No one forced Kolya to confess or tell me his life story. No one made him save me from those pickpockets at the farmers market either. He did that just to protect me.
Back to the original problem.
Why pick me? Why now, after fifteen years?
Someone has a very sick sense of humor.
The same someone who put the pieces in motion on the island? Who destroyed my family and my childhood in one terrible night of bloody chaos?
So now what? Do I tell Kolya? Give him his mission objective? Or keep my mouth shut?
Kolya, the enforcer. The killer. The man who drugged me and planned to use me.
The same man who’s currently risking everything for me.
I picture my life before I met him. The bright, sparkly surface, the determined blinders I stubbornly wore to keep the monsters at bay.
Then I picture my life after I met him. The sniper at my house. The threats. The sound of shattering glass.
The way Kolya saved me.
He risked everything for me.
Twenty million dollars of diamonds wait in my home. And I’m the only one who knows.
I could go back, grab them, and disappear. All I’d have to do is figure out the code to leave the safe house. Maybe escape through a window.
My heart pounds at the thought.
Running means a lifetime of glancing over my shoulder. Running means leaving Kolya. Running means becoming someone else entirely. Someone who isn’t Miss Chloe. I’d have to stop working and live in the shadows. Give up all the happiness and cheer I built over the last fifteen years. Abandon my kids and the possibility of future students behind.
But staying means handing over twenty million in diamonds to a man who’s loyal to a crime boss and kills people for a living.
A man who’s protected me at every step, even while putting himself in danger to do so. Who used his connections with that crime boss to ensure my safety.
I trust him with my body, with my darkest memories and deepest desires.
Do I trust him with the rest of me too?
Putting the books back on the shelf, I creep to the bedroom doorway to peer at the enforcer in question. In sleep, the hard lines of his face relax, giving him a younger, almost innocent appearance. Though I know better than anyone how false that impression is.
There’s nothing innocent about Nikolai Ilyin.
But there is honesty.
No more lies between us, he said. And I agreed.
Someone violated my world. Set us both up and decided to systematically dismantle my life.
Sharp fury spears my chest. An emotion I’ve ignored, pushed down, and never allowed myself to succumb to…until yesterday’s meltdown.
No more. I’m done pretending. Done hiding. Done being used.
I walk to the bed, ready to wake him and share my revelation about the globe bar. My fingers hover just above his shoulder.
Once I tell him, I can’t go back. This fragile bond we’ve built will be tested.
He might choose the diamonds and his loyalty to Roman over me. Might choose his current life over a new, uncertain path with a woman he just met.
