Page 86 of Lethal Torture

Because of me. Because I didn’t trust him enough to bring him in.

Or is it just that you don’t trust yourself, Zinaida?

I don’t need anyone explaining to me that without Luke’s devastating skill, everything I’ve ever worked for would have died tonight, and me with it.

And I’m still trying to process what I actually saw.

Trying to fit together the two almost unimaginably different men Luke seems to contain in his huge form.

Not only contains, but somehow seamlessly blends.

Even in the midst of the most ruthless killing I’ve ever seen one man unleash, his control was absolute, even down to his low-voiced, firm but kind manner with Sally. Not once did he hesitate, nor show even the slightest hint of emotion at what the night demanded of him.

Except when it came to me.

Then his fury was dark as the fucking storm, and twice as savage.

And there was no control in the way he took me up against the wall of that shipping container. Then again, there was absolutely nothing controlled about the way I wanted him either.

I’ve never felt that before.

The utter abandon, the complete loss of myself in another. For the duration of the time Luke took me, the worlddisappeared. A dozen men could have stormed that door, and I wonder if I’d even have noticed them.

But did he take you, Zin, or did you take him?

The truth is that I don’t even know how it started or when that switch was flipped. Maybe the end was inevitable the moment I saw him leap from that container rooftop and knew, with an overwhelming flood of relief, that somehow everything would be alright.

Maybe it was when I saw him move with lightning swiftness, the hard mask of his face as he dispatched one man after another.

Or maybe that switch was flipped the moment you saw him watching you, that first night back in the Quartier.

I rest my head against his back, cherishing these last moments of silent communion before what no doubt is going to be a devastating postmortem back in London.

And not just from Luke.

Sally and Ana warned me we weren’t set up for open combat.

They both intimated, if I didn’t already know it in my heart, that I’ve been pushing them past their comfort zone for a while now.

I know they’re both highly trained. Sally was a reservist Commando in the Royal Marines, one of the first women to achieve that status. Ana grew up in some of the hardest back streets of Albania and was trafficked as a teenager herself. She’s worked the doors of London’s roughest clubs for twenty years and put knives through men that would make most criminals shudder with fear.

Together, they’ve worked to train my female security force. And until tonight, I’d have considered that force one of the deadliest in London.

But not even their combined skill sets were a match for overwhelming firepower.

And the horrible reality is that Sally was right, back on that container roof, when she said she wants us all to be around to save more than one shipment of girls.

She’s been right to be concerned.

The truth is that I let my ego game with Luke endanger the people I treasure the most.

And instead of protecting them, my hubris nearly got them killed.

In the basementof Lowndes Square, Luke still doesn’t speak, just lifts me off the bike and leads me into the elevator. We stand on opposite sides of it, and I avoid his eyes.

What happens when the elevator doors open?

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what he wants.