The guard hadn’t apprehended me. Gio and Terzo had had plenty of time to reach me outside. And then Dmitry had been at the house when I hadn’t even called him.
I glanced at the Russian, the dashboard lights slightly illuminating his profile. He made the interior of the huge vehicle seem small with how much space he took up.
With one hand curled around the steering wheel and the other resting on his thigh, he looked like he was just going for a nice leisurely drive, not like he’d just taken me away from my brother, which would most definitely be seen as a betrayal and act of war.
“Gio is going to marry me off.” The words spilled out before I could censor them. I looked out the passenger-side window. “Well, he’s trying to. I told him no. That’s why I ran.” The adrenaline was still coursing through my veins. My hands shook and I felt restless.
I felt this tightness fill the interior and glanced at him. Dmitry said nothing in response, and he wasn’t staring at me. But his jaw was clenched.
“Did he say who you were marrying?”
I licked my lips and shook my head but felt stupid because he wasn’t looking at me. “No. I didn’t wait around to find out. I just—”
“Ran.” He glanced at me and smirked, but looked back at the road before I could read too much into it.
I glanced behind me, out the back window, but the road was dark and no one was following us. I was mulling over it all, confusion filling me, when I heard a vibration a second before Dmitry pulled his cell out and answered.
“Da,” he said in a low, even voice, as if he had all the time in the world.
I noticed his knuckles tighten ever so slightly on the steering wheel.
“I’ll handle it.” His jaw clenched and he cast a side-eyed glance my way. “I said I’d fucking handle it.” He murmured something low and hard in Russian, grunted as if confirming something to whomever was on the other end, and disconnected the call. He tucked the phone into his pocket, and silence fell between us again.
I must have fallen asleep, because when I felt the vehicle slowing, I glanced at the dashboard clock, seeing only twenty minutes had passed since we left my childhood home.
Dmitry pulled the SUV to a stop in front of the entrance of a hotel, glanced at me for a second, then reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Stay here, malehnkaya ptichka.” He was out and heading to the main entrance before I could say anything.
Once he disappeared inside, I let my head fall back on the seat, rubbed my eyes, and felt jet lag and the rush from earlier weigh down on me. I didn’t know how long I sat like that, rethinking everything Gio had said and where I was in my life right now, until the passenger-side door opened and a wave of panic filled me.
But when I saw Dmitry standing on the other side, a dark look of concern on his face, I exhaled in relief.
“You think I’d let anyone or anything touch you?”
I shook my head right away. “It’s just nerves. Tonight’s been… interesting.”
He watched me with silent contemplation before making a deep sound in his throat and stepping back. He held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go to the room.”
I had so many questions running through my head, ones I knew Dmitry had answers for but would probably never cop to.
Once in the room, the door clicked shut behind us. Dmitry stood at my back, his heat washing away the chill from the outside that had clung me.
The light hadn’t been turned on yet, but there was a glow from the moon coming through the single window in the room. A second later he turned the light on and a soft yellow glow illuminated the interior. I glanced around. The hotel was on the ritzy side, the room lavish with a king-size bed that sat in the center of the room, the duvet damask patterned and expensive silk.
There was a dresser across from the bed, a TV sitting it. There was a little desk off to the side with a chair in front of it, and a chaise on the far end of the room with the lamp beside that.
Dmitry walked past me, his arm brushing against mine, his fingers skating across the back of my hand. I knew he’d done it on purpose, and I felt that familiar heat move through me. This man had a choke hold on me.
I watched him for a moment as his immense presence filled the room. He was intimidating and menacing. When he turned around, I was taken aback once more that danger was truly beautiful.