(n.) one who stays up late
I was still in my briefs, my hands trembling as I poured some vodka into a tumbler. The outbuilding where Mila was locked up pulled at every muscle in my body like a magnet. She’d been out there for less than ten minutes, and each tick of the clock tightened an invisible noose around my neck. I couldn’t shake the feeling. I’d only distracted myself by turning on all the lights in the house and barking orders at Yulia. I wanted a cup of tea. My suit needed ironing. And why the fuck was there so much yellow in my house?
“She will die out there.”
I didn’t even hear Albert enter the room until he spoke. This was how men got killed in my position, but I didn’t give a shit right now. If the cold feeling spreading in my chest was anything to go by, I was already six feet under.
“Get out,” I ordered.
“It’s below zero. She could get hypothermia in minutes.”
The words ate at my veins, but I told myself it didn’t matter to me. Mila had played me. She got under my skin, made me do shit I never did, and then she stabbed me in the goddamn back. Lashing out, I wiped everything off the bar. Glass shattered, and I saw blood dripping from my hand but didn’t feel a thing.
I turned to Albert and growled, “I told you to get the fuck out.”
“How do you think we’re going to get our revenge if she dies out there?”
“I don’t give a fuck about revenge,” I seethed before realizing what I was saying.
Albert watched me for a second. “The men think Alexei is worming his way back into the city. You might lose some of them if you don’t follow through with it.”
The last thing I wanted was another war, but it would be inevitable if I didn’t cut the head off the snake. Most of my men were Alexei’s a few years ago. I’d like to think they were loyal to me, but nobody knew with fucking criminals.
I couldn’t focus on it right now. I didn’t know how I was supposed to sleep while Mila was locked in with the dogs in subzero temps. I shouldn’t care. I didn’t care. Pushing a hand through my hair, I paced the room.
“What did she do?”
“She shot me,” I said coldly.
He took me in with a flat expression. “You look unscathed.”
“Dry fire. The chamber wasn’t loaded.” I always kept my guns loaded. Always. It was a fucking miracle, honestly. Fate or some shit.
“You’re holding her as ransom for her papa’s head. Did you think she was going to thank you?”
I didn’t know what I thought. Earlier tonight, I felt sick to my stomach when I had a barrel pressed to her head, and it had been an accident. The fact she could do the same and say I never had to see her again . . . I’d never felt so betrayed in my life. I wasn’t thinking when I dragged her out to the kennel, and now everything was sinking in, regret pounded at the walls of my chest.
A part of me knew she didn’t mean to shoot me. But the part that consumed me was the fact she thought she could just walk away from me. As the anger died, it left me feeling hollow. Fucking awful. The thought of her out there, cold . . . I couldn’t take it anymore.
Brushing Albert’s shoulder, I strode from the room and out the front door, an uneasy feeling ablaze in my stomach. My men smoked cigarettes and went silent, watching me in curiosity as I made my way to the kennel barefoot and dressed in only my briefs. The fact I couldn’t leave her out here for more than fifteen minutes was sure to give them something to talk about. They could go fuck themselves for all I cared.
When I entered the kennel and saw Mila lying beside Misha, shivering, it felt like a knife to the chest. Without a word, I lifted her in my arms and started back to the house.
Her skin was like ice against mine, but I barely felt it over the blood pounding in my veins. Knowing confusion was a sign of hypothermia, I said, “Talk to me, Mila. What day is it?”
She trembled against me. “English.”
Relief flooded me at the fact she was still coherent.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered in my neck. “I swear I didn’t mean to do it.”
Her words were a punch to the gut—especially because I believed her. I knew it before I even dragged her outside. Truthfully, I couldn’t blame her if she meant to pull the trigger; I hadn’t exactly taken her on a vacation. The fact I’d reacted so irrationally and she was the one apologizing to me made me feel like my hands were too dirty to even touch her.
I didn’t know how to handle all the pressure in my chest, so I repeated in English, “What day is it?”
“I don’t know. I’m being held captive without a phone or calendar.”
“I’ll get you a calendar,” I promised.