Page 155 of Insatiable

When she climbs off me, I check my phone, and I pale.

Bernadette: Five missed calls.

Onevoicemail.

Bernadette: SebastianIvanovichPrince. Twenty-three. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Six foot one. Father is a successful Russian CEO. Mother is a Scottish accountant. Bisexual. Drives a red Aston Martin. Has a scar on the back of his head from being hit with a glass bottle when he was seventeen. Shall I continue or do you understand?

Fucking shit. That means one thing.

Base officially has a target on him.

Keeping this side of my life a secret from my best friends has been hard going. So many times I’ve lied to get them off my back, but I think I need to tell them if Bernadette is going to start targeting them too. Base has a powerful family in Russia who could protect him. If Bernadette kills him, she’ll have a fucking war heading her way.

Relief fills me as Barry walks in – alive, watching me pace while Stacey zips her suitcase. “We need to leave now.”

I look at Stacey, at how shaken and emotional she is. It’s all my fault.

“Get her a vest,” I order, checking my gun is loaded, then shoving it into my waistband and gathering more weapons.

Stacey stares at the armoured vest in her hands, her brows knitting together.

I sigh. “Come here.”

She stands frozen as I take it from her hands and unfasten the straps to pull it over her head. Unblinking, she stares at my chest as I tighten it around her body.

“Breathe,” I say, and she blinks, looking up at me.

“I’m scared.”

I stare at her: the freckles dusting her skin – which is turning paler by the second – the still windswept hair, the forest-green eyes I’ve pictured an unhealthy number of times. “You’ll be fine.”

She doesn’t shy away when I grab a rifle from Barry and leave the hotel room.

Slowly, we walk down the corridor, Stacey in the middle. We’re joined by more of my men, and we circle her, shielding her, taking each step carefully in case Archie decides to ambush us.

When we reach the bottom of the stairway, one of the guards opens the back entrance, and we slip out.

The blast of a gun vibrates in my ears as one of my guys takes a bullet to the head. Stacey screams as I cradle myself around her and rush us towards the car while bullets fly from each side. I shove her inside the car, slam the door shut then open fire with rapid bursts until my rifle runs out of bullets.

I throw it down, grabbing my pistol from my waistband and shielding myself with the passenger-side door so I can start shooting again.

“You need to leave, sir,” one of my guards says. “We can hold them back.”

I swear to myself, because I never leave my guys behind, but I need to get Stacey out.

Barry rushes into the front, and we slide down the windows and shoot as he reverses out of the lot, swinging us into the road and accelerating.

Stacey stares at me, wide-eyed, breathless. “This is your life?”

I shrug.

She wipes a tear. “What happens now?”

I stop her from taking the vest off. “You go home. I’ll have you watched for a bit to make sure they don’t track you. You go on and live your life the way you have been.”

Maybe I’m being stupid, but I have to believe it’s possible, that she’ll make it out of this shit okay.

Stacey doesn’t say anything; eventually, she yawns and rests her head on my lap, and it stills me as she gets comfortable while Barry drives us to the hangar that’s over two hours away.

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