I know that it has been more than 2 months since I last posted. I am sorry for that, life has gotten quite hectic since my last post. My fiancé had a job transfer so we had to move and with my first child on the way I have been left worn out.

But anyways, enjoy this chapter...


Three

Rosemarie

Warmth touched my face, rousing me from the restless sleep that I had been plagued by for most of the night, and blinked my eyes a few times to see the curtain was pulled back from the window. A low groan of pain slipped past my lips as I pulled the blanket up to cover my face and turned over so that I didn't have to see so much light. I settled back into the warmth of the soft bed before realizing something...

I sat up real quick but instantly regretted the sudden movement as a sharp pain began throbbing in my temple and my stomach began to churn uneasily. My mind was still a bit cloudy from the drinks that I had drunk last night and from the late night that I had obviously had. Which seemed to all hit me at once as I leaned over the side of the bed and grabbed the trash can from beside the chestnut nightstand before puking my guts out.

Once my stomach stopped its churning and heaving I was able to sit up to look around the room. It was a very simple room with minimal furnishings, which included the queen sized bed that I was on, a nightstand, couch with a stand that held the television, and a chest of drawers. Well that was besides the one door on the other side of the bed, which I assumed was the bathroom, and a door on the other side of the couch.

The rest of the room was bare, which I assumed meant that I was in a hotel room or I was in a place where the owner didn't plan on staying too long. I wasn't sure of which situation it was and I really wasn't curious enough at the moment to find out.

Slowly I moved to the edge of the bed so that I could try to stand up and that is when I noticed a note on the nightstand. This time my interest had been caught so I picked it up and it read:

I have some business to attend to but I will be back after while. There are some fresh clothes in the bathroom for you that I picked up. Room service has already been ordered, your food will be delivered at around 11. This is the least I could do without getting another broke nose from you.

D.B.

P.S. There is a glass and some Tylenol in the bathroom for your headache.

I couldn't help but smile just a little at before frowning again when I remembered the events from the night before. It had been horrible...

I saw it coming even before it happened because I knew that when Adrian got mad it always ended this way. I tried to warn the guy but he wouldn't listen to me and I started to become a bit panicked that he wouldn't see what was about to happen.

I saw Adrian raise his fist and almost in slow motion a gasp escaped from my mouth at what happened next. It was hard to see from my vantage point but as Adrian went to punch the guy he reached up and took hold of his fist. In the next second Adrian was on down on one knee, his arm twisted behind his back and the other guy was leaning over him. It looked like he was whispering something in his ear.

Anger filled Adrian's face, besides the slight hint of pain that covered his features, and I knew that something else was about to happen. Oh shit.

Before the guy knew what was coming Adrian tilted his head down and snapped it up. I heard the sickening crack of the guy's nose and he stumbled back, surprise on his face. Though I thought it would take the guy a minute or two to recover but he was back up and aware within seconds though blood was still coming from his nose.

He got to his feet and stared Adrian down, anticipating his next movement. But before anything else could happen I saw Jack coming our way, obviously one of the passersby had informed him of what had been going on. The other guy saw him to and relaxed though at first Adrian didn't understand what was going on until Jack and Scottie, who had come out from behind the bar, grabbed him on each side.

Once realization hit him he started to fight them but they wouldn't let him go and they drug him through the crowd, heading towards the back entrance where they threw out anyone not obeying the house rules. When they were finally out of sight I went over to the guy's side and saw that his nose was still bleeding. He reached up to wipe the blood away and seemed to notice that he was still bleeding as well.

"Go sit down. I will get something to hold over your nose. For now just pinch your nose and tilt your head back." I calmed myself down and gathered my bearings, my helpful side kicking in.

I had studied as a CNA during my high school years and the knowledge was still embedded deep within my veins.

I hurried to the bathroom and grabbed several paper towels from the roll before hurrying back over to the bar to hand them to the bleeding guy. Well, that had been the intention at first but I wound up placing some of them on his nose while dabbing to catch the fresh blood.

"Thanks." The lone word came out nasally, sounding a bit funny, compared to the guy's usually deep, masculine voice.

"Your welcome." I smiled a little while working at trying to wipe away the worst of the blood and checking to see if the flow was slowing down. "Sorry about that though I did try to warn you about it."

"I don't mind. I was just trying to protect your beauty." I met his gaze as I caught his words and he seemed to catch his slip up.

I shook my head, a small smile on my lips, though I could feel my cheeks warming a little with embarrassment. "Thank you for doing what you did. That was pretty noble since you don't know who I am."

