CHAPTER 16
CHRISTIAN ‘VICIOUS’ VOLKOV.
Talking about the weather after she called me a big baby would have had me snapping her neck in two faster than she could stitch me up.
Telling each other jokes was like pretending I gave a shit about the Arctic wolves in Alaska.
The amount of blood I was losing was messing up with everything. My brain, my sight, my strength.
The only thing that was keeping me sane for every five seconds was her voice, her scent, her sunshine blonde hair up too close to my face.
So I asked what I wanted since I saw her.
A piece of that ass.
And Rhett?
Yeah the scumbag didn’t deserve this woman in the least bit. Not that I deserve her either but there’s no denying there’s something to her that penetrates through my skin.
She smells like lavender. She smells like what a woman sent to destroy you would smell like.
All things good, all things seductive and definitely all things that would stray even the mightiest from their thrones.
“Just one more, okay? You are doing fine.”
She assures.
A look of pity and pride lights her face.
My sanity might be already in the gutter but my ticking brain, the one that calculates and expects things to happen in a certain way is so off its mark, I think I might have lost too much blood to think right.
My hand just found what nirvana feels like.
And it feels like soft, creamy skin, lacy panties and enticing heat.
Her ass, her thighs, the smell of her arousal isn’t the only thing distracting me in this room.
I want to haul her over the counter and rub that goodness between her legs all over my mouth.
I want to turn her over and take her from all the positions her little body can endure.
I want to kiss her and smudge that red lipstick off of her till she understands what being kissed till those lips swell means.
More than that?
I want to fuck her and be done with this obsession I have with my nurse.
“There, all done. That should stop the bleeding until we can get a way out of here. Vicious? I think it’s time to let go now.”
Half aware, half thinking, I pull my hand away from her dress and her scent fades away from me before I can assess whether she’s done with the job or not.
“You should take the antibiotics for the pain but make sure they aren’t expired.”
Then she glances at me for a minute before she disappears to the living room.
It takes about five minutes for common sense to knock into my brain and remind me that every minute spent with this woman risks the chances of me damning myself to hell and thinking with my dick.
I can’t touch her again.
If her ass felt that good, her lips, both lips, might be strappingly better.
I can’t let her touch me either because she’s the forbidden fruit. Rhett’s ex, who also happens to have his baby.
Let’s not forget the minor detail that I’m using her as bait for Rhett.
Or the fact that she’s a civilian who knows nothing about the type of work I do. The type of work that contradicts what she does.
She saves lives.
I enjoy taking lives.
She’s with me 24/7 because I need her ex. I’ll have no use for her once I have Rhett Kingston.
I’ll have no use for the child either.
The child who is with Jagger and damn we have to get out of here as soon as we can.
***
She’s changed into a shirt that barely reaches her thighs coupled with ankle-length mismatched socks.
Surprised to even say it but this woman could wear a scarf on her head and she would still look gorgeous.
“There’s one gun under the armchair. The other one is strapped to the edge of the first cupboard in the kitchen. In case you fail to reach that, there’s a rifle under the bed.”
“I don’t…I don’t know how to use a gun-.“ Her voice quivers.
I take the Glock in my hand and place it on her hand, “Remove safety, aim, fire.”
“No, you don’t understand. I am not waiting here for men to come and find me when I barely know how to aim straight or use a freaking gun! I’m coming with you.”
“I have to get a signal to contact Maximo. Your foot is injured, you coming with me risks us both ending up dead.”
“What if you end up dead? What do I do then?”
“You will not.”
“Take me with you. Just don’t leave me alone.”
“You’ll be fine. Stay put, wait for me, do not open the door for anyone. You hear me? No one goes in through that door except me. I know the code to get inside meaning I won’t knock on the door or ask you to open it for me.
Now, tell me where the guns are Little Nurse.”
“Christian, please- “
The first time she said my name. I am tempted to kiss her.
I’m also tempted to go back to the kitchen with her frame between my thighs and my hand caressing her sweet ass.
“Alexia”, I warn.
“Under the armchair, strapped to the first cupboard in the kitchen and under the bed.”
“Good girl. Do not open this door no matter what.”
CHAPTER 17
ALEXIA GREEN.
“Good girl. Do not open this door no matter what.”
I should stay. He’s right.
I’m injured. Both of us traveling to wherever he’s going to get a signal on his walkie-talkie is a big risk.
I could slow him down or worse, we could both end up dead.
With all that information in my head, my nerves still swallow me whole and spit me right out.
I’m not a ‘good girl’.
And not only am I scared to death but I’m scared of Demetri and his men finding me here and shooting me long before I know how to remove safety, aim and fire.
I don’t stay.
I don’t follow his rules.
I wait till he leaves.
