Leaning over, I drop a quick kiss on her forehead and hurry out of the room.
3
Chloe
Heart beating unevenly, I watch the door close behind Nikolai’s tall, broad-shouldered figure. My forehead still tingles where his lips touched my skin, even as my mind replays the raw, agony-filled screams of the man he tortured.
How can a ruthless killer act so caring and tender?
Is any of that real, or is it just a mask he wears to hide the psychopath within?
I’m not actually hungry—the anesthesia has made me somewhat nauseated—but I need a few minutes alone. Everything happened so fast I haven’t had a chance to formulate my questions, much less attempt to come up with any answers. One moment, one of my mom’s killers was straddling me, lust gleaming in his flat, dark eyes, and the next, his partner’s brains were all over the forest floor and Nikolai was slicing open my attacker and threatening to remove his intestines.
Swallowing a surge of nausea, I push aside the recollection. As brutal as Nikolai’s interrogation methods were, they did yield some results, and with the worst of the shock wearing off and my mind clearing from the haze of anesthesia, I can finally think about the implications of what I’ve learned.
They were there to kill you both, Nikolai had told me in the car before asking if the name Tom Bransford means anything to me.
Which it does.
Because it’s been all over the news lately.
With an unsteady hand, I lift the remote and power on the TV, tuning in to a news channel.
Sure enough, they’re covering the primary debates, which Bransford appears to be winning, putting him ahead in all the polls.
My insides roil as I study his image on the screen. If Nikolai is telling me the truth, this is the man responsible for my mom’s murder.
Youthful and trim at fifty-five years of age, the California senator oozes charm and charisma. His thick, golden-blond hair is barely touched with gray, his eyes are a brilliant blue, and his smile is bright enough to light a warehouse.
No wonder they’re comparing him to JFK; he could be the dead president’s even more handsome brother.
I search for signs of evil on his evenly featured face and find none. But then again, why would I? However good-looking Bransford is, he can’t hold a candle to Nikolai’s darkly magnetic appeal, and I know what he’s capable of. I’m not the only one dazzled by Nikolai, either. Even woozy from anesthesia, I couldn’t miss the covetous looks the nurses surreptitiously cast toward him.
I’ve never been out in public with my employer, but I imagine panties drop left and right when he walks down the street.
A bizarre pang of jealousy strikes me at the thought, and I realize I’m getting distracted from the key question.
Why?
Why would a leading presidential candidate want to kill me and my mom?
It makes no sense. None whatsoever. Mom couldn’t have been further removed from politics if she’d lived in the Amazon jungle, and God knows I don’t follow the stuff. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I didn’t even vote in the last election, being too busy with starting college and all. Nor have I ever met Bransford in any capacity; I have a good memory for faces, and his is more memorable than most.
Maybe Mom had encountered him somehow? At the restaurant she’d worked at, perhaps?
It’s possible, theoretically. The upscale hotel the restaurant is attached to is frequented by all sorts of VIPs. Maybe Bransford had stayed there during a visit to Boston, and Mom witnessed him doing something he shouldn’t have.
But then why would he want to kill me as well? Unless… was he afraid Mom had told me whatever it was she knew about him?
Holy crap. Maybe she hid some kind of evidence at her apartment, and he thinks I know where it is.
Excited, I sit up, only to fall back onto the mound of pillows with a groan. The anesthesia is definitely wearing off because that movement hurt. A lot. It felt like hot knives plunging into my arm, and the rest of my body isn’t doing much better.
It’s as if I’ve been knocked off my feet by an actual truck, instead of an assassin the size of one.
Before I can catch my breath and refocus, the door opens and Nikolai walks in, holding a tray of covered dishes.
My heart launches into a sprint, and what little breath I did recover evacuates my lungs.