by Lara Adrian
“Not safe for the car?”
What about them? She peered out the darkened windows, seeing nothing but bramble and thick vegetation crowding in from all sides. Cain opened the driver’s door and the low, eerie call of an animal carried over the swamp.
He pivoted to look at her. “Leave the bags and the money here. I’ll come back for everything later.”
“Later, when?” Suspicion shot through her, cold and dank like their surroundings. “You mean you’ll come back for the money after you dump my body out here where no one will find it?”
“Jesus.” He scowled. “Do you really think that’s what I’m going to do?”
She crossed her arms. “I have no idea what you’re going to do. After everything that’s happened today, I don’t know what to think about anything or anyone. And I don’t like this feeling of not knowing what to believe. I don’t like being afraid.”
Dammit. She hadn’t intended to be so candid, but the admission slipped past her lips too quickly for her to hold it back. Weakness was unacceptable under any circumstances, but particularly in times of crisis or uncertainty. She was Anatoly Moretskov’s niece, after all. She had learned early on in life to face her fears head-on, with her chin held high. Yet here she was, telling this virtual stranger that she was afraid.
She wanted to dissolve into the seat as he stared at her for a long moment, saying nothing.
Then he slowly reached toward her and popped her seatbelt open. “I’m taking you somewhere safe, Marina.” His deep voice was low and gentle, soothing in spite of his dark expression. “I don’t give a damn about the money in that case. I’ve got plenty of my own without stealing yours. And if I wanted to get rid of you, do you think I’d go to all this trouble?”
No. She knew he wouldn’t. She had seen this Breed male kill tonight. His methods were cold and precise. Efficient. He hadn’t tried to conceal what he was, and as crazy as it seemed to her, she understood on an instinctual level that she was safe with him. At least, for now.
His body lingered too near hers. Marina felt trapped in his pale gray gaze. She had registered that he was an attractive man when he leaped into the pool to save her from the sniper’s bullet. After the adrenaline overload during Yury’s attack and her escape from the hotel, this was the first opportunity she’d had to truly drink in every detail of Cain’s rugged face.
Although the moonless night cast much of him in dark shadows, there was less than a foot of distance between them in the confines of the car. It was enough for her to realize she had been wrong.
Cain Hunter wasn’t attractive.
He was gorgeous. Unearthly handsome. Strong cheekbones and a bold, square jaw. Skin that had a tawny tone in spite of the fact that it had never known the heat of the sun.
Even his mouth was beautiful. Broad, sculpted lips that had seemed unforgiving and harsh on first glance but were far from either of those descriptions when he held her in the kind of stare that was locked on her now. How would his lips feel pressed against hers?
Would he kiss her with the same kind of aggression that seemed to radiate from him every time she’d been near him so far? Or would he be as careful as his pale silver eyes seemed to be holding her now in the all-too-close quarters of a vehicle parked in the middle of a vast, forbidding patch of swamp?
God, what was wrong with her?
Marina blinked to break the almost tangible hold his gaze seemed to have on her. Evidently, two near brushes with death in the space of one night had rattled more than just her nerves. It must have shaken loose her good sense, too, because she had to be out of her mind to be sitting there fantasizing about what Cain’s kiss might feel like when her first priority—her only one—was staying alive to deliver on her promise to Uncle Anatoly.
She cleared her throat, then lifted her chin and spoke as if she were dispensing orders to one of her bodyguards. “My belongings can stay in the car, but I’m not leaving the briefcase behind. Not for any reason.”
“Suit yourself.” He smirked, and the crooked tug of his mouth sent a slow lick of heat through her body. One she didn’t want to acknowledge. “Watch your step out here, and stay close to me.”
He got out of the car and closed the door.
Marina reached behind her seat for the aluminum briefcase, her gaze rooted on Cain as he rounded the front of the vehicle and waited for her to join him. She climbed out gingerly, her progress slowed by the mucky ground under her sneakers and the hindrance of having only one free hand for stability while the other gripped the handle of the briefcase.
As soon as she reached the spot where Cain stood, he grabbed the case from her grasp. “I’ll carry the damn thing. Can’t have you slipping into an alligator nest because you’re too stubborn to listen to me.” He started walking. “Better keep up.”
She swore under her breath and fell in behind him. Cain walked briskly, but cautiously, his long legs eating up a lot of distance with minimal effort. At five-foot-eight, Marina had grown up accustomed to being taller than many of her schoolmates and a good many of her uncle’s men, but she had to hurry to meet Cain’s pace.
“Are there a lot of alligator nests out here?”
He grunted, sounding somehow amused. “This is the Everglades, sweetheart. It’s crawling with gators and pythons and a hundred other things that will try to eat you if you give them half a chance.”
Oh, God. She winced, trying not to imagine the scores of predatory eyes watching them in the darkness. “I assume you have a good reason for marching us out here on foot, then?”
“Right now, it’s the only way for us to get where we need to go. And don’t worry about the alligators and snakes. They know they’re not the top of the food chain in this particular stretch of swamp.”
“What is?” She was almost afraid to ask.
Without pausing, he glanced behind him, shooting her a quick grin that flashed the razor tips of his fangs.
