Page 10 of Rescuing Rebecca
He was the one who faced the gun pointed in the general vicinity of his heart.
A mewling cry sounded as the Grand Duchess, Miss Kitty of Catia, entered the room. Undisturbed by the thick tension surrounding them, the bluish-gray stray plunked her fearless butt down on the industrial tile and swished her tail back and forth, pale green eyes staring at Roman unblinking.
Inexplicably, he swore under his breath, shoved his weapon back into his pants, and walked out the door. Saved by the meow bell. Another day. Another one of Becca’s nine lives wasted for zero gain. She had three left. Maybe four.
She’d lost count over the years.
Also—depending on how one defined a near-death experience—the number fluctuated.
“Hello, Miss Kitty.” She scooped the miniature feline off the floor, and the duchess nestled her head under Becca’s chin and started to purr. The tiny cat with big energy had an attitude the size of Mother Russia herself.
“Jesus, Maya.” Nik’s hand trembled as he pushed the hair from his face. He might be the rightful heir to Alexsandr’s throne of bones, but he didn’t have a ruthless cell in his body.
His uncle knew it too.
It’s why he’d sent Roman to do the dirty work of keeping her in line. The hacker he’d plucked from the Moscow slums and sent to the best computer engineering school in the world had the stomach for violence his nephew lacked.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” he said, crossing the space between them and grabbing her cheeks between his hands. He lifted her chin and cocked his head to the side. “You’re going to be bruised.”
She shrugged her sore shoulder, casting off his concern. “Who cares?”
“I care.”
“Well, don’t.” She shook her head. She didn’t want him to care. Couldn’t allow him to care. Not for Maya. Not for her. Not when she was about to sacrifice him for the greater good. She jerked her chin, and he released her, his hands falling to his sides. “Caring gets people killed, Nik. You understand better than anyone what your uncle is capable of.”
Rumor had it Alexsandr had murdered his older brother to gain control of the family fortune before exiling Nik’s mother to some forgotten corner of Siberia’s remote tundra. Nik brushed off the whispers as lies spread by their enemies.
Becca didn’t know what to believe, but every time she looked into his eyes and saw his stubborn loyalty and blind faith in the man who’d raised him, she felt a chill. Because, quite frankly, the pieces of his past didn’t fit together the way he wanted them to.
“I’ll find a way to protect you. I promise.”
She barked a harsh laugh. “You can’t.”
“I will.”
She nodded because if she didn’t, he wouldn’t let it go. “I need to get to work.” She nuzzled her lips against the top of Kitty’s head, then with a quick kiss to the cat’s nose, she gave her to Nik. “Can you take care of the duchess for me?”
No one had any idea where the cat had come from, but the little furball had become a bright spot in an otherwise dreary existence, and Becca worried more for Kitty’s future than she did her own.
“Maya, we should?—”
“Please.” Her chin wobbled, and she swallowed her emotions for the second time that day. Jesus. What was wrong with her? She didn’t get weepy. Not anymore. And not over a cat. Never in her fucked-up life would she have believed a tiny scrapper with sharp teeth and even sharper claws would be her source of joy. “I don’t have time to waste arguing with you, and I can’t have any distractions if I’m going to crack the code.”
He nodded, and her relief immense, she turned and left him standing in the quiet boardroom. Out in the hallway, she did a quick scan for any signs of a Roman ambush, and finding none, she aimed her feet in the opposite direction of the computer room she worked in.
The small kitchen at the opposite end of the building her goal; her footsteps echoed in the empty corridor. The complex Alexsandr kept her in had been designed to provide an efficient and secure environment for housing and managing a couple of billion dollars’ worth of digital infrastructure.
With the very best in high-performance computer servers, networking equipment, and modern computing technology, his capabilities rivaled those of the top intelligence agencies in the world.
Built to resemble a ramshackle cluster of dilapidated buildings from the exterior, the interior was a modern technological marvel, with multiple layers of security and emergency precautions in place to protect against all possible threats.
Except for her.
She pushed through the door into the kitchen, propping it open like always before making her way over to the red Orville Redenbacher’s box sitting on the counter where she’d left it.
A quick reach inside, and she pulled out a cellophane-wrapped packet of extra buttery popcorn. Her favorite. Especially when she left the bag in the microwave for too long, and it came out a little on the burned side.
