A sob crawls up my throat without warning. I clamp down on it, swallowing hard, but Matthias notices. Of course he does.
He steps closer.
Doesn’t touch me.
Waits.
The restraint is what undoes me.
My shoulders sag. My breath shatters. I fold forward just slightly, and that’s all it takes. He’s there in the next heartbeat, one arm wrapping around my back, the other bracing my weight like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
I press my forehead into his chest.
Not because I forgive him.
Not because everything is okay.
But because for this one moment, I’m tired of being strong.
My breath breaks, and then so do I.
He doesn’t tell me to stop.
Doesn’t tell me I’m safe.
He just holds me while the adrenaline finally lets go—and everything it kept at bay comes crashing down.
nineteen
“Are you finally going to explain what the hell Christian was doing with all that cash?” Dima sits down in the seat across from me, beer in his hand. After Dante and his men left, we all went back to Matthias’s building to unload the money into the large vault he has beneath the structure.
The entire room sits under the parking garage, almost completely cut off from the rest of the building. The only way to access it is either through the secret cargo entrance a few blocks down or the discreet set of stairs concealed beneath a grate in the floor of the garage.
My husband is the Russian version of Batman.
Just more of an asshole.
And sexier.
Fuck. Now I’m imagining him in a bat suit doing naughty things to me.
Focus, Ava, focus.
He’s a douchebag.
A liar.
A douchebag.
It’s worth repeating twice.
“I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that she said it was stolen American money.” Seamus shakes his head, his mind trying to grasp the reality that we have millions of dollars sitting thirty or so levels below our feet. “I mean, come on, how would anyone steal that much American money?”
“And how did it get overseas?” Nikolai asks, setting a glass of wine in front of me. “There’s what? Four or five million dollars down there? How does anyone transfer that overseas without being noticed?”
“Oh, it was noticed,” I inform them, enjoying the mild fruity notes of the Lambrusco as its slides down my throat. Damn, that’s good. “At the beginning of the war in the Middle East, the US Government shiped billions of dollars overseas in the form of fives, tens, and twenties, all cash. It’s sent to help with reconstruction. Schools. Homes. Businesses. And, of course, a decent bribe or two.”
“Billions?” Dima perks up in his seat. “With a b?”
