~ ZEV ~

Shit.

Shit!

He tore his eyes away from the startled look on her face and darted back down the side-street, his feet making no sound on the cobbled sidewalk, as he sprinted for the alley he knew she'd never brave in the dark. She hated the stink of garbage, and wet patches she couldn't identify. Especially at night.

At least, she used to.

Shit.

Why was she walking this way? The lit streets were in the other direction. Did she have a fucking death wish?

Then he heard his name whispered on the frozen street behind him and his eyes closed without his permission as he was taken back, five years, to the days when Sasha's entire face lit up when he walked into a room. The days when he knew the taste of her skin, and when, if she whispered his name, it was with a happy sigh.

His steps faltered and he almost turned.

But he'd reached the alley. He forced himself to dart into it, immediately turning to hide in the shadowed doorway at the back of one of the apartment buildings.

Above him fire-escape ladders and curtained windows glinted in the dark—at least, to his eyes they did. He knew when she turned down here from the street she'd see nothing but pitch black. He was banking on it.

She didn't like the dark any more than she liked the smell of garage.

Zev stood in the dark shadow, hands clenched at his side against the temptation to reach for her when he heard her footsteps clip along the sidewalk to the open mouth of the alley, then hesitate. He knew she couldn't see him, but he pressed himself deeper into the doorway anyway, cursing himself for his weakness.

He shouldn't have followed her. If she didn't turn around now, it was going to drop them both in deep shit.

Shit.

He waited for her to turn and keep walking and forced himself not to breath. Removing his sense of smell felt like blinding himself. But he didn't think he could bear to take in her scent and not touch her.

He waited, listening. The hairs on his arms standing up. There was no sound on the cobbled sidewalk. Sasha wasn't breathing either.

Fuck.

Was she okay? Had Nick been following him and—?

"Zev?" she whispered and adrenalin shot through him, crackling like lightning through his chest and out into his limbs. For a second he thought she'd seen him and knew he was there, but then he heard her swallow. "Stop being crazy," she muttered at herself. "He isn't here. He's never here."

His heart died at that and his instincts pressed at him, his weight shifting, so strong was the urge to step out and reassure her that he'd never left her any longer than he had to. That he'd always kept his promise to keep her safe.

Always.

Then she cursed and he heard the hitch in her whispered voice and now he was the asshole who'd made her cry.

He dropped his face in his hands and prayed for strength not to give in, prayed for peace for her—for the willingness to move on and forget about him. To be happy.

Then every hair on his body stood up as he heard the distinctive motor of one of the agency cars rolling along the street. The lights rolled across the doorway—casting him in deeper shadow, thank God, then disappeared again as it passed. But the noise of the engine didn't fade. Instead, the growl of it slowed, deepened to an idle.

They were going to stop? He wavered on the edge of leaping out of the dark. If they thought they were going to take Sasha—

"Are you okay, Ma'am?" a polite, deceptively friendly voice called out from the street. "Do you need a ride?"

Zev froze. He knew that voice. Harry. The sleaze. Zev imagined castrating him. With his teeth. A growl began to roll in his throat before he could stop it, but she didn't hear because she was too busy answering in that strong-but-too-high voice she got when she was scared and trying to pretend that she wasn't.

"I'm fine! My apartment's right around the corner! I was just looking for my phone in my purse, that's all."

Smart girl, letting him know she had her phone in her hand. He prayed she did. He didn't think she'd been holding it when she was on the street outside her friend's apartment.

"Are you sure? I don't mind, I have a driver and we can—"

"I'm fine!" she said and started walking back towards the street.

Zev breathed a little easier then. She'd go back to Rob's house—fucking Rob—and Zev's 'colleagues' would leave her alone with witnesses around. Once she was off the street, Zev would call Nick and… he'd figure it out.

"Well, okay. Be safe and get home. It's cold tonight!"

"I will, thank you!"

Her heels clipped along the sidewalk as the car pulled around the corner in the direction opposite her friend's apartment. That was good, she'd—

Then he heard the sound of her footsteps change as she trotted off the sidewalk and onto the cement of the street. She was crossing the street. Still heading for her own apartment? What the fuck was she thinking?

Stifling an audible growl, he leapt out of the shadow of the doorway and darted into the street, racing up behind her silently.

He held his breath to avoid her scent, but his heart raced—not from the running. But because he was finally going to do more than see her from around a corner or through a curtain. He was going to talk to her. Touch her. There was no choice. He had to get her out of here because he knew what was about to happen.

That car would take approximately sixty seconds to circle the block and come up behind her. They'd barely slow it down when they caught back up to her, just open the door and clap a hand over her mouth and pull her in, closing those soundproof doors with their black-tinted windows while the street's residents slept on, and no one would be the wiser—except Sasha, who would be dragged into an interrogation room and asked how she knew the name of a man who no one was supposed to know existed.

SHIT.

She didn't hear him coming.

As he ran up behind her, her hair swinging in the breeze of her passage across the street, he sucked in a breath and with it came her scent, strong and pure, apples and vanilla, and rolling around in his nose, twisting him up inside with an intoxicating mix of memories, stifled love, and fear for her safety.

She'd crossed the street and stepped into the shadows of the buildings on the other side when she likely felt the vibration of his approaching steps. She turned with a gasp as he wrapped her in one arm, clapped the other hand over her mouth and tugged her down the steps to a basement entrance of one of the brownstones, just as the sound of a car engine reached them—driving much faster this time—up the street around the corner they'd just come from.

She screamed into his palm.

"Sash, please, you have to be quiet," he whispered.

She sucked in a breath through her nose and froze, his scent no doubt triggering memories for her just as hers did for him, though she'd be far less aware of it.

"Zev?" she said, her voice high and quavering, though it sounded like a muffled "Eehm?" behind his hand.

The car turned up the street and slowed, the lights making a wide arc along the buildings across from where they hid.

Zev pulled her harder against his chest and leaned back, praying the lights wouldn't reach through the small hedge that lined the walk down to where they stood. That he'd gotten her off the street fast enough that no one in the car had seen them. That they didn't already have anyone on foot in the area.

And while he prayed, he inhaled again and again, his nose conveniently buried in her soft, mahogany colored hair.

Heart racing, he wondered how he was ever going to let her go again.