Bone Deep(8)

Anatoly took another step and Bone welcomed him. She slid up and down his body, writhing in and out of the bastard’s embrace. Dmitry’s emotions darkened to black, tinged with red. He would never admit to those feelings but they were so filled with rage that had she not made her move, Dmitry would have made it for her.

Fuck his control.

The music faded and another song kicked on. She moved, faster, slower, harder, softer and Anatoly was lost to the woman with the ebony hair and ocean blue eyes. He reached for her and she struck.

Her movement was subtle, quick, but the glint of silver in her hands as she punched him once in the chest wasn’t completely hidden by the strobe lights. She’d used his own knife against him. Anatoly fell forward, and she whispered in his ear before dropping the knife, reaching up, and wrenching his head so fast and hard the snapping of his neck could be heard above the music.

She glanced at Boris, licked her lips and smiled.

Dmitry’s heart skipped a beat.

Everything stopped then—the music, Boris, hell, everyone in the club. Nothing moved and in the silence Dmitry heard Anatoly’s body hit the floor. He shook his head. He would have to kill Boris too quickly now.

Dmitry sighed as he pulled out his Desert Eagle.357, aimed, and fired. Boris’s head exploded and pandemonium erupted. Men calling out rapid fire orders in Russian, women screaming in terror and in the middle of it all their gazes met.

In the distance between them, a promise was given life yet again. She would run. He would chase. But he would catch her and when he did…

She lifted her chin, saluted, and then disappeared in the throng of people pressing toward the door.

Dmitry took out three more men but the rest had scattered the moment their boss’s head went hollow with a bullet. Criminal loyalty didn’t extend past death it seemed. Dmitry followed the throng, tucking his weapon back in the holster at his back.

She’d begun a war on his turf but if he didn’t get to her quickly, she’d be in the wind again and that Dmitry couldn’t afford. Vadim Yesipov was his and if she attempted to take that kill from Dmitry he would take her life and damn the consequences.

It didn’t matter that she made his heart beat hard and his soul squeeze in need. Vadim was his.

And she damn well would be too.

?●?

The cold bit into her skin, the air frosting her lungs a reminder of her location and the danger she was in. She blew out a breath and pressed against the brick wall at her back, the hardened clay taking its own pieces of her flesh as she tried to meld into it. People streamed past, not aware death stood inches from them as they ran screaming and desperate into the snow-coated street. Their fear taunted the killer inside her. It seemed nothing appeased the demon residing in her broken soul.

She’d just taken a life but still wanted more.

Cars honked as they swerved to miss the fleeing people and in the distance a siren split the night.

Bone drew in a deep breath, allowing the icy coldness to soothe her rage. She risked a single glance around the corner only to see more men and women trampling one another to escape the death she’d wrought in Yesipov’s lair.

But no Dmitry Asinimov. It went against everything she’d been trained to do after a kill, but she’d stayed for one more look at the man who made her feel things she couldn’t name. Her window of opportunity was gone now and she’d have to console herself with the few glimpses she’d had of him inside the club.

Precious glimpses they’d been, and far too few. There’d be time later to bring them out and remember.

She re-entered the building and headed down a blackened corridor to a set of stairs. She climbed flight after flight until the door marked ROOF faced her. The wood splintered under her kick and she was left high above the city of St. Petersburg, the wind tearing at her wig and the silken material of her skirt.

Bone located the pack she’d stashed there a week ago and ripped it open as she tore off the offending bra, thong-slash-skirt and wig. She removed the contacts as well. And then Bone dressed quickly in an all-black, full-body unitard. She slipped her feet into a pair of a black running shoes and was pulling up the hood to the unitard when everything inside her stilled.

“You are not so hard to track after a kill, Etzem,” he whispered at her back. “This is something you should work on.”

Bone, he called her. His deep baritone gave life to her native Hebrew language and spread heat through her body. It was if he tasted each word he spoke, regardless of the language, and found the flavor delightful.

She closed her eyes and the wind whipped away tears she’d managed to hold inside for two decades. He’d made her cry. Goddamn him. It mattered not that she’d given him the word two weeks ago as the sun had shone down and the breeze of the ocean caressed them. She’d granted him her name right before she tranquilized him with a syringe meant for her. And now he was using the weakness against her.

“Do not make me hurt you, Asinimov.”

“What would you do?” he asked silkily. “Would you knife me in the heart and then break my neck? Would you hold my revenge in your hands and tease me with a truth I’ve searched years for?”

He tugged on a curl that had escaped her tied hair. There was an answering pull in her abdomen. Always with Dmitry Asinimov there was…feeling. She hated him for that. Another emotion to struggle with but at least one she understood.