“What do they want me to do, Alina?” he asks, with that frantic edge I remember from when we were kids, and he’d broken something and needed me to help him lie about it. “I can’t conjure money that’s been paid out of thin air. I can’t steal guns back from men who shove them in my face.”
“You can give the Bratva names. Places the guns have been. You can bring them a piece of the problem big enough to feel like it’s a partial fix.”
“That’s like giving them a noose and asking them to hang me with it!”
“They already have the rope, Archer!” I snap at him, my chest growing tight. Does he not care about my safety at all? It’s all about him! “They chased me down and kidnapped me off the fucking street because of you!”
He’s silent, breathing loudly down the line. I press fingers hard into my closed eyes and forbid them to water. “Archer,” I say, and then words I didn’t plan come rushing out. “Listen to me. They are going to kill me or…do something worse to me if you don’t fix this soon.” The lie scrapes my throat raw on the way out, but I don’t stop it. If fear is the only language Archer listens to, then I’ll weaponize it. “Dominik’s brother… he’s running out of patience.”
A panicked, hiccupping sound comes from my brother. “No. No, Alina, no. I—God, I never meant?—”
“Then prove it!” I say, and surprise myself with how cold I sound. “Prove that I still matter to you. Bring the money you can get back. Tell me where the guns are. Give me something that stops the ticking clock hanging over my head.”
“I don’t know where the guns are now!” he says. “I don’t, I swear. The buyer’s not talking to me anymore. They used me to set up the Russians and moved on.”
“Then find out,” I order him. “You always know a guy who knows a guy. Call in whatever favors you haven’t ruined yet.”
“I’ve burned a lot of bridges,” he whispers.
“Find new ones,” I urge him. “Do not make me call you again and tell you how the countdown ended.”
He goes very quiet. Then, very softly: “Are you with him? Right now?”
I close my eyes. “Yes. I’m doing what I can for Dominik while he’s recovering.”
“Morozov saves you, and you… you become his nurse?” Archer asks, and there’s something ugly in it—childish jealousy. “He’s using you, Alina. He’s putting you between him and the guns so his brother doesn’t point one at his face.”
“Shut up,” I whisper, because the room tilts and I can’t handle it. “Just shut up and do what needs to be done.”
He doesn’t get to shame me for the actions that I’m taking to survive when he’s the one who loaded the gun that’s pointed at my head right now. All he gets to do is prove that he actually gives a damn about me and fix this!
“Is he telling you what to say right now?”
“No, Archer, he’s not telling me what to say. These are my words, okay?” My voice cracks. “I would die for you if you made me. Please don’t make me.”
“Don’t say that, Alina.” He sounds like he might throw up. “Don’t—God, don’t…”
“Then give me something,” I say. “Money. Information about the location of the guns. Both. I don’t care which first. But you have to call or text me back in two hours with proof you’re moving. If you don’t, I may end up in Gavriil’s hands very soon. Did you know he keeps women in cages?”
“Fuck.” Archer’s breathing hard, a staccato scrape against the speaker. “I’ll try,” he says, sounding like a child again.
“You have to do more than try this time.”
I hear movement from the bedroom. It’s a small sound—clothes over skin, a weight adjusting outside the door—but my body hears it and knows it’s him. It automatically perks up, wanting to see him, to touch him, like my body can’t tell the difference between the man who saves me and the man who could ruin me.
“I have to go,” I whisper.
“Alina—wait—tell me where you?—”
I stab the button to end the call. The phone is suddenly too heavy. I toss it on the bathroom counter like it’s burning my skin.
The door handle turns. Then there’s a knock demanding entry.
I go over to unlock it and pull it open. Dominik fills the doorway like he built it around his massive body. He’s wearing a shirt now, one that’s open at the throat because of the dressing. He looks less pale than he did last night, but the exhaustion of playing tug of war with a fever for control of his body is clear in his gray eyes.
One thing that hasn’t changed, he’s still so beautiful and intimidating that he takes my breath away. Especially when he’s eyeing every inch of me with one slow seductive sweep like he’s making a list of all the places where he wants to kiss me next.There’s definitely desire warming his stormy eyes until they do a double take and see what’s on the counter.
“What are you doing with my phone,dikaya koshka?”
