Page 30

CHAPTER 30

SCARLET

“About time you noticed.”

I smile like a loon right back at him.

My deep satisfied breaths while preparing to fight for our lives borders on irrational, but it’s what he does to me. It’s the way he looks at me. With Nick, I feel taller and stronger. With him, I’ve got a partner.

He curls his index finger, gesturing for me to step closer. He’s leaving the choice to me, but his heated gaze leaves no doubt about what he wants.

A sudden flush of warmth spreads. His eyes sparkle. He senses it. Or maybe he sees how aroused I am.

“What’s the plan?” I half expect him to stalk towards me, lift my skirt, rip my panties, and bury himself in me. Or maybe that’s what I want. It’s doubtful he’ll actually flip me over the sofa. “Are we staying here?”

There’s a bedroom and a bunk room. The loaded pantry holds enough canned food to last months, if not years.

“I considered it,” he says, still eyeing me like he’s keen to get naughty.

“But?”

“My gut says we’re best off getting the jump on things.”

The practicality of his assessment disappoints, but I packed the bags because I expected as much. Not to mention the explosions.

“Where will we go?”

He jumps on a computer that’s sitting on a desk. It’s a desktop with a dial-up I can hear. “How do you feel about Greece?”

“It’s lovely,” I say.

“I’ve got a fortified home in Naxos. Off the radar. Owned by a shell company. Tracing it to me would be time-consuming, although not impossible. But if you’re game, that’s where I’m leaning. I like the idea of lying about naked with you.”

“There are lots of places in the world where that can be arranged. You’re thinking the Greek mafia might offer us protection?”

“Protection? No.” His fingers tap away on keys. I can only presume he’s on a secure connection. “There’s a bounty on my head.”

“On yours?”

“Yep. How much do you think my life is worth?” He holds an arm out and I step into his embrace.

“To me? The value is immeasurable.” I don’t like where he’s going with this. My nails scrape his scalp, and his tousled hair fills the gaps between my fingers. He buries his face in my belly.

The computer screen is unlike any I’ve seen. It’s old, with cursors that blink and green lettering on a black background.

The blinking cursor taps out numbers.

250,000,000

“What is that? Euros?”

He lifts his head to take in the screen. “That’s a tidy sum. Yes, I’d say we’re going to need to lie low. The Greeks might not be on the syndicate payroll, but there will be some of them who won’t care what they’re hunting with a fee of that size.”

“Who offered that?” The Grigi’s funds are tied up.

“The syndicate.”

“But they’re your friends.”

“Some are, some aren’t.”

“They don’t operate as a family?”

“Possibly a lone wolf.” The Prophet.

“All right, so what do we do?”

He pauses and looks up at me. There’s concern in his eyes. The same concern I’ve too frequently seen these past few days.

“It’s best if you stay back, love. This bounty, it’s a game changer.”

“I don’t understand why someone would want you dead. Is it loyalty to the Grigi?”

“They don’t give a fuck about one mafia clan. Might be a lesson. Might be a piece in a bigger play. The dynamics within the syndicate are shifting.” He taps away. “If it was only you…if the goal was to have a witness eliminated, the exorbitant bounty would be on your head.”

He taps away on the keyboard.

A response comes back in the same eerie green text.

Nightfall.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we have some time to kill.”

He pulls me onto his lap, and I rock into him as he kisses me, hands tangled in my hair, holding me exactly where he wants me.

Trained assassins the world over are hunting the man in my arms. Morning may not come, but I can’t find it in myself to care.

His teeth drag across my lower lip, lazily, as if forever is ours. The rough pads of his fingers press between the gaps in my shirt. I gasp. Tingling and pleasure flood my body.

Our movements are at once frantic and slow. His beard scrapes the tender skin of my neck and jaw. We fumble with clothes, then slow to appreciate touch.

“Fuck, I want you,” he mumbles against my lips and throat. His hips thrust upwards, and I ride the ridge of his cock.

The chair jerks, and he’s up. His belt flaps in the air, undone by my fingers, as are his trousers. With one shove, his trousers drop to his ankles, and he sits back on the chair. He grasps my hips and pulls me forward, shoves my skirt and panties down, and plants his face against me, lapping at my seam.

“Oh. That feels so good.”

My fingers tousle his hair.

His tongue splits me. His large hands knead my ass. I shift my leg, giving him more room, and he takes the hint, closing his mouth around the sensitized bundle of nerves that have been aroused since he entered the safe space. He thrusts a finger inside me, roughly sucking my clit. It’s perfect, but it’s not what I need.

I push his head away. He looks up at me, lips glistening with my arousal, questioning.

“I want you. Inside me.”