"All I know is your name, Rose." I met his gaze once more confused before realizing that Adrian had said my name.

"Rosemarie is my name, only friends call me Rose." I mumbled the words out of habit because I didn't have many friends that I let call me by that nickname though when he said the name it sounded quite nice. I wasn't going to admit it though, it took too much pride. "My full name is Rosemarie Hathaway."

"Sorry, Rosemarie." I pulled the paper towels away from his nose, he winced, and I saw that the bleeding had finally stopped. "My name is Dimitri, Dimitri Belikov."

Well that explained the accent that blended flawlessly with his words. I had heard his accent foreign exchange student from Russia back when I was in high school. I knew I recognized it from somewhere.

"Here, Rose." I looked over to see Scottie holding a wet towel out to me. "Do either of you need me to call the cops?"

I looked at the guy as he looked at me before smiling at Scottie and saying, "No, I don't think that would be necessary. I think Adrian will eventually get what is coming for him."

A little while later, once I had gotten Dimitri cleaned up we walked out of the bar together. One more thing that I wasn't about to admit was that being close to him made me feel safe though I didn't understand why. Was it because I had just watched what he had done to Adrian, protecting my honor though he didn't know me? Or was it something else completely?

Anyways, after realizing that I had no place to go I had confessed to him and he offered his room to me. I had tried to backpedal and say that he didn't have to but it seemed persistent with his offer so I had humored him. Though I have to admit I was exhausted and I didn't really want to go crawling to Lissa's in my state at the time the offer had been a good thing. One thing that I hadn't thought about was that I shouldn't be crawling into a complete strangers bed...

I stopped the thought there before it could get any further though the darker side of me seemed to like thought quite a bit, maybe even a little too much. You were saying last night that you wanted to be in bed with a man, weren't you. If I remember correctly it wasn't just to sleep.

I blocked that voice out instantly as I placed the note back on the nightstand before carefully getting to my feet as my stomach churned a bit. It wasn't like the sickening feeling from before this time it was more like a empty feeling, the kind where your stomach is begging for some food.

I glanced to the nightstand to the clock, it read thirty-four minutes after ten. I had more than enough time to shower before the food would arrive.

Dimitri

I had been sitting in this same spot in a hole in the wall cafe near China Town when I saw the all too familiar figure of my friend and a fellow agent Rodrigo. He wore the collar of his jacket turned up like he always did to block most of the rain with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. His usual dirty blonde locks was soaked, plastering itself to his forehead and the nape of his neck, though the last part I knew from previous encounters.

He ducked into the cafe and walked up to the counter casually to order a drink. I turned back to the window, looking through the tailor shop across the street to keep an eye on the intended target. I had come to find out a few hours ago that somehow the case that I had been working and the assignment that I was doing for Mr. Mazur now crossed paths somehow, in someway. I just wasn't sure of what way that was yet.

"So what happened to you, man?" I glanced up as Rodrigo sat in the chair across from me, he was eyeing my black eye and broken nose, which had tape across it.

I took a sip of my coffee before looking out the window once more. "I got into a fight at a bar last night, Rod."

"I could have guessed that. What or who was it over?" I didn't say anything, I didn't want to answer is question because that brought with it more questions than I needed. "Let me guess, it was over a woman?"

"Let it go, Rodrigo." I really wasn't in the mood to talk, especially not about the woman that I had left in my hotel room. "What did you find out about Adrian Ivashkov?"

"Besides what everybody already knows about him…he is the son of a senator and his mother is a high profile socialite, meaning that he has money coming from all angles. He loves his daddy's sweet cash just as much as he loves women, and he goes through both like it's going out of style. Well, the women part was up until about three years ago anyways." Rodrigo sipped on his coffee as he spoke, telling me nothing new or that I hadn't already figured out about Adrian.

"That stopped because of Janine Hathaway's daughter, Rosemarie."

"How do you know about that, Belikov? That relationship wasn't too much on public knowledge." Out of the corner of my eye I saw his eyebrows pull together. "Also, why am I now assigned to the case that you were working on?"

"I was reassigned to something else though it is somehow related to the assignment that I was working on." I saw two much younger guys enter the tailor shop and walked up to my intended target. Both of them were tall and slightly built but I wouldn't call them lanky. One had bronze hair and the other guy had dark brown hair, almost black. "You see those three men in there, they are a part of both assignments."

Rodrigo looked in the direction that I was looking and nodded. "They are also a part of your girlfriend Tasha's assignment."

I grimaced, feeling a bit sick to my stomach at the mention of her name and I thought about how things had ended. "Natasha and I are no longer together, Rod."

