Page 76 of Vicious Betrayal

I pull my hand back like the door is glowing red-hot. Stop it.

I turn my back on the door and drag both hands down my face. My skin feels feverish, my jaw tight enough to crack molars. What's wrong with me? I'm a forty-year-old man. I've hurt people, killed people, buried bodies, run crews of men, done all manner of violent and criminal acts. Yet one look at a twenty-year-old girl wrapped in a wet bath towel with water dripping down the curve of her throat, and my brain turns into absolute mush.

My cock is still hard against the denim of my jeans. The humiliation of it burns hotter than my anger. She knew exactly what she was doing. She saw it. She looked right at the bulge in my pants and had the nerve to point it out, tossing my own weakness in my face.

You can lie to yourself all you want, but your body doesn’t lie.

"Fuck," I breathe into the empty room, dragging air into lungs that feel too tight. I need to think the way I've been trained to when everything is going to shit. I need a clear head.

Going back to Chicago right now is suicide. The feds found the safe house far too easily. They're clearly watching Oksana and me. If I go back, I'll bring them right down on Declan’s head.

I can't call Declan and tell him what's going on right now. Even if I used a burner, he's going to want me to come back. He's going to demand Oksana pay for what she's done. I don't know yet if I can live with that.

It really boils down to the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with her.

I can't let her go. Then she'll go to the feds. Even if I cut her loose without her phone and whatever is on it, I don't know what else she might have to give them. What she might have seen or remembered from those documents that could strengthen their case, even without the actual evidence. And I can't take her back to Declan.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with her?

I try to imagine just giving up, letting her go, and to hell with the consequences. I imagine her in some federal safe house, surrounded by agents in suits while prosecutors draw up life sentences for every man I’ve ever sworn to protect.

I won't let them have the baby.

The thought is primal and absolute, and overrides my anger and the betrayal. But keeping her with me is like carrying a grenade in my pocket. Every minute I spend looking at her clouds my judgment. I look at her, and I see my wife. I see the girl who shivered under my hands, who let me tie her to the frame in my playroom and trusted me not to break her.

Except none of that was real. It was an assignment. Maksim Svenkov’s daughter played the wide-eyed innocent right up until she got her hands on my laptop.

A little while later, Oksana comes out. Her face is pale and her eyes puffy, but she's dried her face, and she looks composed… or mostly so. She holds her chin high, her shoulders rigid, but her small hands are clenched into fists at her sides.

She looks fragile and terrified. The sight of her pulls me in two directions at once, the urge to pull her against me warring with the instinct to shove her against the wall and demand to know every name she gave to the feds.

I keep my face completely blank. "Get your boots on," I say, my voice flat. "We’re leaving."

She doesn't move immediately. A flicker of hurt crosses her features before she masks it. "Where are we going?" she asks quietly.

"Somewhere you can't reach your friends."

She flinches slightly at the word friends, but she doesn't argue. She sits on the edge of the unmade bed, pulls on her boots, and ties the laces with trembling fingers. She looks up through her blonde lashes. "I didn't want to⁠—"

"Quiet." I grab my bag from the chair and step toward the door. "Not another word out of you until we’re in the car."

I wait until she stands, then I place my hand firmly against the middle of her back, right between her shoulder blades. My touch isn't gentle, but it isn't harsh either. I feel the sudden shudder that runs through her spine the moment my palm makes contact, but she doesn't pull away.

We walk out into the crisp morning air. The sun is just barely breaking through a thick layer of gray clouds, casting cold light over the gravel lot. The wind off the highway smells of wet asphalt. I open the passenger door of the car, watch her climb in, and shut the door firmly before walking around to the driver's side.

I pull out of the motel lot, gravel crunching under the tires, and ease onto the two-lane highway. For the first twenty minutes, neither of us speaks. Oksana sits pressed against the passenger door, staring out at the blurred line of leafless trees and gray fields, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach. I scan the road behind us repeatedly, but I don't see anything that looks like a tail until a little while later.

Then, I see a dark grey Ford Explorer pull onto the highway from a service road. It stays exactly three car lengths behind us, matching my speed and never overtaking me even when I slow down and give them a chance to do so.

My jaw clenches. It's either the feds or local deputies who have gotten information and are tracking us.

"Cormac?" Oksana’s voice is small and hesitant. She’s noticed the sudden tension in me.

"Keep your head down," I order, my tone clipped.

"What is it?"

"I said keep your fucking head down, Oksana."