Page 58 of Brutal Secrets

I turn to Dex and raise my brows in question.

He shrugs. “He’s right about the press, but that’s not a good enough reason not to call the police. It’s the other stuff that worries me.”

Vadim throws up his hands, muttering something in Russian before he turns to me. “Please, zolotaya, listen to me. I brought this mess to your door, and it’s my responsibility to make sure you’re safe. It looks like the Italians attacked us, and they own half the police. That’s why I don’t want to chance it.”

He walks over to me, taking my shoulders in his huge hands. Heat from his fingers brands my skin as his eyes burn into me.

“Please, listen to me,” he says. “We have to get out of here while there is still time.”

Two hours later, it’s dark and I’m tired. The interstate flashes by in a blur of gas stations and rest stops.

My back is stiff, my eyes are gritty, and the strained silence has made my neck ache. I tilt my head, listening to the click of my vertebrae as I roll my left shoulder in a full circle. It sounds unnaturally loud in my ears. The only other sound is the even rhythm of Vadim’s breathing as he slumps against the window.

Taking my attention off the road and the dark trees outside, I slant my eyes across to him. Even tired, with a bloodstained shirt and an injured arm, he’s beautiful. Brave. Willing to put himself in the line of fire for me.

But he’s been unreachable since we got in the car together.

I only offered to drive him because I wanted a chance to talk to him alone, but he shifted about his seat like a caged animal for an hour. When I asked him to tell me who those men were, he just snapped that I didn’t need to know. I can find out more from Nona or get Dex to investigate, but I wanted him to tell me. To open up again. Instead, he remains shut down and distant.

The air between us felt so charged with static that I’m still humming like I’ve drunk a gallon of coffee. Even though he’s passed out, a pulse of blood thumps between my legs as if my heart is thrumming in time with his because my whole body is aware of his next to me.

The gas light flickers red as Dex’s taillights signal for the gas station turnoff ahead. Nadia’s head pops into view as she waves from the back window. I lift my hand in reply, and her head bounces up and down.

The car jolts over a speed bump, and Vadim’s head knocks against the window as I slow down to look at him properly.

“Polina. No. Wake up. Please. Polina,” he mutters. His face twists in distress, and he keeps repeating the only two words that I understand: “no” and “please.”

Putting the car into park, I grip his shoulder and shake him awake. He jerks upright and looks at me.

“Polina?” he says, eyes wide with fear.

I lay my hand over his shirt. Dried blood has stiffened the cotton. I let my hand drift inside his collar and find his skin clammy to the touch.

“It’s me. Kesera,” I say, and he screws his eyes shut, his face contorting in a grimace before he opens them and looks past me.

“I can drive,” he says, going for the door handle as I open mine. The night air hits me with a whiff of gasoline and the scent of damp pine needles.

“Why don’t you fill up the gas?” I reach under the seat to open the gas tank, gripping the keys tightly in my hand and sucking in a deep breath. I’m torn between wanting to scream at him to give me answers or beg him to give me another hit of tenderness. I settle for banality. “I’ll buy you some painkillers,” I call over my shoulder as I walk into the gas station.

Day-Glo plastic packets of salt, sugar, and hydrogenated fat blare at me as I edge my way along the aisles in search of painkillers. On stiff legs, I turn past the cooler and grab a couple of bottles of water as a pair of teenagers stumbles into me, giggling with their heads together.

The boy can’t be more than eighteen, still too gangly for his body and oblivious to the woman in the ball cap who watches him with tired eyes as he paws his girlfriend. The girl giggles and kisses him, knocking over a stand of candy. They laugh harder.

A sharp stab of longing pierces me, and I glance out the door at Vadim. He’s leaning against the car and talking to Dex, and I can read the tension in his shoulders at this distance.

Sighing, I turn my back on the kissing teens and pay for the water and the painkillers with cash. I let the door swing behind me as I make my way back to the car, where Vadim has climbed into the driver’s seat.

I sit down and snap my seatbelt without meeting his eyes. “Polina. That’s Sasha’s sister, isn’t it?”

“How did you know that?” He stares at me, eyes heavy with questions when I look up.

I hold the keys between us like an offering, but he doesn’t reach for them. He just watches me with wide blue eyes as the soft whoosh of cars passing in the night sounds in the darkness behind us.

“I remember everything,” I say, annunciating every word.

He lowers his head and looks at my hands. I reach to clasp his fingers around mine, the keys gripped in a knot between us.

“So do I,” he says gently.

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