Midnight Alpha (9 page)

His eyes narrowed. “I’m seriously thinking about it right now, in fact.”

Her eyes widened. “If that ‘serious thinking’ is in regard to me then I’d advise you to think again.”

Gregori didn’t think it was wise for him to go there either. But not for the same reason Gaia did. If he had Gaia over his knee, bare-assed or otherwise, then he didn’t believe he would be able to stop there.

His sigh was weary this time. “Will you just get in the car so I can drive you the rest of the way to your home? Where we’ll say goodnight—politely—and then I’ll be on my way.”

“I’m not getting in a car with a man who thought I stole his wallet!”

Had he thought that? Or had he just used that as an excuse to see Gaia again, his earlier caution, his decision not to be alone with her again, be damned?

It was true that he’d felt more emotion, more
everything
since finding Gaia Miller under his desk the night before. And he had no idea why. She was outspoken, totally lacking in sophistication, made no pretense of playing the games and machinations he was used to from other women.

She was also so physically responsive she made his blood boil rather than simmer!

Gregori recognized it was a dangerous combination for a man whose whole life had to be about control. In business. At Utopia. Even in his home. He was The Markovic now, and the rest of his family looked to him for leadership.

Ivan Orlov had become an outside threat to that authority, and Gaia Miller was fast becoming an internal one.

“I did not believe you had taken the wallet intentionally,” he answered her accusation stiltedly.

“It sounded that way to me!”

“I cannot help what it sounded like— Oh damn it to hell!” Gregori lost all patience with her stubborn refusal to get in the car, and put the car in park before thrusting the door open and climbing out onto the road before striding over to where she still stood beneath the streetlight.

Gaia took a wary step back as Gregori powered across the pavement towards her, his eyes glittering darkly with his impatience, mouth thinned, square jaw clenched, his shoulders incredibly wide in that pristine white silk shirt.

And yet Gaia didn’t feel in the least frightened of him. She should have, but she didn’t.

This man wielded more power in London than the government and the monarchy combined, in fact, the Markovic and Montgomery families
owned
the city.

And Gaia had obviously just seriously pissed him off!

Well that was just too bad, because he had seriously pissed her off too. “I’m not getting in that car with you,” she repeated flatly.

“It isn’t safe for a woman to walk the streets alone at two o’clock in the morning,” he snapped his impatience.

“I’ve been doing what I want, going where I want, when I want, for the past six years without any assistance from you, thank you very much!”

“I cannot help what you have done in the past, tonight you are my responsibility—”

“I’m not anyone’s responsibility,” Gaia cut in derisively. “As I said, I’ve been on my own a long time, Gregori, I don’t need anyone watching out for me. Least of all you.” She may now be ninety-nine percent certain that Gregori hadn’t been Angela’s lover, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know who the man was. Or that he wasn’t helping to hide the fact that Angela had been murdered.

Until Gaia knew the truth, she wasn’t going to trust anyone.

“Least of all me?” Gregori repeated softly.

Gaia met his glittering gaze unflinchingly. “You’re a dangerous man, Gregori Markovic.”

He straightened to his full and imposing height of several inches over six feet. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Inwardly, Gaia was quaking at her temerity in speaking to this man so frankly, but she showed none of that inner turmoil on the surface. “You live in a violent, turbulent world. A world where people die if they get in your way or oppose you.”

“As you are opposing me now?” he said softly.

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“And knowing that, you still continue to do so?”

“Yes.”

Gregori breathed out his frustration with Gaia’s accusations. Accusations that may have been true of his father but were certainly not true of him. He gave an impatient shake of his head. “I don’t believe I have had anyone killed recently—”

“You think this is funny? A joke?” she choked, her face so pale her freckles showed out starkly across her cheeks and nose. “Those people have families, loved ones who mourn their death!”

All of this sounded extremely personal to Gregori, as if—“What the fuck!” he rasped as Gaia gave a gasp, a streak of red suddenly appearing high up on her cheek.

“I—what was that?” she prompted dazedly as she raised a hand to where the blood was now running down her cheek. “Gregori?” The pupils of her eyes were so enlarged they almost eclipsed the light brown iris.

He reached out to grasp the tops of her arms as she swayed unsteadily on her feet, even as he gave a hurried glance towards the road. He had been so concentrated on their conversation he had only been vaguely aware of the other vehicles passing by them; it was a weekend in London, so of course there were other vehicles driving by, no matter what the time.

He spotted the culprit immediately: a black SUV on this side of the road, the passenger window down halfway, the nozzle of a silencer on a gun visible in the gap.

Aimed directly at the two of them.

“Get down!” was all he had time to shout as he heard the soft popping sound of another shot, even as he dragged Gaia down onto the pavement, his car now acting as a shield between them and the SUV.

“What just happened?” Her face was a pale oval in the streetlight as she continued to look down at the blood on her fingers.

Gregori gave another glance towards the road, relieved to see the driver of the SUV had no choice but to increase his speed as several of the other drivers beeped their horns at him for holding up the traffic, in total ignorance of the situation.

It had only been seconds rather than minutes, and yet in those few seconds he and Gaia had been shot at twice. And it wasn’t over yet, the SUV could come back so the shooter could try and finish the job.

Gregori rose quickly to his feet, the adrenaline pumping through his veins as he pulled the still-dazed Gaia up beside him to throw open the passenger door of his car and bundle her inside.

“It will be okay, Gaia.” He quickly fastened her seat belt at the same time as he kept half an eye out for the return of that SUV.