As if she needed any reminders of what he was. Then again, maybe she did. After all, she was trudging willingly through the dark swamp toward a location known only to the Breed assassin in front of her and her most troubling thought about being with him was her lunatic curiosity to kiss him.
Instead, she ought to be trying to memorize the path in case she needed to escape. Not that she stood any chance of making it back to the vehicle ahead of Cain or any one of the other predators he so lightly dismissed.
He continued walking. “Like I said, stick close to me. We don’t have far now.”
Marina closed the distance between them, refusing to slow down or give in to the exhaustion that had been pulling at her from the moment they left the hotel.
She’d be damned if she let Cain think of her as weak. She had spent most of her life trying to prove herself in a world that favored and rewarded strong men. Even Uncle Anatoly insisted on shielding her from reality more often than not. From the time she was an orphaned little girl, she had been surrounded by bodyguards and nannies. Over the years that cloying protection had started to grate on her. That was part of the reason she had been so eager to help when her uncle needed someone he could trust to assist him in breaking free from the Bratva.
Thinking of Uncle Anatoly only made her more anxious to get in touch with him. As soon as she had a chance, she needed to find a few minutes of privacy and phone him with the news of Yury’s betrayal. If Yury truly had been aware of the information on the flash drive Marina had in her possession, she could only hope she reached her uncle before Boris Karamenko did.
Her thoughts gone dark with worry, she trudged along after Cain, watching the ground and his hulking shape in front of her, concentrating on putting her feet precisely where his had been. The farther they trekked, the louder the sounds of the swamp became. All manner of animal croaks and chatter filled the space all around them, punctuated by an occasional howl or screech or splash that raised the hair on Marina’s nape.
Cain led her on a winding path that seemed random and forbidding, yet he nev
er faltered. She followed at his heels as he took her through the overgrown thicket and bramble while avoiding the worst of the marshy loam and the pools of treacherous, deep black water that spread out in all directions.
He navigated the harsh terrain as if he knew it by rote. As if it were as familiar as home to him.
“How long have you lived in Las Vegas, Cain?”
She nearly ran into him when he stopped in front of her. “How the fuck do you know that?”
“The JUSTIS officers told me they ran your ID. They said you worked security for a casino there.”
He scowled. “Used to. I’m finished with Vegas. I haven’t been back there for a couple of months.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Because if I stayed any longer, I knew I’d never leave.”
He bit off the words, clipped and evasive. She knew a stonewall response when she came up against one. Living with her uncle had been excellent training where that was concerned. Unfortunately for Cain, Marina’s curiosity was equally as strong as her need to drown out the noise of the swamp with whatever conversation she could.
“What kind of security work did you do in Las Vegas?”
“The expensive kind.”
“Mercenary work, you mean.”
“If you’re wondering if I killed people for money, the answer is yes.” He stared at her, almost daring her to flinch. “I did the things I know best, and I got paid very well to do them.”
“But then you left,” Marina pointed out. “You quit.”
“Yes. Because I finally got tired of cleaning up other people’s messes.”
And now here he was, helping to clean up hers. She glanced at the briefcase in his hand, wondering how well-paid he had to be for two million dollars in cash to pose nothing of a temptation to him. For that matter, how expert of an enforcer was he to command the kind of compensation he implied he received? How heartless must he be to have made his living spilling blood and taking lives?
Marina grew up around hard men, dangerous men, but Cain was something altogether different and not only because he was Breed. Menace radiated from every immense, honed inch of him. She should be wary. Part of her was. Part of her understood on a visceral level just how devastating this powerful man could be.
And yet the tremor that raced through her was less about fear than it was something else. Something deeper, something even more threatening to her peace of mind.
Desire.
The silence between them stretched and he let out a low grunt. “I never said I was one of the good guys, Marina.”
“Then what are you?” She raised her chin, if only to meet his glower head-on. “Bad guys don’t go around saving random women’s lives.”
He scoffed. “Neither do I.”
For what wasn’t the first time, her mind replayed everything that had happened tonight—starting with the unknown sniper’s gunshot that would have certainly left her dead in the hotel swimming pool. She could still hear the high-pitched zing of the round as it ripped through the air so close to her. She could still feel the heat of Cain’s strong arms as he pulled her safely out of the bullet’s path seconds before it would have struck her.
“Why did you do it?” she murmured. “What made you jump down and save me?”
He blew out a harsh grunt. “I’ve been asking myself that same question all night.”
“What I mean is, how did you know it was going to happen? You were in the pool moving me out of range even before the shooter squeezed the trigger.” She watched Cain’s expression harden, a response not even the darkness of the swamp could hide. “How did you know I was in danger if the sniper hadn’t even fired yet?”
“I saw it happen.”
“You saw it?” She shook her head. “You mean, you saw the shooter?”
“No. I saw you, Marina. Your blood in the water, your lifeless body sinking below the surface. You were dead. I saw the last sixty seconds of your life play out in my mind as if it were happening in real-time. Or, rather, what would have been the last sixty seconds of your life.”
Despite the unsettling description of her own demise, she couldn’t hide her amazement. “You’re talking about a vision? An ESP gift? I know the Breed have psychic abilities and unique talents. This is yours?”
