Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 68102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
What did that mean?
She had no idea. But she was still staring at the door long after he’d shut it.
15
Colm stood outside her door after he shut it.
You cannot barge back in.
You cannot force her to let you in.
And as much as you want to . . . you cannot tell Sofia that she can’t mourn that asshole she was dating.
He’d noticed that she hadn’t even asked about him. Nor about what was going to happen to any of them.
Shouldn’t she care at least a bit about Oleg?
Then again, it was Oleg. He hadn’t seemed to care about her. Colm still didn’t understand their relationship.
But she was barely showing any kind of reaction to anything that had happened. Yeah, she’d been pale and quiet.
Maybe she was in shock?
However, he’d thought she might have shown something. Fear? Horror? That she might have had questions.
Maybe it was due to her upbringing.
Was she so used to violence that it no longer affected her? Did she not care that she’d come close to dying tonight?
Because Colm cared, he cared a whole lot.
And he hated that she seemed so fucking blasé about the whole thing.
Because he wanted her to care. He wanted her to . . . to show him that she wanted to live.
Fuck.
He leaned his head back against the door, closing his eyes.
Was he worried about her mental health?
Yes.
Her physical health?
Also, yes.
Did he have any right to confront her about any of this?
No.
Fucking no.
And that was what was killing him the most. She was out of his reach. She was . . . not his.
She’d made it clear that she didn’t want that.
And are you going to just let her do that? Push you away?
Oleg is gone.
There is nothing in your way.
Well, other than the fact that they’d come from different worlds. Similar, but different.
Oleg had been a slimeball. But he’d been Russian, at least.
Would the Bratva ever accept a Scottish bodyguard being with their princess?
And did he fucking care?
Sofia would. Damn it.
She and Aleksandr were close. But Colm was fucking furious with him too. He hadn’t been protecting her well enough.
He’d let Oleg near her.
Move away from the door.
If he stayed here any longer, he was going to storm back into her room and demand everything from her.
She doesn’t want you to call her baby.
He had to admit that had hurt. It had reminded him of the status of their relationship.
Which was at zero. As in, they were barely acquaintances at this point. They’d once been friends. Or so he’d thought.
Friends who flirted.
Now, they no longer had that.
But he was determined to get that back. That and more.
Time.
He had to give her a bit more time to get her head around all this.
And then he would strike.
Because Sofia wasn’t getting away from him again.
Not. Happening.
Heading back into his bedroom, he knew what he was about to do was wrong . . . and yet he couldn’t stop himself from activating the cameras in her room.
The room had been set up as a sort of prison cell. It was for when someone wasn’t their prisoner but also wasn’t someone they could just leave on their own.
Colm checked the bedroom camera but saw she wasn’t in there. She had to be in the bathroom. A camera had been installed there as well, but he didn’t feel comfortable activating it.
He had some boundaries.
Though just.
Instead, he took a quick shower and drew on a pair of pajama bottoms before rechecking the camera.
Where was she?
Was she still in the shower?
The door had a silent alarm that he had activated, just like with the windows. If set off, they would only send an alert to his phone.
So she was still in there.
Just taking a long shower.
Colm couldn’t settle. He brushed his teeth and did some slow stretches to relieve the tension in his muscles.
But it didn’t work.
The longer he went without seeing her, the tighter his muscles grew.
What was she doing?
Sofia sat huddled in the shower under the hot water. When she’d first gotten in the shower, the hot water had felt amazing. Releasing some of the tension in her back.
Unfortunately, as she’d relaxed, the wall that had been keeping her safe started to crack and crumble.
Then it had all rushed back at her, and unable to hold herself up anymore, she’d slid onto the shower floor.
Her legs were limp noodles.
Idiot. She’d been such an idiot to believe Oleg when he’d told her that he had a video of Aleksandr shooting Danill. But it had looked so real.
How was she supposed to know he’d doctored it?
And that hadn’t been her only secret that he’d discovered.
Slimy bastard. In many ways, he’d been dumb.
But he’d also been smart when it had come to intimidation and manipulation.
He’d touched her.
Put his hands on her.
Sofia swallowed heavily, pushing back at the bile that rushed up the back of her throat.