Page 9 of The Russian's Stalked Bride
The sickening sound of him being hit and dropping hard reaches me, then it all goes silent.
All struggle stops at once, and with that heaviness lingering, I feel as Mila shakes in my arms.
But Christ…she’s in my grasp, warm and alive.
Not just something to track or look at from afar.
For a long, almost agonizing moment, I just stand there, breathing ragged as I keep her pressed against me, palms splayed against her lower back.
The moment I hear other footsteps and murmurings from the street I came from, reality breaks my quiet reverie.
“Come on,” I murmur, already moving and hauling Mila to her feet.
Thankfully, she doesn’t argue or scream again. Instead, she grips my shirt as I guide her to my waiting car, eyes sweeping briefly over the men I took down.
Shoving the passenger door open, I pretty much toss her in before closing the door and rounding to the driver’s side. Putting it back in drive, I hit the gas, continuing through thealleyway and avoiding the bodies as best as I can to not freak her out more.
Hanging a quick left, I reach a side street, maneuvering until we’re well away from the alleyway.
Before anyone can find the scene, we’re gone.
I keep driving until I find an empty parking lot far enough away to have no connection to the bodies. When I park, neither of us speaks for a long moment.
Then, the sound of Mila’s sharp little gasps catches my attention, along with the way she clenches her hands so tightly in her lap that her knuckles are white.
I blink back at her, well aware that everything is hitting her at once.
In all the time I’ve been monitoring her, I’ve never seen her like this. Normally, she’s so controlled and untouchable. But now, she looks so close to breaking, and something about that gets under my skin.
“Hey…you’re safe now,” I finally manage to say, voice low yet steady despite the chaos we just slipped away from. “They’re not following anymore.”
Mila doesn’t look at me, and instead, she nods once, but it’s too jerky a movement to be a natural one.
“Where did you come from?” She asks, seemingly surprised by her ability to speak despite it all.
Looking her over for a moment, it takes me longer than it should to come up with a response, but I’ve imagined this moment a hundred times over.
Her realizing I exist, looking at me rather than around me. That acknowledgment is far more profound than it has any right to be.
But as sweet as I want this to be, it isn’t. Not while her fear is still palpable, and her hands are faintly shaking.
“I was parked nearby when I saw you running.”
Mila still looks ahead, obviously trying to process everything at once. I know she has more questions banging around in her skull, but she likely doesn’t know where to start.
“I thought…” she trails off, squeezing her eyes shut as she pulls in deep breaths. “I thought they were going to—”
“I know,” I say, voice far gentler than it usually is.
And I do know, because I saw the way those men moved. They were after her out of desperation, which surely came from the kind of orders that don’t leave room for mistakes.
The memory of them running after her makes that anger flare in my gut all over again, but I urge myself to keep it down.
“Why were they chasing you?” I ask, unsure if she’s ready to answer any questions yet, but it’s worth the shot.
Mila blinks, and many thoughts move through her eyes at once, unsure of what to settle on first. She shakes her head. “I can’t…I—”
“It’s fine,” I interject carefully. “You don’t have to tell me anything right now.”
