Alexei
I stood there for a moment, trying to process what had just happened. She’d been there and then she was gone. It had happened so fast I could still smell the scent of her.
I’d seen something in her eyes just before she ran, a sort of realization. She’d woken up to something and been deathly afraid of it. I would have understood if she’d been afraid of me, but she hadn’t known what I was. Something else, then. Something that lived inside her.
It hit me that I had no way to find her again. I didn’t know if she even lived in this apartment building.
The guy who’d been behind her in line was shaking his head as if to say, some people. He stepped forward to take her place.
I’d never see her again. And it was his fault.
I put my hand on his chest and pushed. The guy staggered backward and knocked over a table, winding up in a heap on the floor. A couple of people screamed.
In the silence that followed, I realized I was panting. I was angry, and I never get angry.
I stalked out into the lobby, got in the elevator and hit the button for the tenth floor. What the hell had I been thinking? Hitting that guy would attract attention. I’d never even contemplate doing that normally, even if he’d been up in my face. And he hadn’t been. He’d just scared her away.
Her. Those hazel eyes and that pale skin. She’d made me completely lose reason.
And she’d made me forget who I was...what I was. I’d seen an angel but I’d forgotten that angels are out of reach of mortal men...let alone devils.
For a second there, I’d seen a different world—a world of warmth and comfort and laughter. That wasn’t my world and it never would be. Doing what I do means living outside that world, in a place that’s cold and unforgiving. The harshness of it is what makes me keep my edge. If I lose that edge, I’m nothing.
I’d lost it just then, just for a second, when I’d hit that guy. No, before that—when I’d asked who she was. I should have just walked away.
I shouldn’t have been interested in her in the first place. Oh, sure, I love to fuck. I’ll take a blonde from a bar home for the night. Some of those women have a thing for gangsters—they soak their panties, right there in the bar, because it’s so dangerous and wrong to fuck us. I take those women home and show them exactly what it’s like to be pounded by a bad boy. I give them every sweaty, gasping orgasm they can manage and more and it feels good, for a few hours. But in the morning it’s over. I never see them again and I don’t care.
Her, though...I’d barely met her and yet the idea of not seeing her again made me crazy.
Get yourself together!
I straightened my tie and stepped out onto the tenth floor. All I wanted to do was to get the layout of the place. I walked down the hallway, counting rooms and figuring out which window it would be. One, two, three, four, five, six.
I stopped outside 1006. That’s all Nikolai had given me—Apartment 1006. I didn’t even have the name of the guy.
It was almost tempting to knock on the door right now and get it done. But I’ve survived this job so long because I do things carefully, step by step. The guy could have five men in there with him, or a girlfriend or even a kid. I’d check it out first through the window.
Then I’d kill him.
<<<<>>>>
is out now