Page 39 of Savage Assassin

He holds me for a split second, and I can feel his chest heaving against mine, his muscled arms wrapped around me, and I’ve never felt safer in my entire life. And then he steps back, holding me at arm’s length as he looks me up and down as the plane starts taxiing down the runway.

“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice thick with worry. “Is all the blood someone else’s?”

I nod, feeling as if I’m not quite sure if I can speak. “I think so,” I manage. “Nothing really hurts, other than my knee where I tripped–”

Levin’s hands slide down my sides, over my arms, his eyes flicking over me with a sudden intensity that catches me off guard, his blue eyes fixed on mine. “You’re sure? Nothing hit you? You’re okay?”

Suddenly, his hands on me feel like more than just hands checking for wounds. I’m intensely aware of how close I am to him, of the way he’s looking at me, the flicker of something like fear in his eyes.

“I’m fine,” I manage. “I just need to clean up, that’s all. I’m not a huge fan of being covered in someone else’s blood.”

“There should be a bathroom near the back of the plane.” Levin swallows hard, nodding at me. “Go ahead. I’ll be right here when you get back.”

For some reason, I feel loathe to walk away from him, even for a minute. There’s a look on his face that I can’t quite decipher, as if he’s remembering some old pain, and I have a sudden deep urge to know what it is. To understand why he’s looking at me as if he’s seeing something that’s been torn away from him.

But I also want to get cleaned up. And something tells me that even if I ask, he’s not going to say.

So instead, I turn and walk away, leaving him as he sinks down into one of the seats, his hand pressed to his mouth as I leave.

Levin

She’s fine. It’s not the same thing. Not at all.

I still can’t stop the frantic racing of my heart, or forget the way it had felt as if it’d stopped for a moment when I saw how covered in blood she was.

Blood, everywhere. Gallons of it, drenching white sheets, spilling out of her. More blood than a body so petite should be able to hold. Sunlight, glinting off shattered glass, a diamond ring. A wound so gaping it could never be closed.

It neverhasbeen closed. I can feel it in my chest now, the memory as sharp and cutting as those shards of glass, even all these years later.

The only woman I ever loved. The woman I failed to protect.

The woman who died, because I asked her to stay with me. Because I was too fucking weak to keep walking through life alone, once I knew she existed in it.

Elena is fine,I tell myself again, as I watch her walk away. There’s no hitch in her gait, nothing that makes it seem as if anything is wrong with her at all. It’s all the blood from the men I killed, not hers.

But I still feel as if I did something wrong. As if it’s my fault that man recognized me, when I’d had no idea he would be there. He hadn’t been on Diego’s guest list because he’d bid in remotely. I couldn’t have known.

It feels like my fault anyway. My fault that she was in danger. My fault that she had to see the things she saw today.

Maybe it’s time to hang it up, Volkov. Maybe this isn’t the life for you anymore.

I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. That we’ll be in Boston before too long, and I’ll deliver Elena to her sister, and that will be the end of it. I probably won’t ever see her again. I’ll go back to New York, back to training Viktor’s next crop of assassins for the Syndicate, and all of this will be in the past.

It won’t be the best job I’ve ever done, but it’ll be done, at least. Elena will be safe, and the deal with the Santiago cartel will hold.

I feel fairly secure in that, until the moment I feel the heavy press of a gun against the back of my head.

I don’t have to look to know that’s what it is. It’s not the first time it’s happened. If I survive this one, it won’t be the last, most likely, considering how my life has gone. But the question is,why the fuck is anyone on this plane who would put a gun to my head?

“Up, Volkov,” a thick, accented voice says. “Up, and we’ll talk before we kill you.”

Two men push past the one behind me, headed towards the back of the plane. Headed, undoubtedly, towards the bathroom where Elena is cleaning up. The thought incenses me, burning through me with a ferocity that I haven’t felt in a long fucking time, and I feel myself tense, ready to make a move when I have a chance.

The plane was meant to be the safe point. Once we were here, nothing else was supposed to be able to go wrong. But something has gone very fucking wrong.

Elena’s scream from the bathroom gives me the moment I need. The man holding the gun to my head flinches, ever so slightly, and I duck, rolling to one side out of the seat. He doesn’t fire, as I’d expected he wouldn’t. A gunshot going off in an airplane is no small matter, and he won’t shoot unless he absolutely has to.

What hedoesdo is also exactly what I’d expected. He comes at me with a knife, and I’m ready for him.

---