I peer at Nikolai, his face bathed furtively in the orange glow of his lit cigarette. If he’s nervous, he doesn’t show it. Oddly, it does little to soothe my nerves. I wonder what my own father would do in this situation. Who would he trust?
Anyone?
“There they are,” Nik says, grinding the cigarette butt beneath his heel. Maya straightens as two pairs of bright headlights sweep the storage area. A few sleek Cadillacs roll up, parking neatly beside the waterfront.
Fitz leaps out, Troy and a few others trailing. They’re packing heavily, and the sight of the guns grounds me abruptly into the grave reality of what we’re doing.
“You’re late,” snarls Maya.
Fitz laughs, the same charming, bright sound I remember from all of our teen years. He throws an arm around Maya’s neck, and she doesn’t push him off. “What’s the rush, babe? You really that eager to die?”
“Yeah, yeah, and leave a sexy corpse, whatever.” Maya watches his guys unload from the cars, eying the treacherous silhouettes of AKs strapped across their backs. “You took ‘guns blazing’ a little literally.”
“We’re not exactly fucking around. That bastard owes us a lot of blood and money, so. Eventually we gotta collect. And what better opportunity than with old friends?” A dangerous note creeps into Fitz’s voice, and he releases Maya, pacing back and observing the sprawling storage containers stacked endlessly under the bridge. “Bit of a walk to Yvan’s place. Everyone ready?”
The procession moves into the hulking, shadowy landscape of containers. Word is the warehouse out here leads to Lebedev’s secret bunker. Local legend says the old Russian has never shown his face above ground, that the FBI has had eyes on him since he left the mother country.
But his reach is crazy long, long enough to penetrate a mafia as airtight and lethal as ours. A shiver runs down my spine, imagining the man beneath the earth. Why did my father sacrifice everything for an alliance with Lebedev? What could the man possibly have had to offer?
Nik catches my wrist as we follow Fitz, Maya, and the rest of the men into the dark. He waits until everyone has passed to draw me close, his lips against my ear.
“Turn back,” he says, and a chill roots in my bones. “Go back, and let me take care of this.”
I lean back, searching for his eyes. Does he know something I don’t? Does it matter? “I have to see this through.”
“I can’t protect you in there.” There’s a note of desperation in his voice, and it twists like a knife inside of me. I touch his face, bewildered to realize it’s affection that’s filling Nikolai with real, visceral fear. “I don’t know what the fuck is going to happen down there.”
I don’t either. But I know Lebedev has to die for me to see my father again—and I know Lebedev wants to punish my father. I’m the perfect access point. An open vein. And if I can raise our chances of success just by drawing the old snake out of his den, I will.
But looking at Nikolai in the dark, remembering the strength of his arms around me, the heat of our moment, the passion with which he kissed and made love to me… it feels like a glimpse into a future I never could have imagined. A future that takes on a sudden, beautiful, diamond-hard resolve inside of me.
I can see it: Lebedev dead, my father free, the mafia overthrown and Maya newly at its helm, and Nikolai and I—free. Free to live openly, unafraid of danger, no longer jumping at shadows.
In that future, could we explore the feelings we’ve never spoken of? Could we turn this weaponized marriage into something true? Could I fall in love with him? Live my life with him? Build a family and a future with him?
“Nik,” I say, softly, touching his lips with ginger fingertips. “We can do this. Together, we can do this.”
His eyes search mine, stormy and inscrutable. “I can’t lose you.”
His words shock me, though maybe they shouldn’t after the last few days. Warmth catches and builds within me, and I find myself wishing I could drag him into a corner, into a shadow out of sight, and claim him as my own one more time.
Instead, I rise on my toes and kiss him softly. “You are not going to lose me, Nikolai. Not again. Not like this.”
His hands rest on my waist, warm and strong. I’d give anything to stay like this, if just for another moment.
But just then, the gunfire starts.
13
Nik
Isweep Zane out of the open, pushing her between storage crates and shielding her body with mine. I already have my Glock out and cocked, automatic gunfire spraying loosely out of sight. The sound echoes through the hundreds of metal containers.
“Back to the car,” I say to Zane, grabbing her around the waist and directing her back the way we came.
“No! Maya—”
“Maya can look after her damn self.”
