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I press my nose to his neck, breathing him in. He smells like gunpowder. Like dust and blood and…
I pull back. “What are you talking about?”
But he’s gone.
* * *
Ivan is now kneeling down a few feet away from me. He’s talking to a man who is curled on the ground.
“Who sent you?” he barks. “What did you give her?”
The man on the ground is dressed in all black. I can’t see his face, but I see his hand. He pulls something out of a pocket in his jacket.
A gun.
I try to lunge, but my body is frozen. I can’t move as I watch the horror unfold in front of me, powerless to do anything to stop it.
But the man doesn’t shoot Ivan.
He points the gun at himself. He wedges it under his chin and—
* * *
The car door bangs closed. Ivan is in the backseat next to me. Camera flashes from the paparazzi light up the window. I understand why. He looks incredible in his tux.
His mouth is pulled into a devilish smirk. A smile that promises nothing but trouble. When he turns to me, I feel my insides melt.
“We aren’t going home,” he tells me. “We’re going out on the town.”
I laugh. “After all the cheesecake I just ate, you’d have torollme out on the town.”
“I’ll roll with you.” He arches a brow and slides a hand over my stomach. “On the town, in our bed—either one is fine.”
Ourbed. We share a bed.
Of course we do. Why wouldn’t we?
“I’m stuffed, but if you try really hard, you might be able to convince me to roll into bed with you.”
He snorts. “You think I’d have to try?”
“Really hard,” I tease. “Just because you wine and dine me does not mean I’m a sure thing.”
“You’re going to be okay,” he says suddenly.
I laugh nervously. “I assumed I would be. Should I be nervous?”
His smile fades. He leans across the back seat towards me. Someone—Yasha, I think—is in the driver’s seat. He’s bitching at traffic and swerving all over the road.
“What is going on?” I ask.
Ivan doesn’t answer; he just loops his arms under my knees and around my back. He hauls me into his lap, curling me into his chest like I’m a child.
“You’re going to be okay,” he says again.
My heart is beating a lopsided, unsteady rhythm. “I wish you’d stop saying that. I know I’m okay. I trust you.”
It’s the words I thought before. The words I thought when…when I was on the damp, cold ground in the alley.
