Page 28 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

I turn and stare at him but my clumped hair sticking up in all directions makes it hard to be taken seriously. "Actually…ohhh, shit!” I hold everything else I was going to say and I fling a hand out to cover his on the stick shift. My other hand flies to the dash when he swerves, narrowly missing the ass end of a minivan.

“Where are you taking me?" I screech out just in case we manage to get to where we are going. Alive.

"Safety. You did wish not to die tonight, right?"

My mouth hinges open. My red letter wish. “My God.” Of course.

Volkov harrumphs and that small grin makes another appearance. “God? No, not quite.”

I turn in the seat again.

“You? You're one of them?” My voice rises with surprise. "I didn't know you were part of the Red Letter men."

I get a sideways look from him, and nothing else. Now that I’m not actively trying to keep people from killing me the adrenaline in my veins starts to dissolve.

My hands tremble and the tremors roll up through my arms and into my ribs. I wrap my arms around my middle and it helps a little. I take stock of the rest of me. My hair is stiffening with dried soap. My knuckles throb. I'm not a fighter, but the dude I punched might think otherwise. I flex my fingers, but it does nothing for the burning pain.

"What did you do to get my son's wrath?"

Pause.

I turn my cell phone over and over in my lap mentally willing my sister to call so I can get back on stable ground. She can take me back to Seattle with her and together we can figure this all out.

I sigh heavily when the screen stays dark. "Why do you think I did anything? That man is off his rocker on a good day. Did you drop him as a baby?"

Rowan pauses like he's mulling over a question he doesn't want to ask.

"I am sorry to say I agree with you. His mother and I saw a different future for him than this life.”

He breaks into a flurry of Russian I have no hopes of understanding, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand pain when I hear it.

“I’m sorry,” I offer, though I know none of this is my fault.

That earns me another grunt. “Why?” he asks.

I shrug in the darkness. “I don’t like to see others in pain. Unless they are trying to kill me. Then my kind heart and sunny disposition takes a back seat.”

He bypasses a grin and goes for a full on smile. “Da.”

Pause.

“You accused me of being at your house to finish the job for my son. You do not need to fear me. My son and I are not cut from the same cloth though he shares my blood."

As much as I would like to argue rather than agree, I get what he’s saying. I’m nothing like my father either.

“We have big problems. How am I going to explain this car, those bodies and all the blood in my apartment? Mrs Mertle across the street keeps a daily diary of all the happenings. There’s no way she hasn’t called the cops.”

“One problem at a time.”

True. I bite my lip as I take in his profile in the passing streetlights. The jaw. The hands on the wheel. Scars drape across swollen knuckles. It’s no secret he’s a brawler.

A flash of light catching on something white draws my attention back to his hands. A heavy silver ring on his right hand.

“Cora,” he nudges me in a quiet voice. I let out a sigh. Damn it. I can lie and drag on the inevitable or spill the beans. I hate to deliver bad news, but he has to know what his son did.

My brow furrows, but he can’t see my hesitation. "Look, Rowan. This isn’t easy to say, okay.”

Dark lashes drop over light eyes. His lips pull into a flat line. “Tell me.”