Sometimes, it feels as if I’m looking at a robot in the form of a man.
A few seconds tick by as he watches my chaotic state, and then he crouches in front me. “What’s the problem?”
I shake my head.
“I swear to fuck, if you don’t start talking—” He cuts himself off and softens his voice, or as much softening as Kirill can do. “You can tell me, Sasha.”
“I…” I choke on my own words, and I have to blurt them out. “The men earlier stripped me and found out I was a woman, so they held me down and tried to…to…rape me.”
His face tightens, but his expression remains the same. “Did they?”
“No. I thought…I was going to be assaulted for sure, but then Rai helped me, and you came and…this is stupid. I shouldn’t be affected this way.”
“It’s not stupid,” he says with deceptive calm. “What do you need me to do? How can I help?”
He’s asking.
Wow. Kirill is asking how he can help.
I suppress a smile. I know he’s not the type who comforts others and that the concept is alien to him.
So the fact that he’s doing this is a huge deal, and I certainly don’t take it for granted.
“Can you…stay here?”
He sits beside me on the tiles, his back against the wall, and stretches his long legs out in front of him. “That’s it?”
“Can I hug you?”
“Since when do you ask permission for that?”
I throw myself in his arms, and all the shivering and fear from earlier fade away by his embrace.
And just like that, I know everything is going to be okay.
16
KIRILL
To say today was a clusterfuck would be an understatement.
Just when I thought it was finally coming to an end, it turns out, not really. Not even a little.
Not even close.
Sasha shivers against me as her arms wrap tightly around my waist and her nails dig into my back.
She sniffles, the soft sound highlighted by the silence in the bathroom. I lay my palm on the middle of her back, making her sniffle louder. The sound is like a constant shrill ripping at my eardrums.
Her naked body feels so small in my arms, so weak and defenseless. The contrast against my fully clothed one doesn’t escape me and I have to remind myself that she’s distressed and I can’t attempt anything my cock is currently suggesting.
“I thought something had happened to you,” she murmurs between sniffles. “When I woke up in that basement, I thought I’d failed you. That I didn’t keep my word, and they kidnapped me and then killed you. It made me go crazy.”
“Do you have such little faith in me?” I say in a lighter tone, trying to salvage the mood.
“No, but…but I made a promise to protect you for life, and at the first test, I didn’t keep it.”
“You did everything you could.”
“Did I, though?” She lifts her head to stare at me with her watery eyes that mirror the color of the earth.
“Why ask that question when you know the answer?”
“Just tell me.”
I lift a brow. “Do you want my validation, Sasha?”
She nods once, and it takes everything in me not to take advantage of this moment for nefarious ends. Such as devouring her on the spot or something inappropriately similar.
“You did do your best. In fact, you went above and fucking beyond.”
“Then…why are you mad at me?”
“What makes you think I am?”
“You glared at me earlier when we left the Albanians’ nest.”
“I could’ve done that because you were unnecessarily conversing with Rai.”
“If it was only that, you wouldn’t have been distant and cold since then.”
“I’m always distant and cold.”
“You’re not right now.” The little shit smiles a little as if she said something to be proud of. “Point is, there’s something else to it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I just know it. Besides, you’re clearly evading the question right now.”
“Maybe I’m just trying to understand the situation better.”
“Ugh, there’s obviously more to it. You just won’t reveal it unless it’s on your terms.”
My lips twitch despite having the urge to snap her neck not too long ago. I never thought there would be a day when someone would have a deep understanding of the way I operate. My men, especially Viktor, have a basic understanding and know when to back off if they sense something isn’t adding up.
Sasha is the only one who’s always closely studying me for tells. Sometimes, she comes up empty, no matter how observant she is, but other times, like now, she hits the nail on the fucking head.
I should be angry that she even has this much of a read on me, but I’m strangely not.
Far from it.
“If you know that…” I slide my fingers up her back, enjoying the tremors that break out on her skin and the slight parting of her lips. “Why are you still asking?”
“I won’t understand if you don’t tell me. Is it something I’ve done?”
“What do you think?”
“I think it is. I just don’t know what I’ve done. No matter how many times I replay the events in my head, I come up empty. Besides, you said I did everything I could, so I’m lost here.”
“I said. You went fucking beyond.”
Her eyes widen, and I can see the exact moment she seems to understand the entire situation. “Oh.”
Fucking oh.
My hand slides from her back and I wrap it around her throat, feeling her frantic pulse point beneath my fingers. “What did I say about being a martyr, Sasha?”
“I wasn’t…I was there with Viktor and Vladislav…”
“What the fuck did I say?”
“That I shouldn’t be one, but I wasn’t. I was just doing my duty of being your bodyguard.”
“Fuck that nonsense. If you were so serious about such duties, you would’ve listened when I ordered you to stay by my fucking side.”
“But I had to cover you!”
“Viktor did that.”
“How is Viktor different from me? He can throw away his life, and I can’t? We share the same position, so I shouldn’t be scrutinized for performing the same actions he does. You’re being unreasonable right now.”
“I’m unreasonable? What about being kidnapped, assaulted, and nearly raped after having your true gender revealed in front of Rai? Is that perfectly reasonable?”
“How…did you know she figured it out?”
“I suspected it when you were talking and disgustingly smiling at each other, but I confirmed it just now when you mentioned she helped you. I’m going to take a wild guess and say she witnessed you being stripped down.”
She swallows. “She called me Aleksander afterward. I think she’ll keep the secret.”
“If you believe Rai won’t use this information against us, you’re sorely fucking mistaken.”
She shakes her head, and the sad part is that she seems to actually have faith in Rai. Maybe I should plot her assassination anyway. She has a lot of elements to threaten me with, and while that’s a disadvantage to me, it’s a ticking bomb to her life.