” I’m so stunned that I can’t speak, and so overwhelmed that when Kirill offers his elbow to me, I take it.
He leads me down the sidewalk and around the corner towards the back of the hotel. To anyone watching, we could be a normal couple leaving a fancy party. Aside from the fact I’m in a caterer’s uniform and Kirill is in a tuxedo, we look perfectly at ease.
After everything he just said—everything he just did—I should be terrified. I should be fighting tooth and nail, not strolling into an even darker part of the hotel property with him.
“You said you were going to ride your bike?” he asks.
I blink. “Yeah, I—Wait, when did I say that?”
“You told the grunt you’d rather ride your bike. Is that how you get around?”
His words are laced with condescension. He probably has an entire fleet of cars. An entire garage dedicated to million-dollar Ferraris that never see the light of day. What would he make of me on my used beach cruiser with the pink tassels and the wicker basket zip-tied to the handlebars?
“Yeah, that’s how I get around,” I grit out. “I just moved here. I haven’t had time to get a car yet.”
Or the money to get a car, but that is beside the point.
“Good. Then you can ride with me.”
“Thanks but no thanks,” I start to say, but then he stops and turns to face me.
