Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
The kiss had brought the arrivals hall to a standstill and now we were surrounded by gawping onlookers. I was hotly aware of the hundreds of eyes on me. I’d never felt so on display and all I wanted to do was run and hide. But what made it bearable, what made me feel safe, wasn’t the four hulking bodyguards around us. It was Konstantin’s arm around my waist. As we started to walk, he held me so close to his side that our hips rubbed, as if he couldn’t bear to be separated from me by even a millimeter of air. And one glower from him was enough to make the crowd fall away in front of us.
He marched me to a black Mercedes that was parked right outside the door. As I slid across the soft leather seat, it hit me that I’d done it. I’d met him and he’d accepted me as Christina. I was in.
And I realized I’d completely forgotten about the mission as soon as his lips touched mine. Jesus, what’s wrong with me?
We pulled away and joined the freeway. We were so cocooned in heavy steel and thick glass that there was barely any road noise and it was easy to think that we weren’t moving at all. But when I looked up, the landscape was whipping past outside. As the high of the kiss faded, reality started to set in. I was alone with a man everyone feared, and every second took me further and further from my friends, the FBI, and everything I knew.
A noise that was familiar. An important sound, but I was so distracted it just bounced off my perception because it didn’t apply to me. It came again. Again.
He touched my arm and I turned to look. “Christina!” he said, insistent.
Shit! That’s what I’d been hearing. My new name! My brain had just tuned it out. My heart jumped up into my mouth and I felt my face go pale. How could I have made such a basic mistake? I can’t pull this off! He’s going to find out!
“Sorry,” I said. “I—Just—” I searched my brain for an explanation and thought of the only time I’d been in hospital, when I’d had a bad kidney infection, age six. “Whenever I heard my name, in hospital, it meant someone was coming to jab me with a needle.”
His arm immediately scooped behind my back and hooked around me. His eyes lit up with a protective gleam and my fear melted away into a warm glow. Then I saw him frown, and he glanced at his arm as if surprised at what he’d done.
A moment later, we turned onto a private road. Trees had been used to cleverly hide the fence but I caught a glimpse of it, eight feet tall and topped with razor wire. Men in suits with that somber, no-nonsense look of former military patrolled its length, huge Rottweilers padding alongside them. My stomach flipped over. I knew they were there to keep enemies out, but they’d be just as effective at keeping me in. If Konstantin found out I wasn’t Christina, there’d be no hope of making a run for it.
The car swung around a sweeping driveway and as we broke through the trees, there it was. My breath caught in my throat and I tried not to stare. I’m meant to be used to this.
The mansion was a lot like him: imposingly big and unashamedly grand: three stories and two wings, doors that must have been twelve feet high framed by pillars too thick for me to wrap my arms around. It was outwardly cold, built from dark gray stone, but warm light from chandeliers spilled out through the windows and I could see the gleam of polished wood floors and the flicker of open fires. The place must have been at least a hundred years old and I wondered why he’d chosen it: he could have bought a huge, modern penthouse in the city for the same money.
Even as the car crunched to a halt on the gravel, a guard was already stepping forward to open my door. Konstantin seemed to be in a hurry to get inside, one of his big hands pressing on the small of my back to gently guide me. Two more guards were holding the massive front doors open for us... God, how many guards did he have? There were so many of them, all with the same heavy muscle, expensive suit, and the bulge of a gun, that their faces started to blend into one. It brought home just how serious the cold war between the different mafia families was.
There was one guard, though, who didn’t look like the others. He was a little older than the rest, with a few streaks of silver in his short, black hair. He wasn’t as heavily built as Konstantin but he was tall, lean, and good-looking in a craggy, old-fashioned kind of a way. I knew him from years of watching Konstantin: Grigory was the head bodyguard and also handled all of Konstantin’s arms deals.