Page 20 of Bride of Vengeance

But as we drive through the New York night toward whatever safe haven he's planned, I can't shake the feeling that something fundamental just shifted between us. That the game we've been playing—hunter and hunted, federal agent and criminal—just became something much more complicated.

And at the same time, frighteningly clear..

God, help me.

"Mikhail?" I say as we turn onto a street I don't recognize.

"Yes?"

"The next time someone tries to kill me, could you maybe warn me before the shooting starts?"

His laugh is low and rich and completely unexpected. "I'll see what I can do, little wolf. I'll see what I can do."

Chapter six

Safe Harbor

Mikhail

The penthouse elevator requires three different key cards and a biometric scan to reach the forty-second floor. Overkill for most people. Perfect for a man who's spent fifteen years making enemies of very dangerous individuals.

Mariana says nothing during the forty-second-floor ascent, but I can feel her tension radiating through the small space like heat from a furnace. Her weapon is still drawn, though she's pointing it at the floor rather than at me. Progress, I suppose.

"How many safe houses do you have?" she asks as the elevator slides open into my private foyer.

"Enough." I gesture for her to enter first, though every instinct screams against turning my back on an armed federal agent. "This one's clean. No surveillance, no outside access, steel-reinforced walls that could survive a direct missile strike."

She steps into the living space and stops dead.

I watch her amber eyes take in the hardwood floors that probably cost more than her yearly salary, the modern kitchen that's never been used for anything more complicated than coffee. Original artwork hangs on walls painted in warm grays and deep blues. A Steinway grand piano sits in the corner, sheet music still open on the stand from the last time I tried to remember what it felt like to create something beautiful.

"Thisis a safe house?" The disbelief in her voice is almost amusing.

"This is home."

Was home. Before tonight, before I chose protecting her over protecting my anonymity.

She holsters her weapon with quick, efficient movements that speak to years of training. "It's not what I expected."

"What did you expect? A basement filled with torture devices and bodies hanging from hooks?"

"Something like that. Definitely not..." She gestures vaguely at the elegant space. "Not this."

"Disappointed?"

"Confused." She turns to face me, and for the first time since the warehouse, I can see her trying to reconcile the man who just saved her life with the criminal she's been hunting. "Everything I thought I knew about you is wrong, isn't it?"

Everything.But some truths are more dangerous than lies, especially when the woman asking for them has spent two years trying to put me in a cage.

"You're bleeding."

She looks down at her arm, seeming surprised by the dark stain spreading across her sleeve. "It's nothing. Just glass from the window."

"It's not nothing. Kitchen. Now."

She starts to argue, then seems to think better of it. Smart woman. I'm running on pure adrenaline right now, and seeing her hurt—even slightly—is doing things to my self-control that we probably don't have time to explore.

The first-aid kit is where it always is, tucked into the cabinet beside the sink that's never held dirty dishes. I've patched myself up often enough over the years to stock it like a field hospital.