Page 75 of Sin & Sapphire

Three men in suits were casually, too casually, walking toward me from the empty end of the other platform. Their eyes scanned the crowd. I shook my head, letting my hair fall over my face, and shoved my sunglasses back on to cover my eyes. Without looking at them again, I turned away and walked back in the direction of the platform entrance, cursing the expense of the ticket I’d have to abandon.

A gunshot rang out behind me. Abandoning any pretense of blending in with the crowd, I took off at a dead run, the screams of the other passengers ringing out as we all scrambled to get out.

Stupid. A gunfight in a public venue like this would attract exactly the sorts of attention all of us spent our lives trying to avoid. The authorities would scan the video footage, make arrests, hold press conferences about rooting out the scourge of organized crime in their city, and put the screws on the same gangsters who’d been bribing them for decades to look the other way.

Not my problem. I needed to get the fuck out of here and find another way out of the city.

I moved with the crowd, their panic driving us toward the exits. Men in suits surrounded them, but they weren’t stopping the stream of casual passengers. Would my hair and sunglasses be enough of a disguise?

Please.

Please, Lord.

I prayed for the first time in a long time, making all sorts of foolish promises in exchange for my freedom.

I was wrenched backward and out of the panicked stream of passengers by my backpack. Fuck! No! Fear slid through my veins. I slipped my arms out of the straps and kept moving, only to slam into a body built like a brick wall.

“Princesse,” Valentin murmured, wrapping his arms around me and surrounding me with his sandalwood scent. I tried to slam my foot into his instep, but Angelo pressed into my back.

“Let me go,” I begged. “Please.” They wouldn’t. I knew they wouldn’t. Promises of retribution and punishment glinted in the fury of Valentin’s gaze.

“Stupid fucking child,” he said. “Tchérnov’s men almost caught you. They still might. if we can’t get you the fuck out of here.”

I shook my head wildly. “Please. Let me go. I can’t. You can’t.” I was incoherent with rage and terror as I watched my freedom slip through my fingers again. I didn’t want to be their toy. I didn’t want a future on my knees sucking their cocks. I just wanted to be left alone.

Valentin raised a syringe, and I screamed, “No!” loudly enough to catch the eye of the crowd as I fought wildly in his grip. “Please,” I begged, terror making me wild as I thrashed against him. “Don’t drug me.”

Memories of the yacht overcame me, paralyzed on the bed as Grégoire used me, out of my mind as I danced on the deck, utterly out of control and unable to prevent the cocktail of drugs that he sent careening through my system to fog my mind.

“We don’t have time to argue. We need to get you into the car before Tchérnov’s men open fire again.”

“Please,” I begged, yanking on their arms, my eyes never leaving that stupid syringe that terrified me even more than captivity, more than the Russians. If they drugged me, they could do anything to me, and I’d never know.

“Angel,” Angelo murmured in my ear as the two men maneuvered me out of the crowd and toward another exit. “We have to leave now. I am not going to let you put yourself in danger by allowing you to turn into a hellcat on the plane because you’re scared.”

Valentin raised the syringe again. “We’ll knock you out, and when you wake up, we’ll be in Yorkfield.”

“Please,” I begged, my voice ragged. Fear slowed my movements and fogged my mind, until I sagged in his arms, shaking in terror. They were going to drug me, and I couldn’t stop them. It’d be like the yacht again, except that Valentin and Angelo were far more clever than Grégoire. They’d made me want them, and now they were betraying me.Stupid, stupid Ana.

Valentin ripped the sunglasses off of my face so he could look at me, his brow furrowed.

He shoved a door open with his back, and we stepped out of the station into the sunlight. Men in suits waited for us. Always suits. Always so fucking obvious that we were in the mob. They formed a protective phalanx with us in the middle, surrounded by soldiers twice my size—all a foot taller than me and heavily muscled.

“I’ll do—” A tear slipped down my face as my freedom slipped away from me. “I’ll do anything. Please don’t drug me.”

Valentin stared down at me, his expression unreadable, the summer sun beating down on us.

“I’ll behave, I promise,” I rasped, fear turning my voice hoarse, unable to take my eyes from the needle in his hand.

“You’ll do better than behave,” Valentin growled. “When we get off the plane in Yorkfield, you’ll convince anyone who sees us that you’re with us by choice.”

I nodded in time with my frantically beating heart. “I will. I promise.”

“Jesu, we should have threatened you with drugs a week ago.” My eyes shot to his, horrified, but he’d already moved aside. An enormous black SUV pulled up, and one of his soldiers opened the door for me. Men poured into the convoy, filling the vehicles ahead and behind us.

“Better than carrying her on the plane over your shoulder,” Angelo murmured, kissing the top of my head, before pushing it down so I wouldn’t hit it on the doorframe.

Valentin and Angelo sat on either side of me as Valentin shouted at the driver.

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