Page 16 of Wild Heart
“I shouldn’t have ignored your order, sir, but what the fuck am I supposed to do? Sit in my apartment with my thumb up my ass while that smug piece of shit is back in town?”
“Sit in your apartment and stare at the goddamn wall for all I care. You are no fucking use to me dead. The only reason I’m not down there breaking both your legs is because you have yet to fail. My trust is rare, Ivan. Break it, and I break you.”
“Understood.”
The lock on my truck disengaged, and I climbed up in the cab, slamming the door behind me. My lip curled upward, and I stared down at my stomach.Soonas that shit healed, my bike was coming out of the garage.
My keys made a clicking sound when I shoved them into the ignition, and with a twist of my wrist, the truck rumbled to life. Slamming my fingers into the set of plastic buttons, I rolled down every window at once.
It’d been twelve hours since I walked out of the hospital, but fresh air still felt like a luxury. Hawthorne had kept me in that box of a room for six extra days. I’d nearly lost my fucking mind in that white-walled depression chamber.
The only thing that stopped me from tearing that place apart washim.
Marcos was a bright personality and a sad soul wrapped around the same small body. A flame hid in his big brown eyes, lit even as tears dripped from them. I was fascinated by his life—possessed by an urge to rip him apart and study him piece by piece.
He’d been so pretty,covered in my blood. When he washed it all away, I wanted to slice myself back open just to cover him in it again.
My little butterfly with the bloodied wings…
I wanted to know who’d clipped them.
ChapterSix
Ivan
Ididn't know how it was possible for him to look any smaller, but curled up outside my front door like that, he looked to be pocket-sized. Cheek flat against the ugly carpet, his chest rose and fell as he slept. An errant curl swayed against his forehead with each puff of breath that left his parted lips.
Kneeling down, I swept my knuckles across his cheekbone. His nose scrunched up, and he pressed into my touch before his eyes peeled open. Recognition filled the warm gaze.
“You’re cold, Solnyshko.”
Goosebumps lined the column of his neck. With my pinky finger, I traced the chilled patch of skin and frowned at the sweatshirt he had draped over his small form.
The space below his eyes was shadowed and purple like he’d had nightmare after nightmare in the hours we’d been apart. Slapping his hands to the floor, he dragged his body into a seated position. The sweatshirt fell, and he swayed once before whispering, “I knocked, but you didn’t come.”
Fuck.
He pulled his lip between his teeth and looked up at me with questioning eyes. The sides of his throat rippled with unspoken words. I wanted to wrap my fingers around it and demand he give me every one of them.
His voice was the perfect juxtaposition between courage and fear, and it seemed when he was around me, he stopped pretending he wasn’t broken.
A low sound left his throat, off-pitch and strained.
“Marcos.” I frowned. “Have you been screaming?”
“You didn’t come,” he croaked. “I needed to see if you were okay, and you didn’t come.”
Baby.
“I’m sorry.” I used my thumb to rub circles into his skin. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I called Toby. He helped me get in.”
“Did anybody bother you?”
My building was one of Ben’s. All thirty-five floors had military-grade security, but I didn’t fucking like the idea of him in this hallway in the middle of the night, unprotected and alone.
“No.” He dropped his gaze to the floor, hiding behind tangled strands of hair. “I’m sorry about your door. I’ll… pay for it.”