Cain seemed less than enthused to admit it. He gave a begrudging nod that may as well have been a shrug.
Marina’s ability to mold another person’s mind was invasive. So much so, her uncle not only disapproved but forbade her to use it from the time she was a child. Cain’s ability, on the other hand, was nothing short of miraculous.
“Is that how you knew about Yury too? Did you see everything that was going to happen tonight?”
“No.” The hard lines in his face grew even more rigid now. “My ability doesn’t work like that. It’s . . . unreliable.”
“What do you mean unreliable?”
“I mean it has limitations. Flaws.”
“Mine does too,” she confided. “For instance, it doesn’t work on anyone who’s Breed. I tried it once at a symphony concert my uncle took me to for my eighth birthday. A Breed family with twin boys were at the reception. One of the boys kept making faces at me from behind his father’s tuxedo tails, so when I had the chance, I touched his arm and told him to sneak back inside the auditorium and steal the conductor’s wand. Instead, he told his father and I ended up grounded for two weeks.”
Cain grunted, still scowling at her. “You were a brat.”
She wouldn’t deny it. “Headstrong, according to Uncle Anatoly. Tell me more about your ability. Why do you think it’s unreliable?”
“Because I know it is.”
As if the conversation was over, he pivoted away and started walking ahead of her into the dark. She hurried to keep up, refusing to back down now.
Since she owed her life to his ability, she wanted to understand it as thoroughly as possible. But as she stared at Cain’s broad, retreating back, she also wanted to know why she was getting the sense that he not only mistrusted his Breed gift, but despised it.
“What happened, Cain?”
He didn’t answer. His pace went from brisk to aggressive, his long legs chewing up several yards of distance as if he couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t get far enough away from her. Or from her questions.
Something must have happened to make him believe that. Something that had caused him a great deal of pain if he was still carrying the weight of it with him.
“Did you lose someone you cared for?”
Up ahead of her, he hissed a low curse but didn’t slow his pace. That’s how she knew she was right. That, and the fact that she knew what it was like to live with an empty ache in her heart for someone she loved.
“I’m sorry, Cain,” she whispered, not even sure he was listening now. “I know what that’s like. My mother died when I was three years old. I still miss her every day.”
He swore again, more viciously now. Before she realized what he was doing he stopped abruptly and rounded on her, fury flashing in his eyes. He dropped the briefcase on the path between them and seized her by the upper arms.
“There’s something you need to understand. I didn’t sign up for this job. I don’t want to be here. I don’t give a fuck about you or your uncle or this fool’s errand he’s sent you on, Marina. The only reason I didn’t leave you parked on the curb outside JUSTIS is that damn mark on your ankle. We clear?”
Rage poured off him, hot and dangerous. She knew it couldn’t be wise to challenge him, especially when his eyes were lit up like burning coals and his fangs were gleaming like diamond-bright daggers with every angry word he spat at her. But Marina had never been the kind of woman to shrink away in fear. She sure as hell wasn’t about to start now.
“I never asked for your help. I never asked for your protection, either. I don’t want it. If I thought a silly birthmark would make you feel somehow obligated to me, I never would’ve let you see it.”
He thought
he was furious? She was livid—at herself even more than him. She knew better than to trust a stranger and yet she’d allowed herself to sink into the comfort of Cain’s strength. She’d been an idiot, and now she was hundreds of miles away from any trace of civilization and stranded in the middle of the Everglades with a man she suddenly couldn’t wait to get away from.
“I’m not going any farther with you,” she told him, wrenching out of his loose hold. She reached down to grab the handle of the case. “I’ll find my way back to the car on my own.”
He scoffed. “What are you going to do once you get there?”
“Call my uncle. He’s got connections in the States. He will send someone out to find me and take me somewhere I’ll actually be safe.”
“Like hell you will.”
She ignored his tight reply. Pivoting in the opposite direction, she took a couple of steps back on the darkened, nearly invisible path.
Cain appeared in front of her, moving so fast she had no idea how he’d done it. He blocked the way, a dark shadow against the night. Dark, except for the fierce glow of his transformed eyes.
“Who’s your uncle going to send, Marina? Another loyal comrade like Yury? You think your uncle’s people will be able to reach you before the shooter from the pool catches up to you?” Cain slowly shook his head. “For all we know, your uncle’s got a target on his back too. Hell, he could be dead already. Either way, that still leaves you in the crosshairs.”
Marina’s breath sawed out of her lungs. Although her heart refused to consider that Uncle Anatoly might not be alive, she knew Cain was right about everything else. There were countless risks in trusting anyone now. Yury’s betrayal had proven that much. And she couldn’t forget the fact that Yury hadn’t been working alone. Until the sniper was identified and eliminated, she couldn’t afford to let down her guard.
But staying with Cain didn’t feel like any sort of acceptable option, either.
“I’m not afraid to finish this on my own.”
She tried to shove past him, but the path was narrow and the edges of it were slippery with muck and wet vegetation. For an instant, she lost her footing on the soft, uneven ground. She started to pitch to one side, but Cain caught her.
