wasn’t even breathing heavily as he entered the bedroom. He back kicked the door shut and lowered her to the floor when they reached the foot of the bed.
“Are you going to relax enough for me to take my hand away?”
In response to his lame question, she peeled her lips back from her teeth and sank them into his palm, her foot going back again for another heel kick. He grunted and hissed when it connected, then brought the back of her head to his shoulder and squeezed her waist so hard she moaned.
“Your spirit is impressive as fuck, but pointless. Now stop this before you hurt yourself.”
The command paired with the expectation that she would obey made her see red. She shrieked in outrage behind his hand. Couldn’t do much else because he was too fucking strong. She shrieked again with what she knew was nearing her last breath.
That’s when he sighed and muttered, “Fine. Here goes nothing.”
† † †
Gabriel braced himself as Eva bucked against his hold yet again. His temples pounded with dread. If she was acting this way and she hadn’t even heard the story yet. Fuck. She was gonna fucking hate him when he was done. He knew it.
Regardless, he shoved the words from his throat. “I’ve known your father since I was thirteen years old.”
She stilled instantly but for her chest rising and falling as she sucked for air. Her precious heart slammed against his forearm so strongly he almost didn’t go on.
But he no longer had a choice.
“His name is Vasily Tarasov. He’s the leader of one of the most powerful Russian crime syndicates in the United States. He brought me in to watch over you two months ago while he was out of the country. He didn’t want you left without protection in case his enemies got to you…” Shit. He did not want to do this to her. “The way they got to your mother. Kathryn’s car wreck wasn’t an accident, Eva. She was deliberately run off the road. She was murdered.”
The sound that came from her throat was something Gabriel knew he’d never forget as long as he lived. The anguished cry ripped into him like a white-hot blade as her head moved slowly from side to side, her legs crumpling so that he had to take her full weight on.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered through his tightening throat. “I’m so fucking sorry.” He removed his hand from her mouth and turned her around to face him, half expecting a fist to fly at his jaw.
But all she did was move into him, her hands grasping the front of his shirt to help hold herself up.
“Please tell me you’re lying,” she pleaded.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why…why her? Why my mom? She was all I had. All I ever had.”
Helpless didn’t come close to describing what he felt as she began to cry, her gut-wrenching sobs shaking him, the tragic questions burning his ears. “I swear to God I would take this for you if I could,” he whispered into her hair. “I’d give anything to save you from this pain.” Meaningless words to her, no doubt, but true all the same.
After what seemed an eternity, her grip loosened and she pushed herself back so she could see his face. He dropped his arms, hoping her need to bolt had passed. Her red-rimmed eyes were still shimmering. Her face raw with emotion. But it was the cold, detached look she leveled him with that chilled him to the bone.
She braced her shoulders and demanded hoarsely, “What else.”
“Eva—” He raised his hand, but she stepped back with a jerk.
“Don’t. You. Dare. Just finish what you have to say so I can get the hell out of this nightmare you’ve dragged me into.”
So she could get out?
Right then he knew he had a choice to make. Continue this while feeling every single emotion she was feeling. Or revert to the man his father had raised with pride so many years ago—that cold, ruthless being who’d been taught to kill his emotions before they got in the way of what needed to be done.
Gabriel moved so that he stood between her and the door, and when he looked at her again, it was through the lens of a lethal man who’d made a promise to a deadly Russian leader.
“You are not leaving here.”
She spun to face him, grief and anger all over her face. “The hell I’m not! You can’t stop me. So quit