by Lara Adrian
Fresh salt air filled her lungs and lifted the loose strands of her hair. Waves rushed to shore in a soothing rhythm, a wordless roar that drowned out all of the doubts and uncertainties that had been clamoring in her head even before she left Russia.
This was freedom.
Her chest ached with the glory of it, the longing for it.
Marina closed her eyes on a deep, unfettered sigh, savoring the purity and serenity that didn’t seem to exist back home in Saint Petersburg. It never would as long as her life and her uncle’s belonged to Boris Karamenko and the criminal syndicate he controlled.
She had come on this journey out of love for her uncle, but there was a part of her that craved an escape too. She would die for the chance to be free.
Earlier tonight she nearly had.
A shiver racked her as the whole thing played through her mind for the dozenth time. The shooting chilled her veins, but it was the recollection of firm, warm arms wrapped around her and pulling her out of harm’s way that had shocked her just as deeply. She wanted to tell herself it was merely the heightened emotion of tonight’s ordeal that made her feel so off-kilter.
But the buzzing in her veins was something more than that. It was because of him. The stranger. The vampire who’d saved her life.
“Cain,” she whispered, testing the name the JUSTIS officer had given her.
Cain Hunter.
That unusual last name gave her more than a moment’s pause, even now.
Although Uncle Anatoly had no use for the Breed as a whole and made sure Marina knew how he felt, it was impossible for her to have lived twenty-five years of life among dangerous men and cold-blooded killers and not be familiar with the term Hunter.
They were beyond lethal, even more so than any Vory soldier or Russian mobster’s enforcer.
Part of an experiment that raised Breed boys and men as highly skilled, emotionless assassins, Hunters were reputed to be savages, even after spending two decades away from the hellish laboratory that had created and trained them to be more machine than flesh and blood.
And now she owed her life to one of them.
Good Lord. She could only imagine what a beast like that might try to demand in return.
Fortunately, Marina was confident she would never lay eyes on Cain Hunter again.
In just a few minutes, she and her bodyguards would be miles away from Miami and tonight would be just an unfortunate detour in her quest to secure a safe future for her uncle and for herself.
Downing the remainder of her vodka in one swallow, Marina pivoted away from the terrace balcony and returned to her bedroom suite to finish packing to leave.
CHAPTER 3
He didn’t move, not even to exhale, until after she went back inside.
When Cain finally let go of his breath, it gusted out of him on a muttered curse. The sharp, rough sound was the exact opposite of the way the lovely Russian rose on the terrace next door had sighed his name to the moonless night just a moment ago.
Obscured by the darkness that spilled over his terrace balcony, he pushed away from his lean against the exterior wall of his unlit suite and prowled to the railing. Maybe he should have made his presence known when she slipped out of her suite to stare at the dark ocean beyond. Instead he had melted into the shadows like the predator he was and simply . . . watched her.
Wanted her.
Then she’d whispered his name and it was all he could do not to leap across the distance and pull her against his body again.
Damn. Not good.
Lust punched into his veins, even in her absence.
Her scent lingered in the air, delicate and yet more potent than any perfume. Fresh and sensual, the unique combination of roses, rain, and sandalwood had been branded into his senses from the moment he first touched her in the pool.
Cain inhaled deeply and scowled, raking a hand over his jaw.
He had no business craving this woman. He had no business wondering who the hell might want her dead either, but that hadn’t stopped him from looking for answers. He’d started his own investigation immediately after the shooting.
While she was being escorted back into the hotel by her bodyguards, Cain made a swift search of the roof and the surrounding structures. The sniper was already long gone, not a trace of evidence left behind. Which meant the bastard was no amateur. And that meant the odds of his pretty target being just a random mark were reduced to exactly zero.
How long before the son of a bitch tried again?
Cain would have bet the bulk of his sizable bank account that another attack was coming sooner rather than later.
Despite his efforts to covertly collect some information about the female from the investigating JUSTIS officers during their brief interview with him, the two men only dodged his questions and stonewalled every attempt he made to get even as much as her name. He could understand protecting a victim’s privacy, but his instincts were telling him this was different.
Did JUSTIS view her as a victim or something else?
More to the point, which was closer to the truth?
Cain wouldn’t deny he was relieved to see her walking around unharmed. Hell, he’d only be lying to himself if he tried to pretend he hadn’t delayed leaving Miami tonight because he wanted to see her one more time. If only to confirm that she was alive and well.
That for once, his damnable gift had done some good for someone.
No problem when it came to strangers or people that didn’t mean something to him. But the minute he started to care . . .
On a growl, he thrust the reminder of his failure years ago to the far corners of his mind. In all this time since, he hadn’t been able to get free of the painful memories—or his guilt—but he refused to let those emotions own him.
Not ever again.
As for Blondie next door, she’d better hope her bodyguards did a better job keeping her safe than they had so far. Considering the men bore more than a few Russian mafia tattoos, not to mention the serious firearms they were packing, it seemed clear that someone had hand-picked them to watch over the female. Letting her take a swim in the open, even with the group of them standing nearby, was a stupid risk. Either her team had been unaware she was under surveillance by a sniper and marked for death, or they were worse than incompetent.
