37
IVAN
The front of the house is cleared out. Aside from two cars burning in the driveway, there is no one to stop Cora and me from climbing in my car and peeling out.
I call Yasha the minute we’re through the gates. “Get out of there as fast as you can,” I tell him. “I have Cora. We’re gone.”
“We’re working on it.” I hear faint yelling and commotion behind him, but it’s quieter than I would have expected. “Mikhail must have called off his guards. Either that or they abandoned him.”
Cora can hear Yasha on the speaker phone and she leans forward. “Mikhail and Alexander both disappeared the second the doors exploded,” she explains. “They left me with a guard, but I think they went into a panic room or took another exit or something. I don’t think they wanted me to see where they were going.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I say to both her and Yasha. “On either account. They’re all fucking cowards.”
“Yeah, but if those cowards did escape, they’ll be coming straight for the mansion,” Yasha warns.
“I’ll take Cora somewhere else until things settle.”
“Copy that. See you on the other side, brother.”
The line goes dead and the car is oddly silent. Especially after the chaos of the last… shit, how long has it even been? Thirty minutes? An hour? My sense of time is warped. I have no idea how much time has passed since I first heard Cora’s scream through the necklace.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She looks down in her lap. Her hands are folded together and there’s blood all over her knuckles. “In the last couple hours, I was woken up in the middle of the night, forced to get married, survived an explosion, and killed a man. Safe to say I’ve had better days.”
Cora takes a deep breath and turns to the window.
For a few quiet minutes, we just drive. Streetlights illuminate the car in red, yellow, and green. People living very different lives walk down sidewalks with their friends.
If things had been different, Cora could be with them. She could have been out there, just a normal girl. I want to ask if she’s thinking the same thing, but she’s clammed up with shock. The only thing that will fix that is time. Even though I want to scrub it all away from her. To take the pain myself.
I can’t. I just have to fucking wait.
Suddenly, she sits up. “This isn’t the way to the mansion. Where are you taking me?”
“My old penthouse in the city. It’s where I lived before my father handed the mansion over to me.”
She turns to me. I don’t look at her, but even in my peripherals, she’s too much. Her soft curves and strawberries-and-cream scent. Being this close to her after living without is intoxicating. It’s a fucking miracle I can even drive straight.
“You’ll be safe there,” I vow. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She settles back into the passenger seat and the tension consumes us once again.
* * *
I lead Cora inside and bolt the door behind us.
“There’s a security team downstairs monitoring everything.” I point to the wall of windows opposite us. “And that is bulletproof glass. Just in case a shooter climbs twenty-five floors.”
She blinks at me, her green eyes taking in my expression for a moment before she quickly turns away.
Again, the sense that something is wrong gnaws at me. Something beyond the fact that she is wearing a bloodstained wedding gown from a ceremony with another man.
Which is fucking infuriating in its own right.
I turn on the electric fireplace in the sitting room. Flames lick across the screen and heat immediately blows out of a recessed vent.
She looks from the fireplace to the couch and hesitates in the middle of the room. That hesitation, that fear—that rips me apart inside. I want to reach out and smooth the wrinkle in her forehead. I want to rip the wedding dress off of her and wash away every trace of what Mikhail and Alexander did to her.
But this shit is a fragile situation. What she did, what she had done to her… Pushing her too far now might ruin what’s left of her spirit.
So as much as it agonizes me, I need to keep my distance.
For now.
“There’s a guest room if you want it,” I rasp. My heart throbs uncomfortably in my chest. “I’ll show you.”
I lead her down the hallway. When we pass the master, I duck in and grab her a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then keep going to the next bedroom over. It’s only ten steps away from mine, but it might as well be a mile. A light year. I don’t know how I’m supposed to sleep with her so fucking close, yet so impossibly far away.
When I let myself imagine saving Cora, it went so differently. We reunited like we did in the bathroom at the restaurant. In a tangle of lips and limbs, clawing at each other to get closer.
