Trusting a Stranger. Kerry Connor

to the sound of his retreating footsteps, the soft click of the door shutting, letting the warmth of his words and his touch sink in as she tried to believe he was right. They failed to pierce the bone-deep cold filling her body.

      She wrapped her arms around herself, even though the chill had nothing to do with the temperature, and slowly regained her position at the window. The wind had picked up again. The branches in the trees twisted and tangled like the frenzied writhing of tormented spirits.

      Or the ever-present uneasiness she felt churning deep within her that not even Sergei’s assurances could calm.

      KARINA HAD LONG SINCE retreated to the sofa, night having fallen hours earlier, when she heard the voices. The sound of them, their tone sharp and urgent, broke into her thoughts. She frowned, irritated by the distraction even if nothing she’d been thinking about had been particularly pleasant.

      She slowly raised her head to look at the closed door, the one Sergei had shut when he left. The barrier was thick, solid. Yet the voices were loud enough, the intensity in them fierce enough, to be heard through the surface.

      A familiar sense of foreboding fell over her. She tried to swallow, only to discover her mouth had suddenly gone dry.

      Something was wrong.

      Part of her longed to stay where she was, safely insulated from whatever lay on the other side of that door.

      The rest of her already knew what it was, what it had to be. What she’d feared would happen from the moment Sergei had brought her here, even more than the idea of something happening to her.

      She barely realized she was rising from her seat until her feet hit the floor. As if in a trance, she forced herself to cross the room and open the door.

      One of the household staff stood a short distance down the hallway. At the sight of her, Karina’s heart fell into her stomach. The woman’s hand was pressed to her mouth, her expression locked in grief and horror and shock.

      And Karina knew she’d been right.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked, the voice seeming to come from far away rather than from her own mouth.

      The woman jerked her head up and just stared at her for a long moment. It didn’t seem possible, but the horror on her face deepened at the sight of Karina standing there.

      “Mr. Yevchenko—He…is dead.”

      Expecting it did nothing to protect her from the sharp pain that ripped through her at hearing the words spoken. She realized some small part had hoped that it would not be true, or that if something had to have happened, he would only be hurt, not killed.

      “How?” she asked, that strange, distant voice coming out as a barely audible rasp.

      “A shooting. He was leaving his vehicle and a car drove by. Someone inside shot at him.”

      Of course, she thought faintly. That was how they would do it. She didn’t ask if the shooter had been caught. She knew better than to think they would choose a way that would lead to them being captured.

      She stood frozen, unable to move, unable to react, unable to do anything but stare at the horror on the woman’s face, knowing it was mirrored on her own.

      The woman started to say something else. Karina didn’t hear her, the sound drowned out by Sergei’s final words to her, the reassurances now painfully mocking, echoing in her ears.

      You are safe here.

      We will not let him win.

      And another voice, one she usually only heard in her nightmares, now as vivid as though the speaker were standing beside her, whispering cruelly in her ear.

      I always win.

      Chapter One

      Karina stared at the closed door in front of her and did her best to calm her racing heart. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

      She felt the man beside her look down at her. “Do you have any other ideas?” Viktor asked.

      “No.” If she had she would have said so before now. Heaven knew she had spent enough time thinking about it in the past week. How Sergei’s death was her fault, and how would she survive.

      It was Viktor, Sergei’s son, who had come up with this option, this man. The one person who might be able to help her.

      Her entire life. Her hope of survival. All in the hands of a stranger.

      Trying not to shift nervously from one foot to the other like a child, she glanced up at Viktor. “Do you think he will even agree to this?”

      “I do not know,” he said simply. “But it is a chance.”

      Yes, it is, she agreed silently. One so extreme she wasn’t sure she could go through with it, even if the man did agree.

      But first he needed to answer the door and let them in. She sent an uneasy glance behind her, feeling entirely too exposed standing on the front stoop of this house. Even as she did, she sensed Viktor doing the same. It was impossible not to remember what had happened to Sergei and feel just how vulnerable they were out in the open.

      The door finally opened in response to Viktor’s earlier knock.

      Viktor had told her several things about the man they’d driven to Baltimore from Washington, D.C., to see. What he looked like had not been one of them. She hadn’t asked, the subject seeming unimportant compared to everything else. So she could only stare blankly at the man who’d answered the door, his expression solemn, and wait for either man’s reaction.

      “Viktor,” the man at the door said finally, his mouth curving slightly at one corner. “It’s been a while.”

      “Too long,” Viktor agreed with a shadow of the charming smile she’d seen him wield since childhood.

      As the two men shook hands, Karina carefully studied the man who’d answered the door. So this must be Luke Hubbard, Viktor’s old friend. Her best chance.

      She’d tried to picture what he might look like, but nothing she’d imagined had come close to the man himself. He was a big man, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed casually in a white polo shirt and dark slacks. His was a handsome face, but there was a hardness to it, with so many sharp angles and hard planes, that gave him more of an edge than she’d expected. He most likely was the same age as Viktor, which would make him thirty-three.

      Viktor said he was an attorney. Corporate law or something to do with business. Yes, she could imagine this man being a formidable opponent in a business negotiation. Perhaps he would be for Solokov, as well.

      He would need to be.

      “I was sorry to hear about your father,” Luke Hubbard said.

      “Thank you.” Viktor nodded shortly, his expression tensing with grief.

      It had been only a week, and Karina knew only too well that the pain of his father’s death remained fresh. She felt the sorrow of it, too, combined with a guilt that was hers alone.

      Her godfather was dead for one reason only: because he’d tried to help her.

      And now she’d come to ask this man for his help. To put himself in danger for her. Guilt stabbed at her again. It didn’t seem right to involve, to risk, anyone else. But then, what choice did she have?

      “And thank you for agreeing to see us,” Viktor was saying. At the obvious cue, he reached over and prodded her forward slightly with the press of his hand against the small of her back. “Allow me to introduce Karina Andreevna Fedorova. Our families have long been good friends. My father was her godfather.”

      She forced a smile onto her face as the man finally turned his attention to her.

      The smile nearly died. She’d seen from the moment he opened the door that his eyes were blue. She just hadn’t noticed how the hardness of his face extended