Page 63 of Altered By Fire (Undercover Sinners 1)
As soon as I cross from the light of day into the shadows of the woods, I run full-tilt into a hard chest and bounce off of it.
It's fucking Arsen.
It's disturbing how excited I am to see him, especially when he just said he wanted me dead this morning. That he put a fucking knife to my throat and fucked me the other night. But maybe, like Portia, I can see a glimmer of hope inside the shell of crazy.
"Sorry about the head shot," a voice says from the trees. I glance up to see Mace sitting there with a rifle positioned along a branch, aiming at my father's men and picking them off one by one.
"I'm not," Arsen purrs, taking my wrist in tight fingers and giving me a look with eyes blazing. He pushes me aside, his tattooed arms bulging with the motion, making my mouth water. That's how fucked up I am, from one bad situation to another and I'm shaking like an addict on a comedown. Even a near-rape isn't enough to quell that horrible urge inside of me. Yep, I'm not like an addict, I am one.
"Where are the others?" I ask as Arsen pushes me behind a tree, hands me a weapon and then crouches down, waiting for my father to send some of his men into the woods. They're already coming, too, in a group of over a dozen.
"Going for Konstantin," Arsen growls out, a huge smile on his face as he lifts up a pistol in either hand—not a particularly recommended move, or one that generally works out well for the shooter—but when he rises to his feet and starts firing, people drop. I guess a flashy movie technique like that would work for the sociopath in the group, wouldn't it?
Across the field, I see the Cadillac with its tires shot out, a group of men surrounding the car. Several bullets hit the side of the vehicle as its engine turns over, and it starts to drive, moving on the metal rims over the gravel.
None of the shots penetrate the glass—it's all bulletproof—nor do they do anything but dent the sides of the vehicle.
But he has to know he's not going to make it far on just the rims.
It's a tactic to buy some time. No doubt, even more men are going to show up here … and quick.
"We have to go," I say, moving out from behind the tree and putting my hand on Arsen's shoulder. His white blonde hair is stark in the shadows of the forest, his mouth a morbid little mask. He clearly takes joy in murdering people. "Within minutes, there'll be a hundred, two hundred, or even more men in this very spot."
"We're not going anywhere without Konstantin," Arsen says with a loose shrug of his shoulders, like he doesn't care if he dies.
Maybe none of these men do?
But I care.
Because I want to be a part of this … this, whatever the fuck they have. Even if I'm useless, if I'm not as good as Portia, I want in.
I take Arsen's radio off his belt, and he growls at me, but he's too busy shooting people to stop me from speaking into it.
"Within seconds, this place is going to be swarming," I say, and there's a bit of a crackle before Hawke answers.
"Natalia, give the radio back to Arsen." Clearly, that's an order, but I'm not part of this stupid team yet—not officially—so I don't take that order.
"If you guys get out of here now, I'll tell you everything I know. My father never thought of me as anything but another accessory for his life, so he didn't hide a lot. I'm not privy to all the nitty-gritty, but I can help."
"Why'd you run away?" Colt asks after a moment, and I can tell he's about to get his ass kicked by Hawke on the other end of the line.
"You guys wrote me off just like my father did," I say, feeling this heat burn deep down inside my belly. I want something different for my life, that's why I ran away the night Kisten died. Not because I wanted to be a nun, but because I needed a change. I don't want to be the helpless princess anymore: I want to be the knight. "I heard you talking."
"I still want to kill you," Arsen says, but I ignore him because I can already hear the sound of cars in the distance, tires on gravel.
"Let's get out of here. You train me, let me on your team, and in exchange ..."
"We get sex?" Arsen interrupts, and if he wasn't a crazy psycho with two guns in his hands, I'd have punched him in the nuts. But yes, sex is on order in this relationship. Err, agreement? Whatever it is that I'm trying to make.