The only other alternative was so heinous it set Cain’s molars on edge.
Not his problem, damn it.
And it was long past time he put Miami in his rearview mirror.
Stepping away from the balcony railing, he headed back inside. His packed leather duffel bag sat on the floor of the vestibule where he’d left it a short while ago. Grabbing the key fob for his car in the hotel garage, Cain picked up his bag and opened the door.
He didn’t take the first step out to the corridor before the hair on his nape prickled. Something was off. All of his Hunter instincts lit up at once, sending oil into his veins.
Faint sounds of a scuffle carried to him from the suite down the hall. Not just any suite.
Hers.
Then gunfire. Two sudden, staccato shots. They were muffled by a silencer, but to his acute Breed hearing, they rang out as loud as cannon blasts.
So did the answering thump of a pair of heavy bodies hitting the floor.
Holy fuck. So much for the return of his precognitive gift. It was already starting to fail him.
Then again, he didn’t need an ESP vision to know the female next door was likely only moments away from death for the second time tonight.
The only question was, what the hell did it matter to him?
Cain didn’t have that answer. Nor did he have answers for the dozen other questions jamming his brain when it came to the mysterious Russian beauty with an apparent target on her back.
He only knew that whoever wanted her dead, the bastard would have to come through him first.
~ ~ ~
Marina’s hands froze, her body registering the odd sounds she’d just heard, even while her mind struggled
to accept the truth.
Gunshots.
Two of them.
And now . . . silence.
Worse than that. Outside her bedroom the rest of the suite was eerily, utterly quiet. As still as a tomb.
She let go of the silk blouse she’d been folding, the last of her clothing to be packed into her small suitcase on the bed. As desperate as she was to call out to Yury and her other bodyguards, she didn’t dare alert an intruder to her presence.
No, not merely an intruder.
An assassin.
From the sounds of it, one who had just taken out two of her bodyguards in the room outside.
Alarm exploded in her breast, panic icing her veins. She waited in dread to hear a third shot split the quiet, but it didn’t come. As she pivoted to glance at the closed door of her private quarters, the handle slowly turned.
“Marina?”
Thank God. Yury’s low voice sounded so welcome to her ears, she almost ran to him as he entered. But every muscle in her body clenched tight with shock when she noticed the pistol gripped in his hand. A pistol equipped with a silencer.
Yury’s dark, cold eyes found her. His expression was flat, his face harder than usual as he stepped toward her and raised his weapon. He gave a vague shake of his head, but there was no mercy in his gaze. “I didn’t want it to go this way. Now, I don’t have a choice.”
His words sank in like talons. No, this couldn’t be happening. But it was. Yury had just killed his comrades—his friends—and now he was turning on her.
Marina swallowed and took a hesitant step away from the bed. She had nowhere to go. Yury and his gun blocked her escape from the suite. Across the room, nothing but the glass doors and a ten-story drop to the ground below.
Yet instead of pulling the trigger, Yury’s glance flicked away from her and toward the metal briefcase lying on the bed beside her luggage. She frowned, confusion and shock swamping her. She had to stay calm. Had to keep her head even though the captain of her security detail had evidently lost his.
“What are you talking about, Yury? What do you mean, you don’t have a choice?”
He didn’t answer. Using the nose of the pistol, he gestured at her. “Open it.” When she didn’t move, rage flashed over his tight expression. “Open it now, goddamn you!”
She jolted, her own fury tasting futile, as bitter as acid on her tongue. Returning to the edge of the silk-covered mattress, she worked the combination lock and freed the twin latches on the case. They opened with a pop.
“Empty it,” he instructed her. “Dump everything out on the bed.”
She obeyed him, not that she had any room to refuse. Two million dollars in neatly secured stacks of U.S. currency spilled onto the fluffy duvet. Marina stared at the piles of bills, feeling sick at this betrayal, sick over her stupidity in trusting even a man as steadfast and loyal as Yury had seemed.
“This deal you mean to broker for your uncle,” Yury muttered as he drew closer. “It’s not going to happen. Anatoly shouldn’t have sent you to do his dirty work. Or maybe you didn’t need much convincing.”
Marina felt some of the blood drain out of her face. Yury knew about the meeting with Fuentes. How? She wasn’t sure, but everything in her seized with the understanding that somehow, someone had leaked her uncle’s plan to buy his way out from under Boris Karamenko.
Oh, God. Did that mean Karamenko knew too?
If he did, Uncle Anatoly might already be dead.
No, she refused to think that. And if there was a chance to warn him, she had to try. Unfortunately, the odds of being able to do that dwindled with every second. Although she had avoided one attempt on her life tonight, the murderous look in her bodyguard’s eyes told her she wasn’t going to survive this time.
“The sniper out at the pool tonight,” she murmured, glancing up at Yury in bleak understanding. “You arranged for it. That’s why you didn’t argue when I wanted to take a swim tonight. You practically encouraged me to do it.”
“It would’ve been over quickly for you, Marina. Which is more mercy than either you or your uncle deserve.”
So, he was working for Karamenko. That statement all but confirmed it.