“I’m yours,” he says, a smirk playing across his lips as his hand fists his cock.

“’Bout time you realized that.”

He snorts but grows quite serious as I straddle him, position myself over him, and sink down. We both gasp as I stretch around him. I slow, appreciating the fullness, then push up on my toes, riding him as he embraces me, my mouth over his, tasting myself as our bodies seek heaven.

We’re both half undone, shirts asunder, bottoms pushed to the floor, muscles straining, and it’s divine. My muscles tighten as I bring myself closer to release, closer to the edge, and then I’m up, feet in the air. He’s still inside me as he grabs a pillow from the sofa, tosses it on the floor, and places me on it. His knees are bent, and I’m sitting up, spread eagle on the cushion. The angled position allows him to thrust hard.

It’s almost too much. The pillow slides, but he grips it and pulls me back to him. I put my arms behind me, thrusting my hips to meet his punishing pace.

“God damn it, you feel so good. I don’t want this to end.”

I reach for him, and he catches my wrist and presses his lips into my palm. And then we’re kissing. I truly love kissing him.

Tremors wind their way down my sides, over my ribs as my toes curl. He grunts into my mouth as he chases his release.

We cling to each other through our muscle spasms. Long after our breathing has calmed, we’re still clinging to each other. He grimaces as he shifts and slips out of me.

I pull back, and we’re so close the tips of our noses touch. I rub my cheek against his, letting the coarse strands of his beard scrape my now-tender skin.

“I love you.” I back up again so I can see his eyes, needing him to know. He’s not leaving without me. If someone wants to kill him, they’ll have to kill me first. “I love you,” I say again, looking him in the eye, ensuring he hears me.

“I love you so much, my angel. It’s terrifying.”

He crushes me to him. My chin rests on his shoulder as we sit there, awkwardly wrapped around each other. A moment of peace before the flight.

“What about Lina?”

“The bounty isn’t on her head. Those who are after us will go for the reward. The Grigi is too fractured at the moment to seek that kind of revenge.”

I pull back, seeking his eyes, the window to his fears. “What?”

“The syndicate won’t go after my family while I’m alive. If it’s Halston behind this, he knows me well enough to know I’d go after his son if he went after my sister.”

“Dorian?”

He gives a curt nod.

“Would you?”

“Nah. He’s my mate…but the old bastard will assume I’ll think like him. As long as we’re alive, Lina should be safe.”

“But you still have security with her?”

“Around the clock. When you’re playing a chess game, you plan several moves ahead, but you also cover your tracks lest you face an unanticipated move.”

His chest rises under a deep inhale, and he claps my ass.

“Up you go.”

An hour later, we’re showered, dressed, fed, and packed. We’re both wearing Kevlar, loaded down with backpacks and totes.

I look to the stairs, but he pushes a button, and a panel that looks like a mesh speaker slides to the side, revealing a plate of black glass.

Nick stands in front of it, and the screen lights up. Then a concealed door opens to a black void.

“What’s that?”

“A tunnel. Runs through the back side of the property. Opens up just beyond the property line in the woods. If anyone’s watching via satellite, they won’t see us leave.”

“Nice.”

He grins and holds out his arm for me to proceed. “Come on, love. We’ve got a good fifteen-minute walk ahead of us.”

“And then?”

“Ash had his daughter drop off a vehicle for us.” The door closes behind us, and floor lights shine along a narrow, winding tunnel. The air is damp, and condensation coats the stone walls.

“Clever.”

“It’s a backup plan we engineered years ago. A smart man always has multiple exit points from his home. I built this tunnel before moving in.”

“You always anticipate the worst?”

“Car bombs breed distrust.” He’s referring to his parents.

“So it seems. You trust Ash?”

“With my life. And his daughter has no association with me. She’s not on anyone’s radar. The spot she left the car is on a small dirt road with tree cover.”

“And I assume few know about this tunnel?”

“Ash, me, you, a cleaner Ash hired…and the men who built it. But those men built it before the owner was known, and they’re from a firm that specializes in privacy.”

“Tell me about this place in Greece. Does it have tunnels, too?”

“Bulletproof glass and a safe room, but no tunnel to the sea. But the sea is right out the door.”

“I didn’t pack a suit. Think it will be safe for us to go into town?”

“You won’t need a suit, love.”

We grin at each other. In that second, all is right in the world. In a life of fleeting moments, this is one I will treasure.

The ground trembles beneath our feet.

Our steps slow. Nick places a palm on the stone.

The trembling intensifies.

Smoke clouds the light further down the tunnel.

“Run!”

Nick’s shout jolts me into action.

“As fast as you can, run!”