Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
“Shot you?” he echoed.
She nodded. “I didn’t want any of my blood at the scene. I knew she would have to call the cops, and I ripped my shirt and bound my arm. It wasn’t too bad, but it hurt like hell. I needed to make certain her wound wasn’t so bad that she’d bleed out before the ambulance got there. I tried not to let her see my face, but that was impossible. The stab wound was bad. I kept talking to her to keep her alert. I told her no one could know about me, that I lived on the streets. She hadn’t seen Wraith, so she had no idea my leopard had helped. In the end, she agreed not to identify me. She said she would say she was unconscious most of the time, which she was. She had a bump on her head. She gave me her address and told me there were security cameras everywhere on her estate, but if I could get past them or call her ahead of time so she could distract the guards, she would see to my wound.”
“You trusted her?”
She looked up at him through the crescent of thick pale lashes. “I don’t trust anyone, Gorya. At least, I’m struggling to trust you.”
He heard the honesty in her voice. He detested the fact that this woman meant something to her. Maya knew the woman was a threat to her safety and was willing to take the chance in order to keep her in her life. He wasn’t. That was the bottom line. He wasn’t. In just a short time, Maya had become the world to him. Without her, there wasn’t a way for Rogue or him to exist. There was no joy. No hope. She was the miracle whether or not she believed in miracles or that she was capable of someday saving him. She at least gave him these moments—something he’d never had. No one could threaten her and live.
He gave her his gentlest smile when he didn’t know gentle. “I’m doing the same. Clearly you developed a relationship with her. Are you going to continue to refer to her as ‘she’ and ‘her’?” Deliberately, it was a challenge. Was she going to make up her mind to trust him?
“She’s the only person I consider family.”
There was no mistaking the underlying warning in her voice.
He had promised honesty. What was honest? “You know my family. I told you the cousins that matter to me.” He had. Timur, he thought of more as a sibling than a cousin. Fyodor. Mitya and Sevastyan. They were his family, and he was intensely protective of them.
He couldn’t kill her family. He couldn’t. And the woman was innocent. He didn’t murder innocents. What the hell was he going to do?
She nodded. “That’s true, but it isn’t as if I couldn’t have found that information easily. They’re notorious crime lords. Well, not Timur or Sevastyan, but Fyodor and Mitya.” She didn’t take her gaze from his.
He didn’t look away or blink. He was used to deception. It wasn’t that he wanted to deceive her. He didn’t want to harm the one woman she considered family. He’d made it a policy never to kill an innocent. It wouldn’t be an easy decision.
Rogue stirred. To keep them safe we would have no choice.
There is always a choice. Gorya was uneasy. Killing had become too easy for both leopard and man. It was a way of life, a solution when anyone got in the way. Granted, everyone they ran across was depraved and out to kill them or someone they loved, or they were someone they had hunted down from their past, but it had become far too easy for them to dispose of human beings. This woman is innocent. She is someone Maya cares for.
She is a threat. She knows Maya, and if this woman’s identity is discovered, she will be tortured until she reveals Maya’s real name and location. She cannot live. We can be merciful when we dispose of her.
Gorya liked that even less. We do not murder innocent women, especially if Maya considers them family. He’d just been considering the exact same thing, and yet when Rogue sent him the images, he knew it was wrong. Very, very wrong. Maya would never forgive him any more than he would forgive her if she killed Timur.
“You’re arguing with your leopard again.” Maya made it a statement.
Gorya sighed. “Yes. He can be adamant with his opinion at times. Over the years we have had many discussions. I’ve had no one else to talk things out with, so it has become a bad habit to let him voice his concerns at the worst possible times, like when we’re in the middle of an important talk.”
Her eyes narrowed, focused sharply on his, all too intelligent. He cursed his cat. She’s going to question me.