Page 495 of Rage

I knew only one place like that. It was an abandoned storage facility, but Ivan always refused to go anywhere near it. The place was stocked with enough firepower to level half a city. My husband was too much of a coward to risk being near an explosion. He’d never call for a meeting there. Unless…

He’s not going to be there.

“Call Dimitry! Please, call him and tell him not to go. It’s a trap!”

“What?”

“Please!”

The fear in my voice and the panic on my face must have been convincing enough because the guard ordered me back to the bedroom before running down the hallway.

My heart pounded wildly as I obeyed. I closed the door to my room — my room? Since when had I started thinking of it that way? — and leaned against it. The realization of what I’d just done hit me like a cold shower.

I shouldn’t have…

Ivan’s plan might actually have worked. He would’ve killed Dimitry. I wanted to believe I’d done this to save myself. After all, if Dimitry’s men learned their boss was dead, they’d have killed me too. Or worse.

But that thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.

I did it for him.

Why? How the hell had he become so important to me?

My heart thumped in my ears as I crawled back onto the bed and hugged his pillow again. God, I hoped they stopped Dimitry in time. I curled into a ball and squeezed the pillow tighter. I wanted him to be safe. I wanted him back.

I needed him.

What am I doing? Feeling? Thinking? I can no longer understand myself … God, am I falling in love with him?

Chapter Twelve

Dimitry

“Where’s the doctor?”

“I’m here, boss!”

He and Sergei helped me get Victor inside. The other men followed, supporting each other. That fucking blast had almost killed all of us.

“Katherine?”

“I told her to wait in your bedroom,” Sergei said.

I ordered him to take care of the group together with the doctor and darted toward my room. I needed to see her. Katya flinched as I stormed in, and before she could say anything, I was on top of her, crushing my lips against hers.

My kitten.

I’d thought I was going to die back there. That talking shit hadn’t even shown up, only some of his men were there. We’d barely made it to the location when Sergei called to warn me about the trap. I’d ordered everyone to get the fuck out, but then the explosion hit.

In those moments, convinced I was about to die, all I could think about had been her. About how fucking stupid I’d been not to make her mine. Not to tell her how I felt. Not to keep her with me.

I wasn’t sure why she’d warned me. Maybe because she was smart enough to know the danger she’d face. Sergei was my successor, and he knew to keep her safe if anything happened to me. But shit could have gone south fast anyway.

Maybe she’d done it for herself. After all, she hated me.

And yet, here she was, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around me, desperately responding to my kiss, deepening it as if her life depended on it.

This didn’t feel like hate.

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