Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Twenty hours. Twenty hours, and I would be in New York.
One step closer to figuring out what the hell I was going to do next, because no one was coming to save me from Kostya.
CHAPTER 11
KOSTYA
Icrushed out the smoldering clove cigarette against the no smoking sign just inside of Union Station. I hated being here. Hated standing in this drafty fucking train station, watching my little rabbit scurry for an escape she would never find.
I would have much rather had her with me, in a warm bed, curled against my chest where she belonged.
Her body soft. Malleable.
Her breath slow and steady as she gave in and let me protect her, keep her.
Instead, we were still playing this game of cat and mouse.
And I was giving her a head start, letting her think she had a chance.
She didn’t.
She was right where I expected her to be.
For over an hour now, she had been curled into herself on that hard wooden bench at the far end of the station, arms wrapped tight around her ribs.
Fidgeting.
Searching.
Studying every single person who came anywhere near her.
She was looking for me.
I nearly laughed.
She was searching all the wrong faces.
Her wary gaze flicked from one man to another, looking at builds, scanning for dark Russian features, when all she had to do was look up in the right direction.
She would have seen me clear as day.
Watching her.
Maybe then she would have realized there was no escape.
That this was happening, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop it.
The only thing I didn’t understand was why the fuck she was going back to New York.
It made no sense.
If she wanted to hide, why go back to a city with one of the largest Russian mafia presences?
She would never be safe there.
Not from me.
Not from Solovyov.
She had a reason to go back, and I suspected it was to retrieve whatever Veronika had stolen. It was the only thing that made sense.
I watched her every nervous movement, every time she flinched at the smallest noise.
Trying to see it.
Trying to understand her.
Nothing this girl did ever made sense.
I understood why she ran from me.
What I didn’t understand was why she was running toward something else.
People had told me many times that I was intimidating.
That my presence alone could make men sweat, that my gaze could make them weak.
And yet, if my little rabbit was so afraid of me, why did her body respond to me so wantonly?
She had struck me. She had run.
But before that? She had kissed me back.
I hadn’t imagined her response. I had felt it in my fucking bones. She had melted into me. I knew she had been hot and wet for me.
If moy zaichonok was as hungry for me as I was for her, then I was going to give her exactly what she craved. After her punishment, of course.
For too long, I thought of her only as my wife’s tempting younger sister, but she was a surprising puzzle, a woman full of secrets. And I wanted to know them all.
The train finally pulled in, metal screeching against metal as it slowed to a stop.
She stood from where she’d been curled into herself, trying to make herself small, trying to disappear.
I understood the instinct.
The smaller you were, the harder you were to spot.
Nervous energy practically radiated off of her.
I could taste her fear from here.
And so could everyone else.
People moved around her, their gazes shifting away, as if they could sense she was hunted. She had made herself too visible without even realizing it.
Too skittish.
Too obvious.
Marina stood in line, waiting to climb the few metal steps, and I gritted my teeth as two college idiots eyed her up and down.
Like she was a fucking meal.
Like she was theirs to look at.
My jaw ticked.
They were lucky they had no idea who they were staring at. If they knew what was good for them, they’d pray I didn’t come across them again.
Jealousy burned in my gut.
I had no patience for other men’s eyes on my woman.
I waited until she was on board, making damn sure she had actually gotten on and hadn’t tried some trick. Only when the doors were about to close did I finally move.
Calm. Measured.
I made my way down the platform, stepping onto the train at the very last moment.
I had planned for this. I pulled out my first-class ticket, purchased twenty minutes after I had figured out where she was going. I made my way to my private cabin. America’s train system was lacking, slow, inefficient, barely worth considering. So the cabin was small, but comfortable enough. Plenty of space for what I intended to do during this trip.
If I were traveling back to New York under normal circumstances, I would have taken my private jet. I would have been sipping vodka, stretching my legs, enjoying the luxuries that came with wealth and power.