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The expression on Luka’s face disappears, and he straightens. Clicking the unknown message I stare at it, confused. Luka grabs the phone and stares at the message from an unknown number.
All Hope is lost.
His eyes dart down the sidewalk, up at the nearby high-rises, then to the car. “Get in the car, Kate.” Luka pockets the phone and grabs my elbow.
“But I thought we—”
An explosion tears through the air, and a blinding light sears my eyes. A shockwave ripples through my apartment building in a thunderous wave. Luka shoves me down and covers my body with his as the ground quivers. My eardrums throb with pressure, and I’m struggling to make sense of what is happening. Debris hurdles through the air, and sirens sound in the distance. Rancid smoke and the smell of burning penetrates the atmosphere. I turn to see half the apartment building has been demolished.
“That’s—that’s my floor.”
Luka lifts me to him and runs back to the car, covered in ash and more debris. Throwing open the door, he sets me down.
“Sh-shouldn’t we wait for the police?”
“No. That was a targeted explosion, likely a small device put on your floor. It’s not a coincidence we got the message when we did. We need to get out of here; who knows who is watching. I need to get to Nik.”
Chapter28
Luka
The drive to the hospital is agonizingly slow, giving time for dark thoughts to surface in my mind. After the ambush Nik had to go to the hospital in order to remove the shrapnel from his leg, while my other men dealt with the fallout from Andrei’s death.
His blood, while washed away, is still on my hands. When I walked off the elevator to see Kate standing by the window with a look of contentment on her face, I knew I needed to remove the distraction. The distraction got my man killed and Nik injured. For the briefest moment, the penthouse was right, with her standing there.
It was my fault; I sent Dmitry with Kate. He is older and has more experience. I wanted one of my best men watching out for her, especially with Antonio in the wind. But that meant calling Andrei up before he was ready. He was a kid—a young kid.
I planned on telling Kate right then to go—to go back to her life. She deserves better than to be caged with a man like me. She is the distraction I don’t need. That magnetic pull I’ve been drawn to since that night many months ago is fate screwing with me.
But when she strolled to me, the dark skies thundering behind her, I lost those words. Her touch was igniting. My body hummed under her delicate hands as she unbuttoned my bloody shirt, need blazing through me.
I’ve never let women touch me like that. Controlling my urges has been a honed skill—no touching or exploration. But Kate—her hands roaming over my chest and dipping to the scar from that night. That night has shaped me more than I care to admit. I imagine having her in my life and sharing my heritage and legacy with her.
Stop it.
I can’t afford to think this. It’s a torturous distraction to have her here, so I resolved to let her go.
When we arrived at her apartment, her trembling hands fumbling with the door did something to me. I couldn’t let her go without letting her know she didn’t have to worry about her apartment and landlord.
The purchase was frowned upon when I made the call to my accountant. I wanted it purchased in cash, and he didn’t understand why I would want a dilapidated apartment building, but I didn’t want the building.
The idea of her scraping by with an empty fridge and a constant fear of never making ends meet unsettled me.
All my plans ground to a halt when she placed that timid kiss on my upper lip. Her lips on mine had unwound a possessiveness that penetrated me. Shame and anger pulsed through my veins, wrestling my mind’s demand that I was too close to this—to her.
Being interrupted by her phone was welcomed until I saw the message. I knew immediately someone was watching us; they had chosen that specific time to send their message, and not only with words.
My shoulders relax with Kate back in the car, sitting next to me, as we weave through traffic. She’s playing with her sleeves, twisting them over her hands until they come away wrinkled. The urge to squeeze her hand plows into me, but instead I downshift, throwing the car into the hospital’s parking garage. Her eyes widen when she reads the building’s channel letters, and I track her throat as it bobs.
“Nik, he’s in the hospital?”
I nod.
Parking my car in the private parking area, I notice two of our black SUVs here taking care of security and watching over things while Nik is in the hospital. Exiting the vehicle, I round the other side, button up my suit, and open the door, extending my hand to Kate. She stares at it for one second too long before placing her hand in mine. I guide her, placing a palm in the dip in her back, to the private elevator.
“Pakhan.”
“Sir.”
