Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“We’re fine,” Mila says, her voice small. “I …” She looks at Lia. “I’ll let you tell him.”
“Some freak working for the Petrovs tried to kidnap us.”
Mila looks at the floor. “Because I told him I’d help.”
My head splits right down the middle. I can’t believe Mila would betray us for no reason. “What … why?”
“Drake.” Her voice is small and full of devastating sadness. It takes everything I have not to sweep her into my arms. She coughs back a sob.
“We’ll get him back. I promise.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that, but nothing’s changed,” she snaps.
She walks to the door, right past me, coming close enough that I can feel her heat and sense her sadness. After a quick talk with Lia, who looks at me as though she seems to know how I feel about Mila, I head outside. Denis is standing outside the door with another guard.
“He’s ready for you, sir,” Denis says.
“Good,” I grunt.
Before I can get to work, I need to check in on Mila. I find her in her bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, tears sliding down her cheeks. She’s staring off into space as though she’s seeing all the brutal and unfair things that will happen to her. I walk over to the bed, kneel down, take her hands, and look into her eyes.
“What happens to Drake now?” she whispers, breaking down.
“There’s no way for that asshole to contact the outside world,” I tell her. “Your father won’t know if this scumbag succeeded or not. He’s never going to speak to him again. I need to know exactly what happened.”
She swallows, looking at me like she did when I walked into the house with Ania in my arms. It’s like she’s realizing, one step at a time, that I’m not just some computer nerd. “I’m not sure I should say.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem really mad.”
“Mad,” I repeat, then laugh savagely. “Mad, Mila? No, it’s more than that, my Cyber Siren.”
That gets a small, reluctant smile from her that makes me feel like I’ve won the lottery. “That one was pretty good,” she admits.
I sit on the bed beside her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. She’s shivering slightly as if the events are only now catching up with her. “Just walk me through it, step by step.”
Mila does precisely that. She tells me about the man shoving her into the room and putting his hand across her mouth. Suddenly, her earlier awkwardness makes sense, as she went from being elated and proud to wanting nothing to do with me.
“He was in the en suite. He said … he said…” She swallows a sob. “He’d kill us both.”
My blood turns to ice. I stand up, clenching my fists.
“This isn’t your fault,” I tell her.
“He was going to hurt Lia because of me.”
“What happened after? At the second house?”
She keeps talking and then gets to the part where she stands in front of Lia, stopping Yevgeny from shooting her.
“You saved her life,” I tell Mila.
“Without me, it wouldn’t have needed saving.”
“You did the right thing. Don’t beat yourself up about this. Don’t you dare!” I’m the one trembling now, thinking of that worm with his hand over my Mila’s mouth and all the sick ways this could’ve gone wrong.
“Where are you going?” she asks, touching my arm when I stand up.
I want to stay here. I want to be with Mila all night and all day, but I can’t stop thinking about what that dirtbag did. “There’s work to do.”
She swallows. “What kind of work?”
“Bratva work,” I say, turning away.
“Wait.”
At the door, I stop. She walks over to me quickly, throwing her arms around my shoulders and looking up at me with emotion. “Thank you for not hating me.”
“I could never hate you,” I say, cupping her cheek.
She’s the one who initiates the kiss, standing on her tiptoes and pushing herself against it. I hold on to her tightly. For the first time since we’ve touched, I don’t want to devour her or just devour her, anyway. Emotion burns through me as I clutch her tightly, kissing the top of her head, letting her scent move through me.
“Nobody’s ever going to hurt you again,” I tell her. “You and me, Mila … One day, we’ll be someplace safe just for us.”
“With Drake?” she asks.
“Your brother will be there, too. We’ll go …” I hesitate.
“I don’t care where it is,” she cuts in. “I don’t care what we’re doing as long as we’re together and safe.”
I kiss her one last time, then force myself to leave. Heading outside, I walk over to the basketball court and press the switch at the very base of the hoop. Mechanical whirs begin as a portion of the court in the corner starts to sink into the concrete. It’s a metal elevator painted to look like a piece of the court.