“How much is he paying you to do this, Yury?” She scoffed, indignant despite the control her traitorous guard held over her. “Or is this two million to be your reward?”
Another wag of the pistol served as a wordless command for her to step away from the bed. As soon as she did, Yury walked closer and sifted through the stacks of money with one hand while still holding her at gunpoint with the other.
“This isn’t about money and you know it.” Yet he shuffled the bills around on the bed intently as if counting his new fortune.
Or looking for something more among the case’s spilled contents.
Marina’s dread deepened as he continued his search.
“It’s not here.” He shot a glare at her. “Where’s the file?”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What file?”
Yury raised the pistol, aiming it right at her face. “The file, Marina. Where the fuck is it?”
Cold panic bled into her veins. The situation was even worse than she thought.
Feigning ignorance would only speed her demise now that she was certain Yury knew the briefcase full of cash wasn’t the real item of value she carried. Two million dollars was only a fraction of what her uncle intended to trade for sanctuary away from Karamenko and the rest of the Russian mafia.
The file Yury demanded was worth many hundreds of millions more. Upwards of a billion, if she had to guess.
Uncle Anatoly’s grim face and solemn words the day she’d left for the States played through her memory in an instant.
“Are you sure you want to do this, moya radost?” he’d asked soberly, placing the small flash drive in her hand. “You must understand how dangerous this information is, Marina. Karamenko’s entire financial empire is encrypted on this device—bank accounts, passwords. Everything.” He closed his hand over hers, curling her fingers around the flash drive he intended to sell to one of Karamenko’s many rivals for enough money to secure a long future somewhere far away from Russia. “The only way I can ever be free is by destroying him first.”
It seemed so risky to her, using the greed of one criminal ringleader to weaken another. But Uncle Anatoly had been resolute that it was the only way.
Marina understood the gravity of her mission, and she had left Saint Petersburg without a single doubt about undertaking it.
Even now, she refused to feel defeat. But she couldn’t deny that staring into the barrel of Yury’s weapon had her terrified that she had not only failed, but put her uncle’s life in jeopardy as well.
“The file,” he snarled, nostrils flaring in his anger. “Don’t make me ask again, or I promise I will make you suffer.”
Marina bit her lip. The flash drive was concealed within the inner construction of the briefcase, not six inches from his free hand. But she wouldn’t give up the information, no matter what Yury did to her. And she’d rather die right here and now than surrender her uncle’s only means of freedom.
She couldn’t fight him, but she could stall him a bit. Maybe formulate a plan or wait for a chance to make a break. Everything was risky, but what choice did she have?
“All right,” she relented, letting her shoulders sag. “It’s still in the safe inside the dressing room.”
Yury jabbed the gun in the general direction. “Go get it. Now.”
She walked cautiously, feeling him hulking a few paces behind her. Now that she was in the smaller space of the dressing room, she wondered if she had just sealed her doom. With no clear option to get around him, she was trapped. And the likelihood of overpowering a big man like him was less than nil, especially with no weapon at her disposal.
Well, almost no weapon.
She did have one small, unusual advantage she could tap.
But in order to activate it, she would have to touch Yury skin-to-ski
n.
“Move faster, Marina. Keeping me waiting will only try my patience.”
She crouched in front of the safe, anxiety clawing at her as her fingers hovered over the keypad. Yury’s threat left no doubt that she would be shot dead as soon as she opened the safe and he saw it was empty.
Her fingers trembled as she pressed a number on the pad. At first, she tried to ignore her nerves, but then thought better of it. Maybe her actual fear was all the excuse she needed.
She fumbled the combination lock a couple of times, exhaling a short breath. “I’m sorry.”
Yury swore harshly. “Damn it, open the fucker now!”
“I’m too nervous,” she murmured, which was truer than she wanted to admit. “Yury, please. I can’t do it. Let me tell you the combination instead. Then you can open the safe yourself.”
As she spoke, she ventured a glance over her shoulder to where the traitorous guard loomed, huge and imposing at her back.
But Yury wasn’t alone now.
Standing behind him in predatory silence was an even bigger man. Immense. Black-haired. Silver eyes ablaze with sparks of glowing amber, and fangs bared in a feral, menacing sneer.
Cain.
Marina must have gaped. Yury frowned, then started to turn and look behind him.
Time froze in that same moment. Or perhaps it sped up instead, everything moving as fast as lightning, too swift for her to process what happened next.
Cain moved with inhuman speed—and pure lack of mercy. One large hand shot out, seizing Yury by the wrist. Marina heard the savage crack of bones breaking, then the sharp, answering howl of a man in agony. The gun dropped to the carpeted floor, smoothly kicked away by Cain’s foot at the same time he smashed his fist into the center of Yury’s face.
The big Vory soldier sank to his knees, blood and broken teeth raining from his open mouth as he choked and sputtered. But Cain still radiated violence, and the snarl that erupted from him was nothing short of murderous.
Grabbing Yury’s skull in his bare hands, the Breed male wrenched his head to one side, instantly breaking his neck. Yury’s lifeless corpse sagged to the floor. Cain glanced up, meeting Marina’s stunned gaze.
