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The sultry tone of his voice mixed with the way the words vibrate through his chest does strange things to my heart. I could stay here all night.
I could stay here forever.
The thought is like a lightning bolt through me. The vulnerability has me feeling fragile, and I go stiff. If he squeezes too hard, I’m sure I’ll shatter.
His palm glides down my exposed spine. “We can sneak away for a few minutes if we need to.”
“A few minutes?” I try to sound casual, but the words squeal out of me like I’m a balloon with a leak. “Is that all you can offer me?”
He laughs low and slow. “Don’t tempt me. I’ll clear this room out and show you exactly what I have to offer.”
I almost tell him to go for it. In the end, he doesn’t need to.
The gunshots clear the room for him.
88
PIPER
Timofey moves impossibly fast. I don’t have time to react to thepop-pop-popbefore I’m huddled under his arm and he’s herding me across the room full of screaming people.
“What the—What is going on?” I gasp, ducking my head under his chest and doing my best not to trip over my own feet.
He doesn’t respond. He’s too busy cutting through the crowd. It’s only when we step through a side door and into a dark hallway that Timofey presses me flat against the wall and peeks back through the door.
“Arber,” he growls, pulling out his phone.
“Who is that? Is it—is this the Albanians?”
The dark sides of Timofey’s world have always felt so far away. I logically understood it was dangerous, but I never expected it to come this close to me.
Now, it’s here, and I am out of my depth.
Timofey calls someone, but he curses when they don’t answer. He dials another number and takes my hand. We jog down the hallway.
“Akim. Stay out of the ballroom. Get to the security by the—” He pauses as he listens. “The guards never would have let him in. They’re dead. I’m sure of it.”
“Dead?”
Timofey barks out an order to Akim that I don’t hear and then hangs up. At each intersection of the hallway, he stops and checks both ways before we continue.
“Are we running away?” I ask. “What about your guests? Who is going to take care of them?”
He told Rodion that a death at his party wouldn’t crack into tomorrow’s big headlines, but I can’t imagine shots fired in the middle of a gaudy wedding rehearsal dinner won’t appear in the papers.
I gasp, remembering all the faces I’ve seen and smiled at over the last hour. “The bride and groom! The senator! The-the… surgeon! Are they okay?”
Timofey isn’t responding. His blue eyes are narrowed as he plunges deeper into the house. I’m not even sure if he can hear me.
“Timofey!” I try to pull my hand out of his iron grip, but it’s useless. “Timofey, listen to me. We can’t run. People are hurt back there. Your—ourguests. We have to help them. We have to—”
All at once, he stops and turns. I slam into his chest, and he hauls me off of my feet, pinning me against the broad expanse of him. “I have to make sure you and Benjamin are safe.Thatis my priority.”
I swallow. “But everyone else—”
“Can fucking bleed,” he growls. “Let me take care of you. Let me make sure you are okay. Then I’ll deal with everyone else.”
I want to argue with him, but I also can’t imagine navigating the maze-like hallways of this house without him while there are gunmen inside.
