Page 12 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

Nicole

Trust him, but try to stay a step ahead of him.

I wasn’t scared of Kyle, and I should have been.

He didn’t really give me a reason to be scared, though. He was just being a complete dick right up until he pulled a gun on me.

Lev— Dimitri, on the other hand… I sneak a glance his way. His brows are snapped together, pinching his face into an intense, angry look. The shiny white facial scar is prominent, even in the low light, and whereas before it gave him an ominous air, now it’s downright menacing.

He looks like his baseline emotion is simmering anger.

But that’s just how his face is, I think?

Either way, despite looking like the muscles required to smile are all paralyzed, he’s like Lake fucking Placid.

Sure movements, even breathing, flat voice.

Not an ounce of fear. His heart rate was a cool 65 bpm when I took it moments ago.

That’s not normal.

So, I know I should be scared of Dimitri.

I watched him do something impossible. He was standing 20 feet away; it was dark, and someone had a gun pointed at him, but he threw that knife, and it went right into Kyle’s stomach. With the pointy end.

Maybe an argument could be made for some of it being due to luck, but I don’t think that’s it either. Who throws a knife unless they’re sure it’ll hit? Who even carries knives anyway? It’s got to be easier to use a gun .

So, it’s not just skill; it’s expertise. Which means he’s done it before. A lot.

Which means he’s a killer.

With a growing sense of unease, I watch him out of the corner of my eye as the flickering light of a gas station illuminates half our bodies through the windows.

Both hands are on the wheel, but his posture is relaxed in his seat, and he’s taking up what feels like more than half of the front of the cab.

Briefly, I consider making him pull over, or grabbing for the wheel and crashing us into one of the ditches on either side of this back country road. Even in my own brain, that scenario doesn’t play out in my favor. He’s too big, too quick, too… much.

Can’t say I’m as big of a fan of our size discrepancy anymore.

The word surfaces at the edge of my awareness again— Bratva . It’s feeling even more likely that Dimitri is part of the Russian mob, now that I know what he can do. Is Kyle one of them, too?

What if Dimitri’s in league with Kyle and I just… got into his car? What if I just helped kidnap myself?

Okay. No. They’re not working together—Dimitri threw a knife at Kyle. But that doesn’t mean he’s not after whatever it is Kyle shoved into my mouth and made me swallow.

I flinch at the memory of the sharp edges scraping the inside of my esophagus. I didn’t get a good look or have time to really feel it out, but I know it had long, flat edges with sharp corners like it was rectangular. Small, but almost too big to swallow. And it tasted like latex.

I don’t know what it is, but I have a few guesses, and I hate all of them.

Drugs are my primary concern.

Because of the drug problems in some of the inner-city areas I’ve worked, I’m more familiar than I would like to be with some of the drug trafficking practices used by gangs.

Mules sometimes swallow bags wrapped in balloons or condoms, and sometimes they rupture in the stomach, causing an overdose and inevitably killing the unfortunate carrier.

Years ago, one of the coroner’s assistants at the hospital where I was working in Miami was shot when two guys broke into the morgue, cut open one of the bodies, and grabbed the rest of the drugs in her stomach.

And that’s when I learned that a dead body is sometimes used as a suitcase. Morbid, sure, but convenient for bad guys who are desensitized to the morbidity of it anyway, I suppose.

It’s entirely possible that Kyle planned to use that gun he had aimed at my head once the goods were safely tucked away inside me.

I’m going to be sick.

Too bad it won’t help expel whatever the fuck is in my stomach. If it is drugs, a forcible expulsion coupled with those sharp corners might rupture the bag. I’m not sure how much liquid fentanyl it would take to kill me, but I am sure I don’t want to find out.

“What did he make you swallow?” Dimitri asks, like he can hear my thoughts. Or maybe it’s that I can’t stop rubbing my chest where it feels like it’s still lodged.

The blood drains from my face. Given when he’d shown up in the maze, I wasn’t sure if Dimitri had heard Kyle force the thing down my throat or not. “I don’t know,” I say. It’s an honest answer, but it’s also a stalling tactic until I’m more sure of his involvement—or lack thereof. “He didn’t say.”

“A pill?”

He’s so gruff, and the depth of his voice sends more shivers up my spine that dissolve in the warmth of the dry heat blasting towards me. My nipples prickle from the contrasting temperature sensations, and it makes me shiver harder. I cross my arms to hide it and sink lower into my seat.

“I don’t know,” I repeat, softer this time, a little unnerved by Dimitri’s sudden shift away from stoic and silent to caring about my welfare .

I’m not sure I trust it. I’m not sure I trust him .

But what choice do I have?

I still have the old-ass cell phone they gave me at the hospital—thank God I didn’t give Dimitri both when he asked—but I don’t have any money, and I’d be too scared to leave a digital footprint that Kyle could use to find me.

If he’s alive, I can’t go home. And after Dimitri’s reaction, I’m afraid to go to the police.

Mafia men pretty famously have cops “in their pockets.” I don’t really know anyone locally other than extended family, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring this shit to them.

They wouldn’t know what to do either, so I’d only be putting more innocent people in danger.

So, I’m fucked. I don’t have anywhere to go.

