16. Amy

16

AMY

I didn't sleep for long. The locks on the door clicked, rousing me from the light slumber I'd managed. I sat up just as the wooden panels were flung open.

Nik.

He hurried into the suite, cutting across the carpet with long strides. His focus was on me, steadfast and with a frantic gaze that alarmed me. That wasn't all that I noticed, with my heart in my throat and my pulse going haywire.

From the light spilling in from the hallway, the double doors wide apart after his hasty entrance, I saw enough to toss the covers off me and scramble to stand and meet him in the middle.

We hadn't talked. We had no time to hold a conversation about what was going on between us. All we'd shared was a stubborn craving for each other, a physical lust that couldn't be stoppered or delayed.

Something more was there. Another thing—an emotional force a lot like care—bound me to worrying about him in this state.

"Nik! "

If he didn't show up so suddenly and rush in like this, I would've been concerned by his state of suffering.

Blood shone on his face. One eye was swollen and puffy. Cuts showed on his flesh, but he didn't act like he was injured.

"Amy," he whispered, gravelly and with utter relief.

I didn't know why he'd be so worried about me here. He'd left me here locked up with what I bet counted as layers of security outside his personal quarters of this lavish place.

We crashed into each other. His arms wrapped around me and crushed me into a hard, ironclad embrace. My breath puffed out of me with a hiss. That was how forcefully he'd taken me into his hold. I was used to his power. I enjoyed his shows of strength, the bulges of his muscles. In bed, when he was deep inside me, that brutal ferocity helped me escape reality and drown in ecstasy with him.

Here, he clung to me with another motivation. His arms shook. His breath rushed out in a rapid pattern of shuddering relief, as though he could only now be sane and whole at seeing and touching me again.

Almost like… he'd been afraid of never finding me again. The notion was ridiculous. He'd locked me here, like a trinket or possession to keep track of without letting me know what was going on.

Of course, I would have been here. And with the thoughts I'd entertained before I tried to sleep, I wanted to be here—wherever he was. It was foolhardy. I was a moron to desire him, but with the twists and turns I'd suffered, I couldn't lie and say he wasn't a source of security I yearned for.

"What's wrong?" I asked, breaking free enough to look up into his face. "What happened?"

He shook his head, frowning with a vacant fear cast in his eyes. He'd taken a beating, that much was clear. Surprise didn't freeze me with that realization. I saw how ruthless and dangerous he could be. I watched him shoot a man dead.

But he was quiet, staring down at me with a drugging concern, his eyes not fully focused as he drank in the sight of me.

He'd fought someone, but what about it? He'd survived. "What, Nik? What happened?" I guided him to the bed and was glad that he sat without further prompting.

I didn't expect an answer. I wanted one, but he seemed so shell-shocked that I doubted he'd be able to speak clearly.

While he sat, staring after me, I hurried to the bathroom and wet washcloths. He wasn't a small feline or canine, like my usual "patients" that I had gone to school to study and practice how to care for, but first aid was a universal sort of common sense.

I returned to him and dabbed at his cuts. He sighed, his shoulders drooping when I pressed another cloth soaking with cold water to his eye.

"Nik," I implored, wishing he could throw me a bone here. After Mila's explanation of Nik's role, being a top man within an organized crime family, I knew many details wouldn't be shared with me. But he couldn't expect to just show up in this state and avoid my curiosity.

"We need to go."

I pressed my lips together. "I need to be moved? Again?" I didn't want to leave. I had, I hoped, an ally here. Mila's conversation filled me with a slight sense of comfort. And she'd promised she'd arrange for a doctor to see me. I couldn't put that off any longer, especially with my condition that made me risky for carrying a successful pregnancy.

"No. Alek." He swallowed and winced, forfeiting this opportunity to relax for long under my care. "I had to see you first. But my brother—my boss—needs to speak with me. "

He stood, and I resigned myself to being left and locked up again, but to my shock, he maintained his grip on my hand and encouraged me to come with him.

"Nik? I'm…" I shook my head, hurrying after him. I was not going to whine about not being presentable. Margie had brought ample clothing in for me during my "stay" and I currently wore the silk pajamas that felt like a luxury I'd never have again. Pants and a top covered me, but I hustled barefoot to keep up with Nik.

It was my first time to see the rest of this humongous house. A mansion. A hotel? I couldn't decide, but it was that large, that showy. Nik didn't slow down, hurrying me down the carpeted hallways. While I wanted to look around and note some of the details, all my senses blurred into an urgency to keep up with this man.

He wasn't locking me away. No blindfold covered my face. I didn't know if this change signified that he trusted me or why, but I grew more alarmed by what could have happened to make him this impatient and worried.

"Nikolai," a tall man said firmly as we reached a large room that seemed like a mix between an old-fashioned parlor and business meeting room.

Other men waited there. Mila, too. Seeing the woman comforted me, but her expression was just as blankly firm, full of no-nonsense authority, as the man who'd spoken.

"Alek, I can explain," Nik said, stopping on the other side of the room. He didn't release my hand, and if anything, his fingers tightened on my hand.

