I’d been watching her long enough to know which way she’d be going and turned the opposite direction so I could double back to cut her off. She would look behind her and think she’d lost me.
Using my long legs to my advantage, I walked quickly along the side of the bridge, careful not to draw undue attention to myself. I ducked into an alley—the same alley where Nikolai had offered to sell me Bronya. Once I was in the dimness, I ran, getting to the other end moments before she did.
She’d already ditched her jacket and let down her hair like I’d expected. She was looking over her other shoulder, in the direction from which I should’ve been coming, when I grabbed her arm and pulled her into the alley, trapping her between the wall and my body.
“Hello, Bronya.”
Those striking baby blues blinked up at me. “What? How…?”
“You need to vary your routine more. I’ve been watching you the past couple hours. This is where you go when you want a break.”
“I’ll scream.”
“Will you?” I kept my arms on either side of her, pinning her in, but didn’t press up against her. I didn’t know how bad her injuries were. “Do you want to bring the police here? Have them take us both in for statements? Make sure they know what you look like?”
Her mouth popped shut. We both knew she wasn’t going to scream.
“How badly are you hurt?” I asked her. “I saw you flinch at certain movements.”
She turned her face away. “I’m not hurt.”
“I see you still haven’t gotten much better at lying.”
She glared up at me. “I’m not hurt enough for it to be any of your business.”
That fire in her eyes sent me shifting back a little even though I wanted to press closer. It was way too alluring for someone who was a decade and a half younger than me. She may not be a teenager anymore, but that didn’t mean I was going to be one of the men who used her.
“But you’re hurt enough for it to bother you. What happened?”
She shrugged. “I was running and needed to jump over a banister. I hit it wrong and bruised my ribs.”
I wanted to ask for more info. Who had she been running from? Police? Nikolai?
I wanted to ask if her life had gotten any better since I’d seen her last. She looked okay. Intelligence and wariness simmered in her eyes, not defeat or blankness. But she was obviously still in a shitty situation.
“What do you want, Sarge?”
She remembered my name. Why the fuck that mattered to me, I had no idea. But it did.
“I want a repeat of three years ago.”
I didn’t know who was more surprised by my words, me or her. They definitely hadn’t been what I expected to say.
“Minus the part where you bring your boss and his goons to kick the shit out of me,” I added.
She stiffened. “Do you want revenge? To beat them? To beat me?”
The hell of it all was that she looked prepared to take the beating if that’s what she had to do. Maybe that was part of her life now.
“What if I told you that I could have stopped what Nikolai’s men did? That I was trained to do exactly that, even at five-to-one odds?”
“Then why didn’t you?”
I eased a little forward. “Because I knew who he was going to take it out on if I fought back. I have a couple of brothers who I scuffled with all the time growing up. I know how to take a beating.” Much better than someone of her size would.
“Why would you do that for me?” she whispered.
That was the question, wasn’t it? I didn’t have an answer.
“Where I come from, men protect women,” I finally said. “My father always protected my mother, my brothers protect those who need it too.”
She looked down then back up at me. “I didn’t lead Nikolai to you that day. He tricked me. But I’m sorry. I should’ve done more to stop it.”
“No harm done.”
She reached up and touched the small scar above my eyebrow. “Some harm done.”
I stepped back farther at the touch of her fingers on my face. Damn it, why was she affecting me so much more today? For three years, I’d thought about her, and not one bit of it had been sexual.
But now…everything about her was affecting me differently.
Sex wasn’t why I was here. But at least now I was figuring out what had brought me to this particular area of Prague. My subconscious had known all along.
I dropped my arms from either side of her, a little surprised when she didn’t bolt immediately.
“Will Nikolai be coming by for his daily take soon?”
She shook her head. “Probably not him, but someone, yes.”
“Do you have enough?” The thought of someone forcing her to sell her body again sent rage coursing through me.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to make more? Like I said, I’d like a repeat of three years ago. I’ll pay one hundred fifty dollars if you come up to my room for the whole night, and I promise not to touch you.”
“Why?” she whispered, still right in front of me as if my arms still had her caged. “Last time, you were trying to save me from Nikolai. Why this time?”
“I want to offer you a job.”
Chapter 4
Bronwyn Rourke
Present Day
* * *
Sarge was in trouble, and I was finally going to have the chance to rescue him for once. I didn’t think this day would ever come.
Not that a Paris bar with two women hitting on him was much of a dangerous situation. Still, he looked…panicked. Which was pretty hilarious, given that the bar where we’d all gotten together held at least a dozen Zodiac Tactical employees. All trained to handle multiple sorts of dangerous situations with deadly force.
So was Sarge himself.
Sarge was quite safe, not that you could tell by the look on his face as the two women, both with American accents, fawned all over him.
I hadn’t known he was going to show up today at the Paris Zodiac office. He hadn’t visited once in the entire year I’d been working there. Ian DeRose, the owner of Zodiac, had been around a few times, plus a number of people high up in the company. But not Sarge.
I hadn’t known what to expect when I’d finally made it to Paris six months after Sarge found me in Prague for the second time. I’d walked into a nice office on the outskirts of the city, the card he’d given me clutched in my bloody hand. I’d handed it to the lady sitting at the desk and expected to be laughed at and turned away. Instead, she’d asked me to wait while she punched the code written on the card into her computer.
Within a few minutes, I’d been shown into the back, then subsequently hired, fed, clothed, and trained.
Bronya Roch had died. Bronwyn Rourke had been born.
I watched Sarge now as he smiled awkwardly when one of the women slid a little closer, laughing at something he said that couldn’t possibly be that funny. He turned to face the bar, and both women turned with him.
He had no idea what I’d done, the risk I had taken by trusting him. I could never return to Prague. Ever. I’d die a horrible death as soon as Nikolai got word I was back. And he would. He would look for me forever.