Page 24 of Kept in the Dark

I shift in my seat to adjust the hardening length discreetly, but there is only so far for me to go, even in an SUV with ample head space.

Fuck. This is going to be a long ride. But in the short term, there are things I must take care of.

“May I have your phone?”

After a second of hesitation and a hard look, she snaps open the small purse wedged between her leg and the center console and hands me her thin device. I roll down the window wordlessly and toss it out.

“Hey! What the fuck, Lev? You can’t just—”

“You can be tracked with your phone,” I explain gruffly, thinking of how simple it would be for Wesley or, I imagine, Felix. “If Kyle can findwhere you live, he can find you with that just as easily. We need to hide until we are out of imminent danger. And call me Dimitri.”

8

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, IknowI 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 theyrupture 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.