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Some cabs drove past us, honking their horns. I couldn’t help myself and my eyes drifted up to the stranger’s face with curiosity. He looked down at me.
“What?” he asked.
“No... nothing...”
He put his hands in his pocket and brought out a wad of cash. He didn’t count the bills, he just pulled out a few notes and handed me the rest.
“If you want to, go home,” he said. “Or rent a hotel somewhere safe. Do whatever you need to. Call the police or have someone pick you up. But if you get in this car with me, you do as I say.”
He walked around to the black SUV’s driver side and opened the door.
My stomach fell. I couldn’t go on like I had been. I couldn’t just go to another hotel tonight, and I didn’t know where else to go. I had been running for so long, but in the few minutes I’d spent with this total stranger, a killer, I’d felt safer than I’d felt for months.
“Wait,” I said firmly, then smiled sheepishly. “Can I come with you?”
“Not advisable. Whatever trouble you’re in, I’m in more.”
“I doubt that.” I wiped the blood from my lips with my sleeve. The metallic taste became less. My teeth had sunken onto my tongue when Loronzo had hit me in the face. It bled like hell but wasn’t anything too worrisome.
His brows knitted above his blue eyes and he paused for a moment, searching my face as if he would find some answers in it.
“Please,” I whispered. “Maybe just for the night. Tomorrow, I’ll figure something else out.”
“Again. Not advisable.”
“Please.”
He pressed his lips together in thought. “You’d have to do as I say. No buts or ifs.”
I nodded enthusiastically.
He sighed. “Get in.”
I opened the door and slid onto the passenger seat. The car growled to life, and we were moving.
He was quiet as he drove, and I allowed my thoughts to wander a bit. I thought back over the last hour—this strange man who’d stumbled into my life and what I knew of him. I could already tell he wasn’t from Durban. His accent had given him away. American like me. But what the hell was he doing here in South Africa shooting people?
I frowned and looked out the window. I felt him hit the gas and I looked at the speedometer. It read eighty miles per hour. We were running, and that was exactly what I wanted. Getting out of the city as fast as possible? Count me in.
I took a deep breath and allowed my head to roll back against the headrest, then turned toward him. Our eyes met briefly. He had been wearing a baseball cap this whole time, so it had been hard to see his face well. But he was tall, well-built, and strong. His icy-blue eyes seemed cold and distant.
The car was getting hot, and I watched as he tugged at his jacket, one hand still on the steering wheel. When he managed to wiggle out of the coat, he flung it into the car’s back seat. His sleeves of his button-down shirt were rolled up, revealing his perfect muscles—and those tattoos! Both arms, even part of his neck, were covered in tattoos. Rings, skulls, and stars.
The marks of the Russian mob.
I sighed... in relief. My husband was Italian. This man didn’t work for him. No Russian ever would.
I stared at his arms. Maybe I could make out a symbol that would give his clan away? But when his cold eyes glanced at me, I willed my gaze away and stared out the windshield.
I cleared my throat. “Thank you.”
He nodded, removed his hat, and placed it on the dashboard. Finally, I would get a better look at him. He was handsome. Very very handsome. His 3-day beard complemented his basalt jaw and broad shoulders. He kinda reminded me of the actor in the Russian mobster movieEastern Promises. Which matched the way he had taken out Loronzo. Not even a blink.
When he looked at me, his eyes showed a glimmer of warmth for the first time. It only added to the intensity of the moment—that sex appeal, that mystery.
He looked away, leaving me to wonder how safe I would still feel in his arms now that I knew he was part of the Russian mob.
I faintly smiled and bit my lower lip, hands on my thighs.