"I already told him," another man said. Like Nik, he bore the clear signs of a beating. He dabbed a bloodied cloth at a deep cut on his lip, and both his eyes seemed swollen. "I told him about the message the Cartel wanted us to deliver."

Nik nodded. "They were waiting for us at the fire at Harrow's. "

Alek leaned forward, gripping the back of a chair and glancing at me. He was so cold and bossy, but I refused to cower and hide behind Nik.

How does any of this pertain to me? If they were all secretive thugs, I didn't want to know a damn thing that would make my life more dangerous than it already was.

"They didn't want to kill us but kept us alive to bring a message back to you. Some fucker already saw the women the Cartel was going to sell and transport, and he paid for her."

Alek tipped his chin toward me. "This one?"

I scowled, furious that I was being talked about like a thing .

Nik nodded, bringing me closer. When he released my hand, I worried more, but he stepped closer. "This is her."

"I don't understand…" I hated the fear in my voice.

"Diego Martinez." Alek shook his head. "He is one of the Cartel's wealthy backers, and it seems he took a fancy to you."

"Diego!"

All the men narrowed their eyes on me.

"I… I heard his name. The men who kidnapped me called him by that name."

"Go on," Alek demanded. Mila put her hand on his forearm, and I wanted to assume she was urging him to go gentle on me.

"That's all I know. They captured me and stripped me then put me with the other women. And the girl." I glanced at Nik. I hadn't forgotten how he'd hurried to spare her and send her to freedom. He wasn't just a killer. He had to have a heart beneath the murderous intentions to let a child escape.

"What else?" the other beaten man asked.

"The men seemed afraid of him. One… The one… "

Nik put his hand at the small of my back, furrowing his brow at me as I struggled to finish.

"One man threatened to cut out my tongue if I called for help. But Diego came in and looked us all over. He noticed me right away." I shook my head. "I don't know why. I don't want to know why." My skin broke out in goosebumps at the reminder of his creepy, enigmatic stare. Like I was a puzzle he wanted to take his time putting together, only to smash me into pieces afterward.

"He pointed at me and said he wanted me." I refused to look away from Alek, understanding that he was in charge.

"Only you?" Nik asked.

I nodded, glancing at him and worrying about his concern morphing to anger on his features. His jaw slid. His gaze narrowed. And his fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt at my back.

"He thinks he owns her." Nik faced Alek, grim and pissed.

Terror lanced through me, and I didn't care if I looked weak, leaning toward Nik's hard body. He wrapped his arm around me, too loosely for my liking, but I relished his slight support as he focused on the business.

Owns me? I'm not a thing! I didn't have to wonder what Diego would want to buy me for. I wasn't stupid. And the idea of such a fate, of being a sold slave to a monster like him, was too harsh to accept.

"I'll pay him," Nik said. "I'll buy her from him."

"I'm…" Everyone looked at me with my outburst, and I lost some courage to speak up, but not for long. "I'm not something to be bought or sold!"

"In their world, you are." Alek lowered his face and shook his head. "But Nikolai, it's not likely to work. He's already given the Cartel three million for her. "

"It has to!" Nik pounded his fist on the table. "I'll pay double."

Six million dollars! I gaped at Nik, realizing he meant every word of it.

"It's not about the money. It's something else." Alek glanced at me before focusing on Nik once more. "He's deranged. Reports are coming in about that sadist, and it's not good news."

"They said that he doesn't like to be told no," the other beaten man said.

Alek nodded. "But I will help." He lowered his gaze to Nik's arm around me. "If that is what you want, if this woman?—"

"Amy," I spat. "I have a name."

He glared at me, but I didn't give a damn that I might've broken some protocol of cutting him off.

"If this woman can't be transferred elsewhere with the rest of the women we took out of that warehouse, then I will do what I can."

"That's not good enough," Nik argued.

I leaned on him more. He was my hero, my savior, to fight for me like this, but still, the shocking idea of being bought by anyone hurt me deep in my heart and soul. I'd never thought this could be my life, that I could be caught in the middle of such black-market, nefarious operations.

But I was. And I was damned glad to have Nik here championing for me. If I had to pick anyone to be sold to, I'd choose Nik. I hated to lower my guard for him, but I wasn't so blind not to understand that he might not be the gruesome, horrible killer I had been assuming he was. Yes, he was a criminal, but he'd let that girl go, he'd stopped that man from slapping me, and he was offering to spare me a life as Diego's slave to pay six millions dollars to override the first transaction .

"What about the baby?" Alek crossed his arms and looked at me directly.

My heart hammered. I held my breath, fraught with alarm that he'd dropped that bomb like that.

Mila lowered her gaze and sighed, like she hated to have told him. I understood. At least she was upfront, giving me that disclaimer that she wouldn't lie to her husband.

And why wouldn't she side with her man? I was a stranger. A thing to be bought and sold. I wasn't an insider or member of their precious family.

"Baby?" Nik dropped his arm from me and narrowed his eyes at me. "What baby?"

"The Cartel's baby," Alek said, relaying the lie I'd told Mila in my moment of panic.

Nik's lips pressed together in a grim line. Fury radiated from him as he took another step back.

Oh, fuck. There was just no way out of this hellish mess.