"Oh man, sorry about that." I saw out of the corner of my eye that his eyebrows had gone in surprise at my statement. "Dude, what happened?"

I hadn't told him, or anyone for that matter, about what had happened three weeks ago, all he had known was that the two of us had got into a fight. Tasha had never even talked about what happened outside from our relationship. She had wanted to try to make the relationship work but now we knew that it wouldn't work between us. I now realized how different the two of us really were.

I looked him right in the eye before saying, "She cheated on me with another man about three weeks ago but it took me until last night to finally end things with her."

"So that is what the two of you have been so secretive about. Man, I thought that she was really into you. I guess I was completely wrong on that point." He shook his head before sipping his cup, obviously having a hard time wrapping his head around the whole thing. "What do you plan on doing now?"

"I am going to do what I have been doing for the last two years, look for my little sister and find the bastard who took her from us." My eyes were trained on the three men in the store across the street as a limousine pulled up to the curb.

After a few moments Rodrigo broke the heavy silence that had settled over us. "Who authorized the assignment and the change? In your file it doesn't give a name but all we know is it was from within Russia."

"Mr. Mazur gave me the new assignment and the authorization though he is on an undercover assignment at the moment. Obviously I have now become a part of the protection detail and will be for some time."

"Oh boy, how the fuck did you get tangled up with him? I am surprised that he even put you in on anything because that man doesn't trust anyone especially if it is something worth any money." He glanced over at the counter and grimaced at something. "Damn, I need more coffee but there is a line up there. I will wait, I guess."

I wasn't about to explain the complicated history that I had with Zemy, it was too much for any one person to comprehend. The one main fact of our relationship was that I was sort of a link between two worlds, sort of like an ambassador of sorts. But more importantly I was a part of his pack, his second in command in fact.

"He has entrusted me to protect his daughter." I saw the two young men walk outside to the limousine but didn't think they were too much for my interest. I wasn't sure what I was looking for exactly but I knew that when I did things would get good.

"Wow, what really?" Rodrigo had taken a sip from his coffee cup but had choked on it when he heard what I was doing. "What's this chick's name? He must be in some really deep shit if he is asking someone to protect her."

You're telling me something that I had already thought about. I had even wondered what Ibrahim had gotten himself into this time that was causing such a stir. When I had talked to him I could tell that something was off, both of us knew it in a way, a sixth sense so to say. I guess that was what made him seek my help since he had already known that I was in New York.

"Rosemarie Hathaway, the infamous Janine Hathaway's daughter."

"Oh shit. That is a hell of a mix of blood. But what the fuck does the daughter of such a powerful man and a famous women, both shifters, need protecting from?" He was speaking the words that I had been wondering to myself since I had talked to Mr. Mazur last night but for some unknown reason I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around it. What did Rosemarie need protecting from?

An hour later things seemed to slow down a bit so I decided that this was a dead end for now. It was going to take me a few days to find out what alias Cordias Vladimir was doing here, who he was associated with, and what he had to do with my sister's disappearance.

I found myself looking at my watch every so often and at this point it was nearly two in the afternoon. I sighed as my mind wandered back to the hotel room where Rosemarie was still hopefully at right now. Anxiety started to filter into my stomach, wondering if she was alright.

I had sent Rodrigo a while ago to go by the hotel to keep surveillance on her for me while I watched my assignment. But after nothing of interest besides the two men this morning that had visited I realized that today wasn't going to be too eventful and decided to wrap it up.

I gathered my duster and placed a tab, plus a tip for the table cleaner, under the sugar container. I slipped it on then flipped the collar up to cover my neck and lower part of my face before finally venturing out into the bitter cold wind that had swept through overnight.

I was used to the cold from living in Siberia but this cold was much different than what I was used to. This cold had a bite to it that I found uncomfortable and it became even more so when my phone beeped. I sighed and gave a little as I thought that the message was something from Rodrigo but when I looked it was an unrestricted number.

A chill went up my spine as I stopped dead in my tracks, making a few people give a cry of protest at my sudden halt but none of that mattered when I opened the message…

You better watch out because I've got eyes on you…and the girl.


Tell me what you all think about this chapter. I didn't get many reviews last time but that is fine even the few that I got I enjoyed.

Okay…another reason that I haven't been able to post is because we don't have Internet where we live so the next post may come a little late as well, depending upon how everything goes. Again, I will try to post once a month, if not every other month. I just recently finished with chapter five and trying to work on chapter six but it is a slow process at the moment. I hope to get done with six and the next few chapters over the next month or so.