Page 130 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

More shots hit the vehicle. I throw the car in drive and rip out of the trailer park. As I turn the corner at the end of the street, I see the pursuing cars flipping hasty U-turns to follow after us.

The van takes a left onto the frontage road ahead, but when I get to the same fork in the road, I take a right.

“Ernie and June went the other way!” Arya balks, turning around in her seat, angling to see down the road. “We have to follow them. We have to make sure they’re alright.”

“I don’t have to make sure of anything.”

Arya growls. “They’re innocent people, goddammit! What is wrong with you? We have to make sure they’re safe!”

“We can’t. Zotov will follow us and I don’t want those bullets anywhere near a child and an old woman. Do you?”

She sighs and then sinks down in her seat, shaking her head. “No, I don’t.”

More bullets ping off the car. I reach over and push Arya’s head down, forcing it between her knees.

“I’ve got it,” she yells, wrenching my hand from her neck. “I’ll stay down. Just drive.”

I didn’t mean to protect her. Not consciously. It just comes naturally.

The moment I saw her standing behind the van, the moment she looked at me…

All the anger I had towards her faded—for a second.

It’s as if, since the moment I found out about the things she’s concealed, the image of her I had in my mind shifted. She went from looking like an angel… to looking like a fucking monster.

But seeing her standing there, long dark hair spilling down her back, her lips full and parted in shock, eyes sparkling in the streetlights…

It made it hard to hate her.

Of course, the rage flooded back the moment she opened her mouth.

And that’s the story in a nutshell. That’s the key to why she was able to fool me so easily.

Because I fell for her beauty. I let myself believe that a pretty outside meant a pretty inside.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

I slam the gas pedal to the floor, the car inching up to one-hundred, one-twenty.

Arya grabs onto the door, holding on for dear life. “Please be careful!” she squawks.

“Would you rather take your chances with a car crash or a bullet to the back of the skull?”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “It’s a toss-up, honestly.”

I can’t help but grin at that, though I wipe it off my face before she can see.

As soon as it’s convenient, I’m getting rid of her. That’s what I should have done originally. As soon as I saw that grainy footage of the Albanian striding into Arya’s apartment on Gennady’s cell phone, I wanted to leave Arya stranded where she was and never see her traitorous fucking face again.

But that damn voice in my head told me to go to her.

Choke the truth out of her. Hear it from her lips.

Then I could abandon her to fate.

Love is a weapon.Arya knew that. She made me love her. Made me love Lukas.

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