Page 48 of In Her Blood
Otto flexed both handstight over the steering wheel, still fuming over the incident at the convenience store and everything he’d come to learn about it in the short time since.
Twice, in ten fucking years. Onlytwicehad Lina ever said that word. The first time had been downright predictable, and while he’d hated hearing it, it hadn’t surprised him. He’d known—her mother had known—that she hadbeen pushing herself too hard, too fast. They’d both tried talking her out of going to that stupid event. As a result, he’d been able to anticipate, and he’d been able to let it go.
For the second time—for any fucking time—to have been because of a woman who was supposed to be Lina’s goddamn best friend was un-fucking-acceptable. And for Otto not to have seen it coming was just as bad. Katenka had grated on his nerves sometimes, but he’d written it off over the years as just her personality. He’d never seen signs of malicious intent from her where Lina was concerned. And he’d looked. Healwayslooked.
Fuck.
Lina had managed not to let Katenka see her tears, but she couldn’t get through the explanation afterward without breaking. He hated the rage he’d heard in her voice nearly as much as the pain. It was easier to deal with the anger, easier for him to understand, but he despised the reason she felt it regardless.
She sniffled, again, and lowered one of the handful of tissues she’d dug out of her purse to her lap. “D-do you think—Should we have waited for her to wake up?”
Otto moved a hand from the wheel and settled it over her nearest thigh, squeezing firmly. “You need to stop thinking like that girl’s yourfriend, Lina. She betrayed you in damn near every way she could, and still, you had the grace to leave her with a chance to get away with all of it. There’s no reason she won’t be perfectly fine.”
Her entire body shook with her next inhale. “But we just left her there…”
“With all of her shit,” Otto reminded. “Except for her spare phone.” He had taken great pleasure in stomping that into a useless pile of broken, twisted parts and then leaving those parts where the traitorous bitch would see as soon as she opened her eyes.
Lina slumped in her seat. “We left an unconscious, pregnant woman propped up against the side of an out-of-the-way convenience store.”
Otto squeezed her thigh tighter. “You chose not to knowingly put yourself in danger, and more than likely force me to crash this fucking armored tank into oncoming traffic if she’d chosen to pull a knife on you while I was driving.” He took a moment to cut her a pointed look. “Because I would have.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes.
“I would have let us crash, risked all goddamn three of us dying, rather than just sit in this seat andwatch.” His gut clenched just thinking about it.
Lina moved a hand to rest it over the back of his. “I know.” Her voice was still strained. Her grip tightened. “I know I’m not handling this right. I just—I thought—” The words strangled in her throat as another sob escaped.
Otto cursed. He cursed his inability to take this pain from her, he cursed each and every soul playing a part in inflicting it, and he cursed the goddamn road for not having a decent enough shoulder for him to at least pull off onto. They needed to get back, to take action and countermeasures before they lost whatever momentum they might have gained from evading the assassination plot. But all he wanted to do was find somewhere Lina could hide away until the worst of her painhad rolled through. All hecoulddo was offer her a few gentle words and what he hoped was the comfort of his support. “I know, baby. I know.”
Evelina used the drive to let herself feel the hurt, the pain, and all of the ugly things that she knew she’d need to bury once she was home. Some of it she could channel into fuel, and hopefully strength as much as another hard lesson learned. Most of it she would have to lock away, very soon. Her position wasn’t even properly established yet. The last thing she could afford was to look like some weepy, easily broken, perfect example of an overly emotional female stereotype.
They had entered the Chicago city limits after what felt like forever and it was time for her to pull herself together. There was no damn way Pyotr didn’t know she’d caught on, and that she’d be returningalive. He may not have planned for that, but he’d had nearly two hours to improvise.
Probably, she should have used some of the time to work up a plan of her own. Something, anything, better than ‘spit fire at Pyotr and watch him burn.’ But that sounded incredibly appealing.
Otto slowed as the tall, decorative iron gates to the estate came into view. “I can still turn us around if you’d rather go somewhere else for a while.”
That was exactly what she wanted, because this was the last place she wanted to be. But that also felt like letting Pyotr win. “That backstabbing, disloyal, disgusting piece of filth does not get to chase me from my family home. I’ll happily pitch him out a window, or send him off to his Morozov buddies, but however it goes,he’sthe one who’s on his way out.”
“Just tell me when, baby. I’ll bleed that little fucker out at your feet.”
She was far too upset to care that she smiled at Otto’s choice of words. It was a shame, though, that he said them only moments before tapping the dashboard to open the gate, essentially delivering them home. She wasn’t sure he’d ever said anything hotter.
They sat in quiet vigilance as he coasted up the drive and into the garage. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the patrol. Nothing seemed out of place. Except for Kat’s truck—the truck she’d driven over in on Friday, and left behind on Friday. It was gone.
There was absolutely no way Kat could have beaten them back, even if she’d woken up before they’d left the parking lot. Otto hadn’t made another stop and he’d driven above the speed limit everywhere he could, including taking a couple of less populated roads that had let him release some of his own tension via stupidly accelerating their ‘armored tank’ for long stretches.
And if Kat hadn’t returned to claim her truck, then Pyotr must have had it moved.
As if Evelina needed any more confirmation that they were in contact.
She waited for Otto to come around and get her door, and kept herself beside him as they hauled the luggage she had to fight to care about from the back. The clothes still had a purpose, a value, but they were already tainted and she hated that. At least she hadn’t had the opportunity yet to pay Kat back for the half of Kat’s quota she’d ended up claiming for herself. It was a petty thought, but arguably less than herex-best friend deserved.
“You made good time,” Artem declared as he joined them in the hall. His expression revealed no signs of concern or agitation so far as Evelina could read. “I wasn’t expecting you for another half an hour.” He looked between them, then held out his hand for the smaller duffel Evelina held. “Please, let me help.”
Evelina nodded and passed the duffel over, despite that doing so left her hands free. “Otto took shortcuts.”At, like, one hundred miles an hour.Probably not literally. She hadn’t tried to read the speedometer. But it sure felt like they’d ascended for a short while.
The hint of a smile on Artem’s face vanished and he lowered his tone. “I hope you didn’t rush back just to hear my message in person.”
