I pause.My brother.The thought of him coming to my rescue would have been a welcome gift years ago. But times have changed. I’m not the same naive girl I was once upon a time.
“He’s making arrangements and will be here by the end of next week.”
I take a steady breath, close my eyes, and push away my wants. Something I’m used to doing. At least I have been for the past three years. “No.”
“No?” The laughter in his voice grates my nerves, and I turn in anger.
“Yeah, no. He’s only coming because he feels like he has to. He knows better than to start shit. Like you said, no one goes against the Russian mafia if they don’t have to. With me on the run, he’s not connected. I’m rogue, or at least that’s how he’s spun it all these years.”
He tilts his head and gives me a questioning look before he voices what he must see in my face. “You’re angry with him.”
“No, I’m not. I get it. It was easier to distance himself, especially since he had no idea where I was. Connecting us only left him weak and with no information to trade.”
“Admit it.” He rises from his seat. “He left you out to dry, and it pissed you off.”
“Nah, I’m not that shallow,” I say with a hand wave to push off that ridiculous idea.
“Admit. It.” He steps forward with each word, and the way he says it? The hard notes and the look in his eye like he knows me hit a spot in me that just sets me off.
“Fine!” I yell as I step closer to him, my hands moving rapidly to convey my words. “Of course I was mad. Still am. I’m furious that I have to live and breathe with one eye open all the time. That my days of drunken college years are now a cluster of crappy hotels and poor attempts at pretending thatrunning every day is normal for a little kid. I hate that I was forced to learn how to defend myself and that I have a kill count I know is higher than most of my brothers’, and they’re in the fuckingfamilia. I hate that I’m treated differently because I’m a girl. But I mostly hate that I wasn’t worth fighting for.”
He doesn’t rise to my level of anger. Instead, he does something no one has ever done before—he talks softly.
“Running solves nothing. It doesn’t prove you’re right and he’s wrong. Going out there alone only guarantees one thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“Your death. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we both know the clock is ticking. You can only run for so long before you run right into a trap. You think Ivan is okay with all this time going by? You think he isn’t tiring of waiting for hispropertyto be returned to him? Because that’s what you’re up against if you go out there. Not only do you put yourself at risk but Ollie too.”
“What the hell do you expect me to do?”
“To wait!” He finally matches my volume as he raises his hands in frustration. “Fuck.” He walks away from me but doesn’t go far, as the room isn’t overly large. “I expect you to think it through. Stop trying to just survive the day and start thinking about how tolive. Because what you’re doing, this isn’t living.”
“What the hell do you know about it?” I cross my arms.
“More than you think.” He matches my stance but leans back on his desk. “You get three hours of sleep a night, and that’s on a good night. You sleep with a weapon under yourpillow and have trained Ollie to do the same. You know how to work a speed bag, I’ll give you that, but you slow after a while. Your timing is off, and you miss. How long do you think it’s going to be before you miss altogether? Or when you take half a second to react, and then it’s not your arm getting grazed by a bullet but your chest taking it dead center? You don’t think I know what you’re up against? I might not have had the Russian mafia after my ass before, but I’ve fought for my life before. Mine and my bothers’, for years. I know what I’m talking about because I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve slept on the floor because there wasn’t a place to rest before. I’ve stayed up for hours on end, days blending together, with a gun in my hand and a finger on the trigger, ready to take the shot when needed. I’ve been you. I’ve done that. So have a lot of other people. But there’s something I did that many didn’t. The same thing you’re being given an opportunity to do.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“I took a break. Got a helping hand. Call it whatever the hell you want, but it’s the same offer we’re giving you. To stand with someone instead of alone.”
I want to yell that he knows nothing, but I see it in his eyes. He gets it. He gets it on a level so few could even comprehend.
Who the fuck knew I would find a kindred spirit in Buttfuck, Kansas?
“Club told your brother we would keep you safe till he arrives. When he gets here, talk to him, don’t talk to him—that’s your choice. But give yourself a moment to breathe, to live a little. Even if it’s just for a few days.”
I bite my bottom lip and think. Really think it over. Bass seems perfectly content enough to survey me as I do. He leans back on that tight ass of his with his arms still folded, his biceps bulging, the shirt pulling just tight enough that I can see the muscles of his swimmer’s physique. “If I stay, it doesn’t mean I like you.”
“Never said it did.” He holds my stare. “Me telling you to stay means nothing either.”
“Good.”
I cross the distance between us in an instant and attack his mouth. His arms wrap around my shoulders the second I’m near and pull me even closer as we fight again, but this time with our tongues and not our words.
Bad ideadoesn’t even begin to describe this, but I don’t give a fuck. I’m doing what he said—living. I’m taking it with both hands and pulling tight. And if he so happens to moan as I pull a bit too hard on his hair, which I’m gripping on with both hands, well, fuck, that only makes me smile more.
I bite his lip, and he groans as he pulls me tighter before spinning us so it’s my back to the desk. The edge digging into my ass isn’t comfortable, but I barely feel it compared to the man in front of me. He consumes me. Not sure when it happened, but in this moment, he’s all I need or want. Nothing else exists for me but the here and now.
