Moving Target (Target #3)(32)

“A part of me wanted you to.”

I smile at her. “But you would have regretted that later, once you weren’t so tipsy.”

“True.” She bites her lip. “My buzz is gone.”

I lick her inner thigh and her legs part, so I settle between them, lowering my head and parting my mouth. “I’m going to enjoy making you scream.”

“But Ben will hear.”

“I suggest you scream very quietly.”





17





Dmitry

“You son of a bitch.” Konstantin backhands me across the face, but other than my head whipping to one side, I stand there, immobile. It’s not the first time he’s ever hit me, but Konstantin has never been one to strike without cause.

“No, he’s not.” Chloe jumps in front of me and I grab her, trying to shield her body with mine, but she refuses to get behind me. I settle for standing beside her.

“Chloe, this is not your fight.”

Konstantin’s gaze bounces between us, but he says nothing.

“He saved me,” she tells her father.

“He was supposed to bring you home weeks ago, not treat you like a common whore by bedding you the entire time.”

“I have nothing but respect for your daughter and—”

“No excuses, Dima. You are dismissed,” he says, but I don’t move. I cannot move until I know what await Chloe.

“Excuse me?” Chloe all but shouts. “You don’t get to call me a whore and order him to leave.”

“I said treat you like one. Not that you are one. This one,” he gestures at me, “he has no respect for a man’s daughter.”

“I’m thirty, not a teenager. Not only that, but I’m also a widow.” This she says with her hands on her hips. “If you should be mad at anyone, it’s that asshole.” She points at Leonid, who up until now had been standing there with a shit-eating grin on his face.

While I don’t need Chloe to defend me, I do enjoy the fire on display. She is completely Konstantin’s daughter.

“Monisha, please, he’s not a man of honor. Not anymore.”

“I want you to listen to me because one, I don’t know you, but I do know Dima. Two, he’s not the one who kidnapped me in Paris. He’s not the one who doped me up with opium and made it so I was violently ill for days. So ill that I thought I would die, except for the fact that Dima got me through it. Then ol’ Leo thought it would be fun to sell me to some buyers so he could then rescue me and be the hero so he could be your successor.

“That was all your guy right there. Maybe you should let your fist talk to him instead of my boyfriend,” she adds.

My eyebrows rise at the declaration.

“Is this true?” Konstantin turns to Leonid.

His smile fades away. “I was only doing you a favor. Keeping her out of danger until you could contact Dima. He’s the one who went rogue, keeping her to himself, and forcing my hand. I did whatever I could to draw him out and attempt to save her.”

Pulling Chloe to me, it’s all I can do not to shoot him on the spot. “Was drugging Chloe for days and shoving her in the back of my trunk part of the favor you were bestowing onto Konstantin?”

“You did what?” Konstantin roars, taking out his gun and training it on Leonid.

Leonid lifts his chin. “I swear I did everything in my power keep her safe. It was Dmitry who nearly got her killed. Who will you believe? Me, who has never left you to retire, or this huesos, who left us to fend for ourselves because he needed a break?”

“So that explosion in near Turin wasn’t you?”

“Yeah, why would Dima blow up his own car while we were both close enough to die from it,” Chloe adds.

Konstantin’s gaze turns fierce. If blood could fill his eyes, I have no doubt that they would be dripping right about now. “You tried to kill my daughter?”

Leonid begins to stammer out an explanation, but Konstantin has had enough. I grab Chloe and pull her to me. “Don’t look.”

Konstantin shoots Leonid between the eyes. Smoke comes out of the hole as he falls to the floor. Two men immediately appear, dragging him out of the room.

Konstantin looks at me, his brow rising. “She trusts you?”

“Until now,” I say.

“I still do,” she whispers. “Please take me home. I’ve met my father, and now I’m done.”

“I killed the man who wanted to hurt you, little one,” Konstantin says gently. “You should be happy.”

She refuses to look at him. “I’ve seen too much death.”

I glance at Konstantin, watching his grey eyes turn sad. “Perhaps she is right. Chloe, you can return home tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, trembling in my arms. She turns slightly. “Maybe later, we can try again, but if we do, please just email me and ask me to meet you.”

“The old ways are hard to turn from.”

“We’ll stay the night and leave on the first flight out.”

“Okay,” she whispers.

“I’m truly sorry, Chloe,” Konstantin says mournfully. “Please find it in your heart to forgive this old man—someday.”