Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
They fanned out, following each trail, one leopard per vehicle, the others waiting, all armed, ready and willing to go to war. Sasha had taken her from him. She belonged to Joshua. She was his woman. No one was going to hurt her, let alone kill her. Every minute that went by felt like an hour, a day.
He loved her. It was that simple. He didn’t know how it had happened or even when. He just knew he couldn’t sleep without her next to him. He wanted to go to sleep listening to her laughter or the sound of her voice murmuring to him. He loved the scent of her in his bathroom. In his bedroom. In every room of his house. She belonged with him because without her, he didn’t have one single fucking thing.
The moment Kai told him where she was, he gathered his crew around him and they came up with a plan. He sent four scouts to map out every possible escape route, to count every guard. He didn’t care if they were outnumbered or outgunned, he was going to get her back and kill the son of a bitch who took her.
His men gathered the information needed and brought it back to him. He was brilliant at strategy, he always had been. Drake had recognized that in him early and encouraged him to have confidence in his choices. He surrounded himself with good men, men he knew he could count on. All were experienced in battle and they were used to stealth work. They’d worked in the rain forests or small villages, going into terrorist camps and extracting prisoners. It was what they did best. This was no different. Sonia was a prisoner. She’d been taken, and they would get her back.
None of them liked that he chose to go in with just two leopards at his back. The rest were to surround Sasha’s men and wait for the signal to take them out. He needed to get the lay of the land, and God help them all if the Russian had harmed one hair on her head.
I’m coming for you, baby. Hold on for me. He sent the message into the universe, hoping she got it. He detested that she might be afraid and feeling alone.
He slipped through their ranks easily. They were leopards, but they were used to dealing with humans, not other leopards. They had chosen to stay in human form, cradling their guns as they paced their routes. He studied them as he slipped past them. They moved well, the guns extensions of them, very familiar, as if made for them; they stayed alert. It made sense to use their human form in the city, even around the house. Still, had he been directing security, he would have had a few leopards prowling just to ensure nothing – or no one – got through their ranks.
He made it into the house through an upper-story window. That was careless as well. They should have had an alarm on every window. It was time-consuming to put them on houses like these, but it prevented mistakes. Letting them in was a huge mistake. Evan went first. He insisted and there was little, short of shooting him, Joshua could do to stop him. Evan and Kai were insistent they were there to protect him. He was insistent they were getting his woman back.
He heard her voice, talking softly. He heard the stress because he was so tuned to her every mood. She didn’t sound afraid, only stressed, and that brought him up short. He nearly pulled the trigger to end the bastard, but at the last minute, he decided to listen. It wasn’t easy to stop himself. He wanted to kill Sasha Bogomolov more than anything else in the world. If Sonia was married to him, he would make her a widow and clear the way for her to be his wife. He didn’t care if that made him a monster.
The man had taken her from him, kidnapped her right out from under him. More, he’d broken a cardinal rule in doing so – he’d involved the police in the form of Bastien Foret. Joshua knew he’d grown more violent over the years. His mother’s influence had faded as necessity and self-preservation had taken over in the circumstances he’d found himself in, but he’d never felt like this. Never. He was barely able to control himself.
He moved into position, knowing Evan had his back and Kai was rounding up the other occupants of the house. The moment he laid eyes on her, that he could see for himself Sonia was alive and no one had touched her, some of the killing fury, that demand for blood, eased in his churning gut. Still, like his leopard, he felt like snarling and raging. He wanted to beat Sasha into a bloody pulp and then butcher him.