She burrows deeper into my embrace, her small hand resting over my heart. The steady rhythm seems to soothe her as much as it grounds me.
"I love the way you call me that," she murmurs against my skin.
"My little sun." I press another kiss to her hair.
The warmth of Fee's body against mine feels like coming home.
"I need to use the bathroom," she murmurs against my chest, her voice still soft from our lovemaking.
"Of course." I help her sit up, steadying her when she winces slightly. "Do you need your crutches?"
"No, I'm okay. The bathroom is close by, I can limp to it." She manages a small smile that makes my chest tight. "Just give me a few minutes."
I watch her pad carefully toward the bathroom, noting the slight stiffness in her movements. The protective instinct roars to life, but I force myself to let her handle this alone. She told me she needs to feel capable, not fragile.
Once the bathroom door clicks shut, I collect the water glass and ibuprofen bottle, padding naked through the penthouse toward the kitchen. The afternoon light streams through floor-to-ceiling windows, painting everything in golden hues that remind me of Fee's skin.
My phone sits on the granite counter where I left it, and the screen lights up as I approach. Twenty missed calls from Yuri. My blood turns to ice.
Twenty calls means crisis. Emergency. Threat.
I dial his number immediately, every muscle in my body coiled for action. He answers on the first ring.
"Hey, I've been calling. Everything okay?"
"Yes, I'm with Fee."
There's a pause. "Ah, good..." he says in a careful tone.
The way he draws out the word sets my teeth on edge. Yuri doesn't do careful unless the news is catastrophic.
"What is it?"
"I went to the hotel like you instructed. Nothing had been touched in Fee's room that I could tell, but I saw her laptop." His voice takes on that clipped efficiency he uses when delivering intel. "I did some diagnostics on it to see if anyone had hacked it."
My grip tightens on the phone. "And?"
"What I found...Anton, I think I know why Fee is being targeted."
The kitchen tilts around me. I brace my free hand against the counter, granite cold beneath my palm.
"Tell me."
"She hacked into a hitman's service website."
"How deep?" My voice sounds foreign to my own ears.
"She didn't finish what she started, but it got her deep enough to see client lists, payment structures, active contracts." Yuri's tone turns grim. "I don't see that she downloaded anything, but..."
Professional killers don't leave loose ends.
Chapter 10
White Roses
Anton:
Terror tastes like copper and gunpowder. Not the clean fear of a mission gone wrong. It's an almost paralyzing knowledge that Fee has been dancing with death. My brilliant, beautiful woman walked straight into the lion's den with nothing but her intelligence and a laptop, hunting for answers I couldn't give her. And now that lion is hunting her back.
