Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(75)
He might have been calm before, even blasé at the mention of organized crime, but with her explanation Knox’s face hardened with unforgiving fury. “You’re telling me he’d just...what? Own you?”
She slowly dipped her head and her voice dropped, her mind instinctively treating the rest as though it were the gravest secret. “Men like Ruslan do not ask for what they want. They take by whatever means they need to get it.”
Knox held his silence. Despite his eyes on the road and the uninterrupted navigation through the light traffic, there was no question she held all of his attention.
“Ruslan made his desire for me well known,” she said. “I knew what that meant and the life it would result in for me. So did Yefim. That’s why he helped me escape. He used his ties to Anton to procure me false identification to get me in the United States and staged an assault. The plan was that Yefim would be found unconscious, and I would be missing. Anton’s people were to provide an unidentifiable body that would be presumed to be me.”
“Did it work?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t contact Yefim without potentially revealing my existence and putting him at risk, but after I assumed JJ’s identity, I believed I was safe.”
Knox zipped into an alley, drove to the far end of the warehouses on either side and whipped a hard right. Directly in front of them was the underground entrance to their loft’s garage. Stationed next to the gate normally only controlled by card readers was a big man in a plain black T-shirt and black cargo pants holding an electronic tablet. With one look at Knox’s car, the man activated the gate and nodded.
In another thirty seconds, they slid into Knox’s reserved spot. As soon as he killed the engine, silence engulfed them. He shifted in his chair. “I get that you’re scared, but I want you to listen and really hear me. You’re safe. No more running.”
“Knox, Ruslan is dangerous. He has no conscience. No honor.”
“So?”
Needing the contact, she placed her hand on his forearm and squeezed. “You do.”
Either he was certifiably insane or truly comfortable with the nastiness she’d brought into his life, because he smiled. Genuinely smiled. “Yeah, I’ve got honor. So do my brothers. But only when it’s deserved. We can and will play dirty if it means keeping our own safe. And I don’t give a shit how much muscle this Ruslan dick throws around—I’m a wily fucker when I want to be and right now I’ve got a shit load of incentive.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why the incentive? I told you the best thing for everyone is for me to leave and draw them away from you and your family.”
In a blink, his hand was curled around her nape and his face close enough to hers his breath whispered warm against her skin. “You love me?”
She nodded, barely capable of even that much behind the intensity in his gaze.
His fingers tightened against her skin. “No woman outside my family has ever said that to me. If you think I’m gonna let anyone even think about hurting the first woman who does, you are very much mistaken.” Closing what remained of the distance between them, he pressed a firm kiss to her lips then eased away only enough to murmur, “Now, unbuckle and get ready to hop out. In case you missed it, four of my brothers and their broods are already here and waiting on us.”
The comment jolted her from the pleasant cocoon his powerful words had created. Sure enough, the spaces that were usually empty around his and Beckett’s slots were full—one massive silver truck, a classic ’69 Camaro, an eggplant-colored Chevelle and a candy apple red convertible Corvette. Translation: Trevor, Danny, Zeke and Beckett. “They’re here already?”
Phone stashed in his back pocket, Knox popped opened the glove box. If there’d been a snake coiled up and ready to strike inside, she couldn’t have been more surprised than she was seeing the holstered gun inside. He grabbed it, slipped the gun free and checked the safety. “Family doesn’t lollygag when you need them. My guess is Axel and Jace aren’t far behind.” He popped his car door. “You wait there.”
Like she could have done anything but sit in stunned silence.
Knox has a firearm?
On one hand, the idea wouldn’t jibe, but another more instinctive part of her settled into the concept easily. After all, Knox was Knox. Yes, he’d pushed her relentlessly from the very first, but he’d also demonstrated a protective streak. And not just with her, but with everyone in his life. The fact that he’d be willing to extend that level of protection to a more dangerous level shouldn’t surprise her at all.
Her door chunked open and Knox stepped in close, his hand extended to help her out. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll come back for your bag after we get you situated.” He didn’t say as much, but there was an undercurrent of when you’re not in anyone’s line of fire woven into his words.
Tension and overdrive-awareness riddled their trip to the top floor, even the air supercharged with an invisible current. Nothing at all like the playful banter and teasing touches they’d shared on previous nights coming home from work together. Instead, he corralled her to one corner, braced himself in front of her and activated the fifth floor via the biometric scanner. Only when the doors opened to their loft, did his shoulders relax a fraction. He stepped out of her way, splayed his hand low on her back and motioned her toward the private landing.