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Ava
Miami, Florida
One Week Ago
Swallow. Blink. Swallow. Blink. Swallow. Blink.
Cloudy swirls of color swim in front of me, and I’m hit with a sudden burst of nausea. I manage to force back the urge to throw up, and as coherence starts to break through the haze, a sharp pain in my head steals it.
Shit, I feel hungover.
Closing my eyes again, I take a deep breath, count to ten, and reopen them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help the railroad spike driving through my temple. I turn and groan into my pillow, only it’s not my pillow. The only thing under my cheek is hardwood flooring.
I don’t have hardwood flooring.
Where am I?
The last thing I remember was drinking a lot of wine. Everything after that is a blur.
“Took you long enough.”
The moment I hear his voice, it’s as if a filter is lifted. Muted colors sharpen into a beautifully defined image—one that brings all the nausea rushing back. He’s leaned back in a chair across the room, knees spread wide, wearing nothing but a pair of black jeans and a sexy scowl.
“Niko…” I whisper. My throat feels like sandpaper and burns like fire. Then I remember his hands around my neck. The power he had as he pushed me to the brink and pulled me back over. There was a gun to my head and a blast.
Oh God.
I lift my hand to touch my head, but my arms are too heavy to move. I try again, but they still won’t move.
“I didn’t shoot you, Ava. It’s just a little bump from the gun, so you might as well save your strength.” He lifts a half-empty bottle of vodka to his lips and takes a generous swallow. “You have a lot of hellcat in you, pchelka, but it’s not enough to break a zip tie.”
Tearing my eyes away from him, I contort my body in unnatural positions while twisting my wrists together. Niko sits there drinking his damn vodka and watching me struggle without saying a word. Eventually, I manage to pull myself into a sitting position, but instead of breaking the ties, I end up cutting my own flesh.
I draw in an exhausted breath. “Why?”
“That’s a loaded question. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“At the club, the way you talked…” My voice trails off, remembering the rage radiating off him as our bodies pressed against the wall. “I thought I’d be looking over my shoulder for weeks, maybe months. You didn’t even wait twelve hours. Why?”
He shrugs, swirling the liquid in the bottle before taking another sip. “I’m not into delayed gratification anymore.”
My pulse skyrockets at the double meaning.
Don’t bend, my heart begs. Fear him,my brain demands. Look away, my memory screams. It’s frantically flashing reminder after reminder of what took place last night, but I’m too mesmerized to pay attention. I’m a moth enticed by a dangerously deceptive flame.
Burn for me, Ava.
He doesn’t move, his gaze steady as he watches me stare at him. It’s all wrong, but I can’t stop my eyes from tracing the outline of every tattoo from his sculpted abs and defined arms up to his hardened chest and ending at his neck.
“Niko…” I breathe again.
“Stop doing that!” he yells.
“Doing what?”
“Saying my name.” He stands, his hand still gripping the neck of the liquor bottle, and begins to pace. His repeated movements become almost hypnotic until he makes a wide turn and walks around me like a shark circling its prey. “I was supposed to kill you, you know. That was the job.”
“I don’t—”
