I roll my eyes and drag on his arm so I can pull the gun from his hands. “I’m not going to shoot anymore,” I mutter, making sure the safety is on before I stuff it into my belt. The silencer attached to the barrel feels like it’s sticking into my hip, but I don’t care.
Vasily looks over at me one more time and then picks up his belt. He considers it then slowly begins to thread it through his pant loops.
“Fuckin’ freak,” Daniel says to him, but his voice is easy, almost affectionate. “Put your damn shirt on, and tell me how you found us.”
“I put a tail on you once I found out you did not dump the girl at the embassy,” Vasily says. As he pulls it through the loops, his shoulders twist, and I realize what I should have realized all along—Vasily’s back is one massive length of scars.
Mine would not be the first beating, and—judging by his attitude—it wouldn’t be the last. Okay then.
“A tail? Thanks a fucking lot for all the trust.”
“I trust no one right now,” Vasily says in thickly accented English. “My own Bratva is rotten from the inside. The best hit man I know has defected to go live in the states with a woman. I had my uncle murdered because he could not be trusted. Nyet, comrade, I do not trust anyone at the moment.”
Daniel snorts and swaps a clip out on one of his guns. “Figures. You had to show up now, though?” He sounds disgruntled. “Regan and I were busy.”
“That is obvious,” Vasily says in that cold, deep voice. Then he barks something in Russian that I don’t understand.
“Fuck off,” Daniel says, and he tenses under my arms. “And speak in English. It’s damn rude.”
Vasily’s eyes are cold. His gaze flicks over me, then dismisses me as if I am nothing and returns to Daniel. “You were supposed to send her back to Nick.”
“I didn’t.”
“My plans do not involve dragging along a woman.”
“Change them.”
Vasily’s glare is so ominous that it makes me anxious.
“You would put her in danger simply because you wish an easy fuck, comrade?”
Now that’s hitting below the belt. Daniel’s practically vibrating with tension, and I am guessing that Vasily’s deliberately being a jackass to try and get his way. Or he’s really that much of a jackass. Either way, it’s a sore spot with Daniel. I wait for him to point out that I wouldn’t go to the embassy on my own, to place the blame on me.
“She stays, so figure something out.” And he sits down on the edge of the bed and drags me against him.
I lean in and press my breasts to the side of Daniel’s face as I cling to him, feeling smug and powerful and not a little bit turned on. He’s on my side. He could sell me out to Vasily, who he apparently knows and has worked with for a while, but he’s protecting my secrets.
And that makes me want to throw him down and fuck him all over again. Funny how someone loyal who protects me is such an aphrodisiac.
Vasily is watching me with such an expression of distaste that I suddenly feel dirty again. What, does he think I’m not good enough for Daniel anymore? Because I’m a dirty whore?
I wait for him to say something, but he only pulls an undershirt over his head. Enormous muscles flex as he does so. Then he takes his dress shirt off of the bed and begins to button it with slow, careful fingers.
“What is so important that this couldn’t wait a few more hours?” Daniel wants to know.
“I asked someone to come to Rio and get Hudson’s hacker. He says to me, ‘Yes, I will get hacker and do favor for Nick.’ Now, I see Nick’s favor has been done and my hacker is nowhere to be found.” Vasily’s face looks like stone. “And you wonder why I do not trust.”
“Fuck off, man. I was getting to it. We’ve sort of been busy for the last few days getting our asses shot at. There’s more going on with Regan than we planned for. She’s got some shitbag hot on her trail, and someone killed my snitch right in front of me. We’re doing all we can to keep our asses alive.”
“It looks to my eyes as if you are doing all you can to fuck her ass,” Vasily says. He looks over at me again, then at Daniel. “Are you certain you wish for her to know of all our plans? She could be a decoy.”
“She’s not a decoy.”
“A honey trap, then. Sent to seduce you and bring down everything from inside.”
“I’m right here, you know,” I point out. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”
Daniel’s stiff in my arms again, and I can tell that he’s irritated at Vasily’s words. “She’s not a goddamn honey trap.”
“You’d better hope not, comrade, because you have clearly fallen for her wiles.”
Now I wish I’d shot something more than his hand. Vasily is a dick with a capital D.
Vasily adjusts the cuffs of his dress shirt and looks over at Daniel. “Are you done fucking at the moment?”
“Yeah, having you show up has effectively killed any sort of hard-on I might have had,” Daniel says in a dry voice. “And Regan can be trusted. I won’t have you saying shit about her, okay? She’s a fighter, and she’s with me. She’s not leaving my side.”
God, I love hearing him say those things. For that, he’s totally getting a blow job as soon as I get him alone.
“So you want to take her to Hudson’s compound?” Vasily snorts. “It is, as the Americans say, your funeral.”
“You know where Hudson is?” Daniel looks a little surprised. “How’d you manage that?”
“While you were fucking, I pull strings and grease palms.” Vasily’s expression is utterly cold and he shoots another look of blame at me. “It is not hard to find people to notice a snow-pale man with a fetish for blonde women from North America who arms himself with dozens of mercenaries.”
I frown at his words. “Did . . . did you say snow-pale?”
Vasily’s gaze moves to me, his eyes slits. “Da.”
My heart begins to thump erratically in my chest, and I feel my skin prickle with an all-too familiar fear. I lick my lips and then gesture, asking, “Short, white-blonde hair? Pale eyes and pale skin? About this tall?” I gesture a few inches above my head. “Wears light-colored suits and sunglasses indoors?”
“You know this man?”
“That’s Mr. Freeze,” I whisper through numb lips. “The one who wants me back once I’ve been ‘broken in.’ He’s the one watching the embassy, waiting for someone to drop me off.”