“Why is my cheek bleeding?” She touched where the blood was still flowing copiously down her face before dripping onto her sweater.

“Everything will be okay, Gaia,” Gregori repeated grimly.

He pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket, hitting speed dial as he closed the car door and hurried around to the driver’s side, keeping his eyes on the road all the time.

“Nikolai?” He confirmed as the call was answered. “The house. Now. Bring some of your men with you.” He ended the call before Nikolai could ask any questions.

He gave Gaia another concerned glance as he climbed into the car beside her, frowning as he saw there was even more blood on her fingers.

Thank God he’d left the car engine running. Thank God there was a brief gap in the traffic that allowed him to cross the road and turn the car back in the direction of his home. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

Gregori repeated the litany over and over inside his head as he pressed the accelerator to the floor, weaving the car in and out of traffic, narrowly avoiding a couple of collisions with other vehicles in his need to put distance between them and the SUV, all the time keeping half an eye on the driving mirror to make sure they weren’t being followed.

Someone would pay for this.

Someone would pay for daring to shoot Gaia.

Gaia gave a pained wince as she located and touched a gash high on her cheek that appeared to be the source of all that blood. It didn’t feel deep, was just a graze really, and yet it didn’t seem to want to stop bleeding.

How it had gotten there at all was what puzzled her… “Someone shot me,” she realized dazedly.

“Yes,” he bit out harshly, his face all sharp, grim angles in the streetlights overhead.

“I— But— Someone really shot me?” she repeated incredulously.

“Yes,” he confirmed again abruptly.

Black spots began to dance in front of Gaia’s eyes. “I don’t understand. How…”

“A drive-by. Black SUV,” he supplied economically with another glance in the driving mirror. “Don’t worry, I’ll know who was responsible by morning.”

“And do what?”

“Whatever I have to.” His eyes were a cold, glittering black as he glanced at her before turning his attention back to the road.

Don’t worry
, Gregori had just told her. Don’t worry? She had just been shot at, not exactly in broad daylight, but certainly the streets weren’t deserted—she had met several other pedestrians as she walked home, and there was still a lot of traffic on the roads. Someone could have been seriously hurt or killed.

She
could have been killed.

Those black spots in front of her eyes all converged into one huge black hole and Gaia felt herself falling into it, only the seat belt holding her up as she collapsed into a faint.

“—no reason to think she was meant to take the bullet.”

“Think, Nikolai. I’m wearing a white shirt and no jacket. I had my back to the road. I might as well have painted a fucking target on it.”

“Maybe if you’d taken Jerome with you like I asked you to—”

“This is not the time for I-told-you-so, Nikolai. We were standing out in the street, an open target, so much so that I’m convinced they meant the shot to wound and frighten rather kill. It was a warning. A threat. The bastard is taunting me, Nikolai.”

“You’re convinced it was Orlov?”

“You aren’t?”

“Well I can’t think of anyone else you’ve pissed off recently—”

“Nikolai!”

“I’ll talk to Jack Montgomery, see if any of Ivan’s men have been seen in London,” the other man nodded. “In the meantime, do you intend to keep Gaia Miller here?”

“Where else?”

“She could always stay at my place—”

“We both know that isn’t going to happen.”

The other man gave a snort. “I’m not about to steal your woman, Gregori.”

“She is not my woman.”

“Whoever shot at you tonight now thinks she is.”

“Which is precisely the reason Gaia will stay here, where we already have security in place and the men to ensure her safety.”

Gaia had absolutely no idea where ‘here’ was. Any more than she knew whom Orlov was, or why he should want to send a warning to Gregori. What she did know with absolutely certainty was that she wasn’t staying anywhere with Gregori, for her own safety or otherwise.

She slowly raised her lids before carefully turning her head in the direction of those two voices. Carefully, because her cheek was throbbing and her head seriously ached.

She was lying on a pale gold brocade sofa in what she could only describe as being an extremely elegant sitting room: the furnishings were all Regency, with a beautiful piano at one end of the room, original paintings on the silk-covered walls, the ceiling a fresco of nymphs and cherubs. There was also a large Adam fireplace with a fire crackling merrily in the hearth.

Gaia knew, without having to ask, that this elegance and understated wealth belonged to Gregori, and she wondered if he could actually play that beautiful piano or if it was just another piece of elegant furniture to him.

“—need to go to her apartment and collect some of her things.”

“Consider it done—”

“I don’t think so,” Gaia had listened to quite enough of these two arrogant men discussing and deciding her immediate future for her.

She didn’t want Nikolai going anywhere near her apartment. She didn’t have any photographs of herself and Angela on show—she wasn’t a photograph person. But she did have several in her bedside drawer showing the two of them together at the twenty-first birthday dinner Angela had insisted on treating Gaia to. She wouldn’t put it past Nikolai to search her apartment while he was there.

The two men watched her as she slowly sat up before swinging her legs to the floor, the rub of denim against her inner thighs reminding her that she still wasn’t wearing any panties.

And the reason for that oversight was standing near the doorway next to Nikolai, the blood on the front of Gregori’s previously pristine white shirt telling her that at some time he had been in close contact with the blood on her cheek. No doubt when he carried her from the car into this house.

Well she was fully conscious now, and totally aware of the fact she had been shot.

Shot, for God’s sake.

Things like this did not happen in the streets of London.

Not unless you were standing next to Gregori Markovic, apparently, because then it was a question of taking your life into your own hands. Or the hands of a man called Orlov, who seemed to want to taunt Gregori for some reason. Although why he would have thought shooting at her would do that was anybody’s guess.