Then again, everything is still in the U-Haul. That piece of shit landlord would probably keep my deposit, but $2500 isn’t worth my life. I could break my lease, get in the van, and pick a city at random, somewhere far away from Ulysses. Start over. Again.

I’m good at it by now.

Though that’s assuming Dimitri even plans to let me go.

If Kyle’s alive, he’ll come after what he made me swallow and probably kill me. If Kyle’s dead, I’m an accessory, and I’m in a car headed for God-knows-where with his murderer.

A murderer who saved me, who hasn’t threatened me with violence once, and who—despite the fear coiled low in my belly—I don’t actually think wants to hurt me.

Generally speaking, I’ve learned to trust my intuition.

It took a while to get here, but I have a finely tuned gut instinct from a decade of seeing and treating all the worst kinds of people in the ER.

And right now, my instincts are telling me that despite all evidence to the contrary, Dimitri isn’t my worst option.

I’m also oddly comforted by the fact that some of the questions he’s asked made me feel like he doesn’t trust me either, like when he demanded to know why I wasn’t asking to go home .

Plus, if it is drugs, it might rupture inside of me. I need someone nearby who can drive me to the hospital in case I overdose. Bonus if he’s calm in an emergency.

“A sedative would have affected you by now,” Dimitri continues, almost to himself, still puzzling out the mystery in my gut.

“No… it was, um… hard. Maybe about this big?” I hold up two fingers about an inch apart. “Kind of sharp. And based on how Kyle was acting in that maze, I think he might have been on something.”

His eyes cut to me briefly, like the rush of honesty is unexpected.

“I get that we’re, like, on the run, but can we stop somewhere for Narcan? Just in case it’s drugs and I need to prevent an OD.”

“I have some in my first-aid kit.”

I feel my brows lift in surprise. “Because you’ve got the best-stocked first aid kit in existence or something?”

This time, when he looks at me, it’s the same look he gave me when I asked if we were going to the police. Don’t ask dumb questions you won’t like the answer to, Nicole.

So, I turn my attention back outside.

We’ve been in the car for roughly an hour so far, and I don’t recognize these rural roads.

The further we get from the estate, the more it feels like being able to take a deeper breath, but the air is thinning—the relief of a satisfying lung fill, countered by the panic of not getting enough oxygen from it.

“Where are we going?” I ask to distract myself. My voice is low enough to almost be drowned out by the road noise, but somehow still much too loud in the thick quiet of the cab. But that could just be the breaking-the-silence effect.

Screaming it at him might feel a little more cathartic.

“A safe house. ”

The distinct lack of details is intentional, I think. He doesn’t really plan on answering my question. Still, I have to try. So I ask, “Where is it? How far?”

“A safe house is only safe if no one knows where it is,” he counters.

What an infuriating non-answer, even if I begrudgingly have to admit that it makes some sense. Or, it’s self-consistent, anyway. But who am I going to tell? And how would I? As far as he knows, he threw away my only phone.

Okay, so he’s not being super forthcoming, and that benefit of the doubt is stretching a little thin.

Exhaustion hits me, and I slump in my seat.

The thin material of my dress doesn’t do much in the way of warmth—I’m freezing and my coat is miles behind us, abandoned in a closet at the estate.

My back is covered in tiny cuts that sting when they touch the leather seats.

My feet are numb with cold right now, but I know they’re bruised and bloody from our jaunt through the woods.

These contacts are getting really scratchy, but I need to wash my hands before I touch my eyes to take them out.

To put it mildly, I’m in rough shape.

I let out a long breath that I know sounds tired. Reaching up, I remove the bobby pins from my up-do so my hair can act as a curtain. Then, I lean against the headrest, turn my face towards the window, and close my eyes.

Silence falls for a while.

“Nicole?” He’s checking to see if I’m asleep.

Maybe it’s good if he thinks I’m asleep. I’ll have a slight advantage against an attack if he thinks I don’t see it coming.

I don’t reply, and he mutters something to himself in a language I don’t recognize.

Must be Russian. The lilting cadence and smooth tone are almost calming, though I doubt he means it to be, considering nothing he’s said since we got into the car has been remotely reassuring. He’s clearly not trying to coddle me .

He starts moving, shifting back and forth in his seat, and it takes a lot of willpower not to sneak a peek to see what he’s doing.

After a moment and a frustrated grunt, he unbuckles his seatbelt and resumes wiggling around with a bit more freedom.

It clicks back into place, and a second later I feel a heavy warmth draped on the shoulder closest to him.

I remain stock-still as he reaches over with his enormous wingspan and adjusts the other side of his suit jacket to cover as much of my torso as possible.

The scent of him invades my senses as I nearly cry from relief at the overwhelming warmth of his lingering body heat in the wool jacket.

I inhale through my nose slowly and deeply, and fill my lungs with him.

It’s clean, but salty and a little sour.

It’s sweat after being at the beach. It’s showering without body wash and letting yourself air dry.

It’s musky and masculine and human and so, so appealing.

I don’t have the energy to try to tamp down on the gratitude and longing I feel.

It’s been a horrific night, and all I want to do is soak up this kindness.

Lulled by the white noise from the road, the darkness, the warmth, and the manufactured feeling of safety by being surrounded by so much of him, I do exactly what I shouldn’t. I fall asleep.