Page 87 of Hunt Me, Daddy

“Absolutely not,” I said.

“You need to leave the apartment.”

“I need several things, like full night’s sleep and a better super and some sort of legal framework for punching men who speakin commands. Leaving my apartment with a Bratva stranger does not make the list.”

“You know I’m not a stranger.”

“That is not comforting.”

“It was not meant to be.”

I pressed my forehead lightly against the wall beside the window and closed my eyes for half a second.

Mistake.

Behind my eyelids, I saw his hand on my chin.

I opened them in a hurry.

“Why am I leaving?” I asked.

“Because you’re in too much danger right now for you to leave my sight.”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“How long?” I asked.

“Less than I hoped.”

“Specifics, Ivan.”

“Hours.”

His response moved through the room like smoke. I looked at my apartment, my desk, my computers, my board, my controlled little world arranged with enough paranoia to make most people tired. Everything I owned that mattered was here. Leaving felt wrong, but staying felt worse.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“Somewhere controlled.”

“No.”

“Somewhere Morozov-controlled,” he amended.

“That did not improve the sentence.”

“It improved the accuracy.”

“Do you always choose accuracy over comfort?”

“With you? Yes.”

My throat went dry for no reason that deserved attention. I looked down at him again. He stood very still beside the car, not pacing, not checking his phone, not looking up too often. He looked like a man who could wait forever if waiting got him what he wanted. That should have scared me.

It did.

It also did that other thing too and I would deny that to my grave.

“You are under my protection now,” he said. “Call it custody if that makes you angrier. But you are coming with me with me whether you like it or not.”