But this Cora looks like a ghost in front of me. Her eyes are vacant and her skin is pale. She looks like she’s barely staying on her feet.
She tiptoes into the room, her head swiveling from side to side as she takes in every corner. She’s scanning for threats.
“You’re safe in here.”
She jumps at the sound of my voice and then flushes. “I know.”
I’m not sure she does.
“I’ll find something to eat while you change,” I say, backing towards the door. “You can sleep if you want or come and join me. It’s up to you.”
She chews on her lower lip and nods. “Thanks.”
I close the door and linger there, my hand resting against the wood. I’m going to eviscerate Alexander and Mikhail and the entire Sokolov family for what they did to Cora.
Sighing, I put the violent thought aside and start to walk toward the kitchen. I’m halfway there when I hear a yelp. I don’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second—I just spin around and charge right back into Cora’s room, ready to wreak havoc on whichever mudak was stupid enough to follow us here and—
But there’s no one else in there aside from Cora.
She looks like she’s fighting ghosts. Grunting and cursing, banging into the dresser and the corner of the bed.
“I can’t get it off!” she gasps. Her arms are bent behind her, her fingers working frantically at the stuck zipper in the center of her back. “It’s—The stupid thing is stuck. I can’t… It won’t come off. Ivan, it won’t—”
I cross the room in two strides and peel her hands off of the garment. “Take a deep breath, Cora.” I hold her face and force her eyes to mine. “I’m here with you. You’re okay.”
Her green eyes go glassy. “Get me out of it, Ivan. Please.”
My gaze drops to the material. I could undo it one hook at a time. Unravel the knots. Tease open the laces.
Or I could just rip it to fucking shreds.
I go with Option B.
Seizing a fistful of this cursed fucking fabric in each hand, I snarl and tear it apart. Stitches pop and explode.
I’m tearing it apart for her, but it’s also for me. Cora was wearing this wedding dress for another man. I don’t just want to tear it off of her; I want to burn it to ashes.
I don’t stop until it’s fluttering in scraps around her like white petals. It’s an eerie echo of the night we met, when she stood surrounded by a very different kind of ruined dress.
Her arms are folded over her bare breasts when she turns to me. Color is coming back into her face, turning her cheeks a delicious shade of pink. I have to fight not to drink in every gorgeous inch of her.
Now isn’t the time.
This isn’t what she needs.
But I’m about to go insane with how bad I want her. I want to reclaim her from head to toe. With kisses, with lip and tongue and fingers and breath. I want to make her feel safe again. Whole again. To come undone in my arms again. She’s so close and it’d be so easy to reach out and drag her into bed with me…
Time. Give her time. She needs time.
“You should get dressed.”
I grab the shirt from the corner of the bed and unfold it for her. She keeps her hands over her chest while I slide what might as well be a two-person tent over her head. The hem settles midway down her thighs and, when she stretches her arms through the holes, the sleeves hit well past her elbows.
I force myself to take a step back. “I’ll let you get some sleep. I’m sure you’re tired.”
The decision has already been made: Cora needs to leave my life. I need to get her far away from this city and this world… from me. Blurring that line tonight will only make things harder.
Maybe this is for the best.
I swallow down the desire lodged in my throat and turn for the door.
Cora’s voice stops me. “I’m alive.”
I frown and look over my shoulder.
“I’m alive,” she repeats. “And we’re here. Together.”
I don’t need the reminder. I know down to the centimeter how close she is: very. How long it would take for me to span the gap: no time at all.
“And I don’t want to sleep,” she adds softly.
I turn around fully now. Cora is standing much closer. Too close. Close enough that all I’d have to do is reach out and she could be in my arms.
I fist my hands at my sides. “What do you want, Cora?”
She grabs the front of my shirt in her fists and gently presses her body against mine. “I want you to make me feel like everything is going to be okay.”