She hands it over, and I draw her to me for a kiss. At first she doesn’t resist, then she pulls back. “I like to kiss your mouth,” she whispers, rubbing a thumb over my bottom lip. “But we should not right now. We must go, yes?”
I nod and use my phone to settle the bill and check out of the hotel. Within minutes, we’re out of the room and headed downstairs.
When I step out of the elevator, I’m glad to see the lobby’s empty. I set the room key on the desk as we leave.
When the C Crue man in the parking lot sees us, he takes out his phone and texts. Notifying his bosses, I’m sure.
I toss the luggage in the trunk as Natalia gets in the passenger seat of my car. I don’t rush as I circle the car, but I don’t pause either. As I drop into the driver’s seat, my phone rings. It’s McCann. I ignore the call and pull out of the parking lot.
“Tell me what Stroviak said.”
My phone begins to ring again, and Natalia’s head jerks, her gaze focusing on it. She frowns. “Who is that? Him? Your brother Sasha?”
“No, the leader, Connor McCann.” I turn the volume down on the ringtone and then take her hand in mine.
“Perhaps you should answer, Alexei? Or they will come?”
“No, they won’t come after us. I want to hear what happened today.”
“Mmm. Just shopping, and we go to movies. Your brother, he waits for us to come out of from theater. He tells Zoe and other man to go because he will drive me back. He says you told him there is a problem and I am not safe, so he came to bring me back to the hotel himself.” She draws in a breath and blows it out. “I thought this is strange. It’s not right. If Alexei sees Egorov by the fingers lakes, he would come for me himself.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Your brother said to me I don’t have to be afraid to talk. They won’t let anyone come and take me away. How can he know this is what Egorov means to do?”
“I asked if there was a bodyguard with you. He must have guessed why I wanted to know. That I wanted to be sure you had security because someone’s pursuing you.”
“Hmm. But why does he care?”
“I don’t know. He might not. You were with Zoe, McCann’s fiancée. He might have come to separate you from her, so she wouldn’t accidentally become a target by being with you.”
“Oh. Yes, smart. This is good thinking. All right.” She leans back in the seat, nodding. “I was afraid for us, Alexei, especially for you. I am glad it is not what I am thinking.”
I revert to Russian and ask what she thought, and she seems relieved to be able to abandon English for a while.
“He came alone and took me by myself in his car, so I thought he would lock me away somewhere and threaten to hurt me until you did whatever they wanted. I thought you might have refused to work on something, and they wouldn’t accept it. They don’t know that we’ve only known each other for a little while. They saw how you fought to keep me last night. They might think I mean a lot to you.”
My hand squeezes hers. “You do mean a lot to me, so if they’d done that, it would’ve worked. But it’s not how they operate.”
“No? You’re sure. Well, still, it’s better that we’re leaving.”
Her phone buzzes with a text alert, and she takes it out, staring down at it with a frown.
“Is it your new friend Zoe? Or my brother’s wife?”
“No, it couldn’t be either of them. They don’t know my number.”
“Who is it then?”
“It’s Polasky. He says I can come early for my passport.” She taps the screen, then stops. “Did you speak to him, Alexei? You said you would help me get my passport back when we returned to New York. Did you tell Polasky you wanted him to return it before the thirty days?”
“No.”
She sighs. “Another trap then.”
CHAPTER15
Natalia
