Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
How sure was I? Sure enough?
I took a long, slow breath.
And then I started walking towards her.
She balked, panicked. “Stop!”
“No,” I growled, taking another step.
“Stop! I’ll shoot you!”
My heart was bouncing off my ribs and my stomach was churning like a washing machine but I kept walking.
“Colton, stop!” She was panting, now. “Please stop!” It was almost a sob.
I took the final step and wrapped my big hands around her smaller ones. I didn’t try to take the gun from her, just lifted it so that the muzzle pressed into my forehead.
“Now you can shoot me,” I growled. “But you’re gonna have to kill me.”
Those icy blue eyes blazed. Her jaw set and the gun trembled. I felt my stomach flip.
Then her eyes changed. It was like watching the surface of a frozen lake on a hot day, the rock-solid ice slowly turning to wetness. She closed her eyes, threw back her head and unleashed a long stream of Russian curses at the sky.
I gently pried the gun from her fingers and she didn’t resist. She suddenly looked so small, so vulnerable, that I just wanted to put my arms around her and pull her to my chest.
A sound made me glance up. The hunter had woken just in time to catch the tail end of the cursing and he was shaking his head in disbelief. “She really is a Russian spy?”
I nodded.
He tentatively investigated the back of his head with his fingers. “She had me totally—” He touched where she’d hit him and winced. But he still gazed at Tanya in wonder. I knew how he felt: he was trying to figure out how he could feel angry and betrayed and at the same time be just utterly bewitched by this woman.
I knew because I felt the same way.
I sighed and looked around, planning my next move. It was no good just getting to a road: I couldn’t exactly hitch, with Tanya in tow. A taxi was out for the same reason. And I had no idea how far away the team was or how long they’d take to get to me, so I didn’t want to just hole up in some little town and have the white-haired guy show up again. We needed to get out of the area and that meant transport. “Is there a town near here?” I asked the hunter. “Some place big enough that I can rent a car?” I passed him his gun and phone.
The hunter rubbed at his chin, thinking, then pointed. “Follow that path up to the top of the ridge. Take you maybe three hours? It ain’t all that far but it’s uphill the whole way.”
Great. I thanked him and we set off.
25
TANYA
The path plunged into the forest and as the trees grew thicker, the canopy closed above us, leaving us in cool green darkness. Here and there, the sun found weak spots where it could punch through the foliage and it formed golden pillars of light that trapped lazily circling dust motes. It was hauntingly beautiful, the sort of place couples would walk hand-in-hand.
I marched stiffly, silently, keeping a good pace but not getting too far ahead. I didn’t want Colton to have any reason to make me turn around. Maybe I could make it all the way to the town without having to look him in the eye.
What happened? One quick squeeze of the trigger, that’s all it would have taken. I’d done it plenty of times before. But with him…
In the old American gangster movies I’d watched growing up, the criminals called it taking him out. I’d always thought it was a strange euphemism but now, thinking about Colton, feeling him plodding along behind me…it didn’t. I’d have taken him out of this world. Removed him from existence. And Colton wasn’t like the others I’d killed. They were like cold hunks of gritty stone and all they did was cast shadows around them. A net negative. I didn’t feel bad about killing them.
They were like me.
But Colton was like a campfire that threw out heat and light. If I’d taken him out of this world, the world would be a colder, darker place.
I tried to pretend that that was the only reason, that it would be wrong. As if I still had that childish notion of right and wrong. But it wasn’t.
I hadn’t pulled the trigger because he was huge and strong and made me feel tiny and weak. Because he was gorgeous and felt like warm rock. Because I wanted to be the princess to his beast, to have him just throw me down and fucking ravish me. Because he was good, in a way I hadn’t seen in years. And gorgeous and adorable at the same time, and brave in a way I wasn’t: brave enough to trust someone.