“Save it,” I interrupted.
“No, no, no. No. I won’t save it. You need to hear it. This is just the beginning, mate. You’re using up favors, and it won’t be me, mate, but eventually you’re not going to have any left, and... look, she’s a pretty little number, I’d throw one into her—”
I reacted, without thinking, lunging at him and gripping him by the neck. I hadn’t lost control in twenty years, since I was first trained as a dark ops soldier, and now I was ready to crush the throat of an ally—a loose ally, but an ally nonetheless. It was unprofessional, weak,terrifying, and yet I couldn’t help myself. “Never.Say anything like that again.”
Eric gripped my wrist and squeezed hard, just to let me know he wasn’t going down without a fight. “Hey hey hey. Okay. See... Alaric, listen, man—” He grunted and pushed my arm down, freeing himself from my grip, which I relinquished, my lack of control just dawning on me. “This is the kind of thing I’m talking about,” he said. He pointed at the ground. “Right here.”
I glared at him.
“Mate. You’ve made lot of enemies in your lifetime. A lot more enemies than you have friends. You don’t think that as soon as word gets out that there’s something Alaric Vitkus can be broken by, they aren’t coming after you? I know this girl is beautiful, I know you’ve got some romantic idea in your head that you can keep all that a secret. But you can’t. And sooner or later, someone is going to find out about her.”
I turned and stared out at the water, my jaw rigid. Eric was looking at me imploringly.
Eric was the closest thing I had to a friend in the world, I realized.
“You want my advice, mate?”
“Not really.”
Eric sighed.
“Get rid of her. Get rid of Lucy. Get rid ofher...at least get rid of the baby.”
I turned to Eric. He was right, of course. It’s the same advice I would have given him had the situation been reversed.
But I couldn’t follow it. My mind could keep up with the game: Natalia was dangerous to me, her friend Lucy needed to be liquidated, and if Natalia was pregnant, I was up shit creek.
The old me would have called someone to take care of Lucy weeks ago.
The old me would have stashed Natalia Karkarov somewhere off the map and put the fear of God into her to stay put and silent.
Fuck Eric.
“Do what I asked,” I told him. “Then we’re even.”
Eric squinted at me, his expression searing. He was looking at me the way cats look at some of their few predators, when they see a weakness. The look made me hate him, but I knew he was still good for his word—and only that much.
“Your call, mate. I’ll examine her and work up a plan A and plan B, but you’re on your own for everything else. I was never here.” He threw back the rest of his whiskey. “And I’m not coming back.”
Eric turned and walked toward the guest house. He didn’t know where I lived, and he knew better than to tell anyone who he was going to see. But he was right: if any of these secrets leaked, and he was discovered, I’d put him in the very unenviable position of having information that people wanted.
I didn’t expect Eric to wait long enough to find out how someone would get it out of him. He knew how things worked and he had a very pretty face. He wasn’t going to offer it to anyone, but if someone came knocking, he was going to hand them the keys to the safe.
Which meant Lucy was, indeed, a very loose end.
I had another whiskey, while I pondered my dilemma. I came to a decision—and not one I felt good about, but it seemed that fewer and fewer decisions were as cut and dry as they had been before I had entangled myself with Natalia.
I walked up the stairwell, lost in my own thoughts—had I not been, I would have seen something, noticed the rigid black in the moving gray of the water.
But I didn’t.
Her room was empty. I had wanted to crawl into bed with her, to bring back the feeling from earlier in the day, however false it might have been. I’d let her fall asleep in my arms on many nights after using her body relentlessly, but now I wanted to sleep beside her, to remain there all night, to ease my conscience by absorbing her scent and the heat of her body.
Disappointment gripped me first when I saw that her bed was empty.
I looked on the balcony, then, slowly and calmly at first, but with mounting panic, I moved swiftly through the house, my training turning on like switches with each room I searched and found empty. My stomach was cold, I looked menacingly at the guest house, but I resisted the urge to storm into Eric’s room.
But as every place I looked turned up empty, I felt a sensation brewing in my chest that was completely unfamiliar. It rose up, from my chest through my head, and it blinded me slowly, a rising curtain. Drowning out my thoughts, filling me with a very particular kind of rage.
