Page 57 of Brutal Secrets

Alive. Beautiful. Fragile. Breakable.

The sunlight breaking through the leaves dapples a dancing pattern on Andrei’s leg, which lies at an unnatural angle just inside the front door. The sound of birdsong begins to filter through the silence, along with the scent of smoke. Are they gone?

I lie on my belly and crawl below the line of windows as I make my way toward the front door. Fuck whoever designed this house to have a glassed-in porch. I can’t make it across the hall without being seen unless I slither like a snake, and if I lie across the panic-room doorway, I’ll only draw attention to it.

The creak of a foot on wooden boards sounds as I crouch behind the door frame, keeping the door to the panic room in my sights.

The gunman must have seen me.

A shot rings out, and fire blazes through my arm. I look down to see my arm covered in blood.

Damn it. The footsteps are coming straight for the panic-room door. Wincing with each movement, I roll into the corridor and point the gun, pressing the trigger as I hear a voice shout in Russian.

Then the world fades to darkness.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The door clicks open, and my heart thuds against my breastbone. I wait with bated breath as footsteps clang down the metal stairs.

“You okay there?” Dex’s voice echoes in the steel-lined stairwell, and he beckons me toward him. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Bad news?” My eyes search the stairwell for Vadim’s tall frame, for the hum of tension I feel when he’s in a room with me, but I see only steel and blue florescent light. “Is he alive? Is he okay?”

Dex smiles at me as I follow him up the stairs, pulling the door shut before Nadia can charge after me. My heart is in my mouth as we step into the wood-paneled corridor and I see Vadim, his eyelashes casting shadows against his cheeks as he lies slumped against the wall.

Lowering myself to my knees, I touch his hair, his eyebrows. I feel the cool sheen of sweat on his skin, then lay my hand over his heart, reassuring myself with the steady beat.

“The good news is that we’re all okay and Vadim took the last man out before he did any real damage,” Dex says behind me.

I wrap my arms around Vadim, pressing a kiss to his pine-scented, sweat-soaked hair and tasting the salt on his skin. I shut my eyes and reassure myself I haven’t lost him. “And the bad news?”

“This place is compromised. We need to get on the road as soon as possible, and you’ll have to drive through the night if we want to get to a safe house. I’ll get the girls and you grab your stuff.”

Dex turns away, leaving me alone in the silent shadows of the corridor as I cradle Vadim’s head against my chest. Shivers run from the base of my neck to the tail of my spine as Vadim mumbles something in Russian against my cleavage.

Cupping his face in my hands, I lift it toward me. His eyes search my face, as if he can’t quite believe I’m here.

“We’re all fine,” I whisper. “I’m so glad you made it. For a minute there, when I saw you...God.” I look away and laugh before pressing a kiss to his forehead, the relief of finding him alive bubbling up into a kind of giddy hysteria.

I pull back and smile at him as my hands drop to his shoulders. I wait for a hint of the tenderness from this morning when he called me angel and zolotaya, but his face is shuttered as he takes my hands off his shoulders and sets them back on my knees.

“I thought we’d lost you,” I whisper.

He gets to his feet, wincing as he moves his arm, and looks down at me with a strangely blank expression. “It might be better for everyone if you had,” he says, turning his back on me and giving me a view of his broad shoulders as he stalks away from me.

I lean against the wall, pressing my fingers to the wooden panels and feeling the grain beneath my fingertips. I let my heartbeat slow before I follow Vadim.

He’s talking to Dex in a low voice outside the house. I can see the feet of a black-clad man poking out from underneath Dex’s car.

“Is he dead?” I say, pointing at the man’s boots. “Aren’t we going to call the police?”

“Not a good idea.” Vadim looks at Dex as he speaks, ignoring me like I’m not making the decisions, and despite myself, my eyes fall to the movement of his lips.

“And you didn’t answer my other question. Is that man down there alive?” I point at the boots on the ground, my voice edging higher as panic bleeds into my words.

Dex gestures for Vadim to go on as he shakes his head at me, and I put my hands on my hips and glare at both of them.

Vadim sounds weary as he turns to me. “You are welcome to call the police if you want a bunch of fools crawling over your property and this story all over the press before we’ve even worked out who attacked us.” He walks over to the figure on the ground and kicks gently at the man’s boots so that his feet roll back and forth. “This one is still alive, and if we want to know what’s going on, our best bet is to leave him for Sasha. He’ll get the story out of him.”

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