Twenty seconds later, I walk as fast as my injured leg can to the bedroom. Once in the bedroom, I don’t look at the room twice or anything for that matter because I kneel on the floorboards, peek under the bed and find a hunting rifle strapped to the bottom part of the bed with tape.
I take the rifle.
Thirty seconds later, I tie a wooden spoon against my injured leg. That should be able to help me walk in the snow without difficulty.
Fifty-five seconds later?
My throat feels desert dry as the night greets me like an old friend.
The gun in my hands feels heavier than the boots adorning my legs or the snow that’s falling harder than earlier.
What’s even harder?
Following Christian Volkov in the middle of the night and trying to stay hidden.
The man moves like a lumberjack accustomed to the harsh weather of Alaska.
Except this place isn’t Alaska but a place so much worse.
Eyes straight, never stopping to rest, his gun set on one hand, Christian Volkov moves like a machine.
We’ve been trudging against the snow and the harsh weather for what seems like an eternity and so far, I feel like the amount of sweat my body is perspiring is enough to drown an entire island, my back hurts, my lips are chapped and my heart is beating erratically against my chest at the chance of being caught by Demetri, a wild animal or worse, the guy I’m following.
The guy who told me to stay put in his fancy safe house while he made sure we got out of here.
“DiMarco? Shit, come in…Coordinates: the safe house you left with no water and no food! Jagger? Ten-four, come in?
Fuck.”
Vicious’ echoes shake a few birds from the trees.
From where I’m standing, hiding behind a tree with a rifle in my hand, I can taste his frustration.
He stops walking.
He taps his walkie-talkie twice then stops.
I think he’s given up.
I should rush back to the safe house before he knows I followed him all the way here.
My feet barely touch the snow before new noises fill the air.
It’s not me. It’s not Volkov.
How do I know? Because I don’t speak Russia and the men speaking into the night are definitely Russian and they are headed this way.
Volkov angles his head in the direction of the men’s voices.
Like a predator, he waits with his gun barely lifted and his talkie on the other hand.
Like a prey, I’m shaking at my hiding spot.
‘Run, Christian. Hide. Just hide!’
The idiot doesn’t hide.
The noises only get closer and the weather grows angrier. The fear clawing my neck has paralyzed me on the spot.
A few trees get snapped out of the way, the sound of snow getting crushed by heavy army boots resonates in the small space between Volkov and me before everything turns to hell.
Two men appear in front of Volkov.
Big like Demetri. Ferocious like your typical Russian mobsters. They are Demetri’s men and they are heavily armed with more guns.
I should have carried the other two guns from the kitchen and the living room.
They are going to kill him.
They are going to kill me.
Buzz cut number one, the one whose hair is blonde and has a gnashing scar on his chin says something to Volkov.
Volkov chuckles and my head swims, all my thoughts swirling in one direction. His laugh is as burning as his touch.
Then as if my boss couldn’t get any sexier enough, he opens his mouth and speaks Russian.
The first dude, Buzz cut number one, chuckles but his smile is a condescending one.
The telltale pulse of dread travels up my neck.
What happens next happens so fast, I barely have enough time to take my rifle, hold it well and aim it at the two Russians.
One of the men has his gun locked and loaded on Volkov’s forehead.
The other guy tells Volkov something between the lines of ‘say your last words’ and ‘time to meet your maker’ in Russian.
My hand flies to my mouth.
This is it. This is how he dies and how I’ll die. This is how—
Time slows in reverse.
One minute Christian is about to be blown his brains out and the next, he yanks the gun from Buzz cut number one.
Before Buzz cut number two has a chance to react, my boss doesn’t blink, doesn’t even think as he fires his gun shooting the man between his eyes with his other gun.
Like he’s playing Russian roulette, he aims the second gun at the man who was about to kill him shooting him in the head.
Both bodies fall to the ground like logs. Their blood taints the snow with dark red.
The scream I’m trying to unleash dies down my throat. They are dead. He just—just killed them.
In my moment of getting shaken to the bones by the blood and gore, I stare at Christian who is wiping blood off his talkie like he just killed a bug.
Except right beyond Christian, I see the men hiding behind the trees, the men who are loading their guns to spray him with bullets.
Oh no. No.
He killed two men but there are like six men about to kill him.
Vicious might have killed two men in less than a minute but he can’t handle six men alone.
I can’t watch him die.
“Remove safety, aim and fire.”
His words rack my brain.
I steady the rifle in my hands.
God, I can’t do this. I can’t kill anyone. I can’t protect him.
I point the rifle with shaking hands in Christian’s direction.
All I have to do is to aim at the target.
I see three men already holding their guns up at a clueless Volkov. Yeah, I can shoot them.
I remove the safety, at least that’s what I think it is, I place my index finger on the trigger, I aim at the target and then?
I fire the gun.