Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 129980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“He can get intense when anyone crosses him. And he told me there were bombs down there, built into the floor.” She lowered her voice even more.
“Do you think he was trying to scare you? To keep you from wandering around down there?” He was damned certain that wasn’t the case. At least he had that information, and it would be critical for their mission to know about the floor being wired.
“I believe him, Andrii. I asked if a bomb were accidentally set off, would it be powerful enough to harm the innocent people in the clubs above that floor, but he didn’t answer me. That’s how ruthless he is. That’s why it’s so important that he doesn’t know about you. I really think this is going to have to be the last time we…”
“Stop right there, Azelie.” He poured command into his voice. Firm. Calm. Kept his voice low. He wasn’t a shouter, and he never would be, but he could take control of a room filled with people with his voice alone. Another gift he’d worked at for years.
Again, her breath caught in her throat, the sound audible. Her large eyes fixed on his face immediately. She stopped speaking, pressing her lips together.
“I’m not going to stop seeing you. You aren’t going to stop seeing me. I think you need to take a closer look at me, baby. You don’t seem to get who I am, and that’s important going forward. Do I look like a nice man to you? Really see me, Azelie, not who you’re fantasizing over in your head.”
Her long lashes did that fantastic fluttering thing they did that made him harder than a fucking diamond. His jeans were too tight for his body. It felt marvelous. Exhilarating. Real. For the first time in years, he felt alive. His woman. She didn’t even know she could put steel in a cock that had been trained to never respond unless he commanded it. She took him over with that innocence in her gaze.
“I don’t fantasize.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Babe. You do.”
She pressed her lips together. Yeah. She knew she did.
“I’m going to tell you something about me, something that might scare you, Azelie, but I hope instead of that, it reassures you.”
She flashed him an uneasy, anxious look. “I’m listening.”
He had the urge to kiss that haughty look right off her face. Instead, he gave her raw truth. Ugly truth. “I was born and raised in Russia. When I was a boy, my mom wanted nice things. Really nice things. She didn’t have a way to get those things unless she sold herself—or sold me.”
Azelie choked. She hadn’t expected him to share intimate details of his life. The genuine distress in her eyes made him feel as if she saw into him. She did that to him. Made him feel as if he mattered. As if he was someone other than the monster they’d shaped him into.
“I’ll tell you the entire story someday, but not tonight. Tonight, I’m just going to say I was eventually taken to a school run by criminals and pedophiles. They were instructed to turn the students into assets for the country by shaping us into assassins. We were forced, at a very young age, to learn how to kill and to do it in many ways. I was a very good student, Zelie. Excellent, in fact, as were the other survivors of that school. Out of two hundred eighty-seven of us, only eighteen survived. Well, nineteen, although we weren’t aware he had survived until recently. The point I’m making is that Billows may be a first-class criminal and a depraved lunatic, but he doesn’t have the skills or experience that I have when it comes to killing human beings.”
He took his eyes off the road long enough to see the shock and horror on her face. He waited for her reaction, a part of him certain she would condemn him. Liquid turned the blue of her eyes to a deep-sea blue. Tears sparkled like diamonds on the ends of her long lashes and then spilled over, tracking down her face.
“Pull over, Andrii,” she whispered. “Criminals? Pedophiles? Two hundred sixty-eight deaths? Only nineteen survivors? That’s insanity. Your life has been insanity. Pull over. I need to…” She broke off abruptly and put her hand on his thigh.
She was crying for him. Tears. Real tears, not crocodile tears. She was as genuine as it got. How the hell had he, of all people, managed to find a woman like Azelie? It made no sense. She made him humble.
“Baby, don’t cry for me. That happened a very long time ago.”
The tears continued to spill over and run down her face. He had a fierce desire to pull over and sip at those tears. He couldn’t remember a single person ever crying for him. Still, they had somewhere important to be.