Page 177 of Wicked Refusal

I push Mia behind me. “Stay back,” I hiss.

She obeys, but I can feel the fear radiating from her. Her fingers twist into the fabric of my jacket. Knowing her, she isn’t even afraid for herself. She’s afraid for me.

But I can’t have that. If I can’t even make my woman feel safe, then what good am I?

“Nik,” I command, “hide Mia. Take her to Maksim. Make sure she’s protected.”

“No!” Mia’s grip tightens. “I’m not leaving you! I?—”

“I’m not sending you away. I’m giving you a job.”

“A job?”

“Yes. The most important job in the world.” I stroke her face, just once. Just to memorize it. “Protect our baby girl. You’re the only one I trust to do that.”

Her eyes widen at that word:trust.“You trust me?” she asks, still crying.

And for once, the answer’s easy. For once, it’s the easiest thing in the universe. “I do,” I murmur against her lips. “More than anyone else in the world.”

I kiss her. It’s a quick, rushed thing, a stolen moment in the eye of the hurricane. Prizrak has us nearly surrounded, an army of ghosts and guns, and my men still haven’t arrived. When the storm kicks up, I want Mia as far away from it as possible.

Nikita grabs Mia’s hand and carries her away. Mia keeps looking back at me as she runs, not wanting to go, her heart warring with her sense of duty.

I cover their escape. Half a dozen Prizrak ghosts fall to my gun. They want to take my girl? I’ll take their fucking lives.

When the seventh body drops, Desya raises his gun to the ceiling, fires a single shot into the concrete. “Let her go!” he bellows at the other ghosts. “I don’t want him distracted.”

We start circling each other. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re starting to get attached,” I taunt.

“To your girl?” He cackles. “Nah. But I guess she’s earned my respect. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t do it, but she emptied half a cartridge in my guts. That’s more than Kira ever managed.”

I ignore his jab at Kira. He wants to get me worked up, but I won’t let him win. Definitely not with a cheap fucking shot like that. “How’s that going?” I ask instead. “Those three bullets in your guts?”

“Friendly nurse got ‘em out. Says I shouldn’t be moving around, but what does she know? She ain’t no fucking doctor.”

“No?” A new voice cuts into the fray. Older, female. “Guess I should have let you bleed out, then.”

A woman steps into view. Late fifties, maybe early sixties, dressed in camo from head to toe, a glacial look in her eyes. At the sight of her, every single Prizrak soldier drops to their knees, falling silent.

Instantly, I know who I’m looking at. Not her identity, but her role. The specter in charge of all the other ghosts.

Prizrak’s boss.

Twenty years of pent-up fury bubble up to the surface.This is it,I say on the inside.The piece of shit who had my family murdered on Desya’s orders.

As if reading my mind, Desya’s face splits into a grin. “Right, right. You’ve been wanting to meet her, haven’t you?” He gestures between us. “Boss, meet Yulian Lozhkin. Yul, meet?—”

It isn’t Desya who finishes that sentence, though. It’s someone else. Someone all the way on the other side of the parking lot, one staircase away from freedom, staring at the scene with horror in her eyes.

Mia. She opens her mouth and one word falls out. “… Gwen?”

61

MIA

Time slows to a crawl.

I can’t believe my eyes. Can’t make sense of the reality in front of me.