Page 81 of Santa Daddy
The walk back to the car was shorter than I wanted it to be. The city swallowed us and spat us back out in front of a black SUV like we’d never left.
Konstantin leaned against the driver’s side door, dark jeans, black sweater, snow still melting in his hair. He looked…less like a crime lord and more like a particularly well-dressed civilian who might be on his way to dinner with friends.
Too human. Too handsome. Too much.
“Did you think I wouldn’t come for you?” he asked, straightening and opening the passenger door like this was a date and not a supervised extraction.
Come for me.
Like I’d been in actual danger and not just having feelings about normal people and their stupid scarves.
“I thought you were busy,” I said, sliding into the seat. “You know, doing whatever it is crime lords do on Christmas afternoon.”
He shut the door and rounded the hood, sliding behind the wheel with effortless competence. As he pulled into traffic, I caught a whiff of his cologne—warm and dark over clean cotton—and my traitorous body did that annoying flutter thing in my stomach.
“Enjoy your air?” he asked.
“Brief. Supervised. Not exactly freedom.”
More like a walking tour of my own leash.
“You sound disappointed.”
I turned my head, studying his profile. Sharp jaw, straight nose, the little line between his brows that appeared when he was thinking too hard.
“What did you expect?” I asked. “That I’d be grateful for an hour of chaperoned fresh air?”
That I’d thank you for letting me pretend to be human for fifteen minutes?
Something shifted in his expression. The eternally composed facade cracked, just a hair, showing something frayed underneath.
“I expected you to run,” he said quietly. “At least try.”
The honesty rocked me more than if he’d shouted.
This wasn’t the purely calculating killer from the lot or the ice-cold man at the altar. This was…something else. Something almost vulnerable.
“Would you have stopped me?” I asked, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be.
His hands tightened on the wheel. The snow kept falling outside, soft and indifferent.
“Yes,” he said.
Of course.
“Because I’m valuable leverage?” I pushed, because apparently I had a death wish.
“No.” The word came out rough. “Because I can’t let you go.”
Notwon’t.
Can’t.
We both let that sit there, heavy and dangerous.
“I never wanted this life,” he said after a moment, eyes on the road. “The violence. The constant threat. The way everyone looks at me like I’m a monster they’re afraid to anger.”
There it was.
