“So?” I found myself leaning forward. If he wanted to snatch me and drag me down the beach to drown me in the ocean, it would have been done by now.
“So I know the odds are with your family when the war starts. I’m just trying to stay on the winning side.”
He looked so sure of himself. Too sure. If I couldn’t fully trust Gavril, I certainly couldn’t trust this little—well, big—upstart. I stood up and turned back toward the doors into the house. “Looks like you bet wrong on this,” I said, slamming myself inside and hurrying to a room he wouldn’t be able to peer into.
Sinking into an armchair in the very room where we were supposed to watch a movie whenever Gavril returned, I wrapped my arms around myself to stop the shaking.
Was Reuben for real? Would he actually go against his boss to get me back to my family? He wanted to be on the winning team when a war broke out.When, not if. Did he know something? Of course he did; he’d have to be part of it. He knew something big was about to go down.
A burst of anger made me pop up and pace the room. I bumped into the coffee table and barely felt the jolt of pain in my knee. Had Gavril’s promises all been lies? Pain was creeping in underneath the bubbling rage, but it wasn’t from jamming my leg against the table. The pain welled in my chest, an iron band twisting and tightening until I could hardly breathe.
He lied about everything. Why was that so surprising? And why did it feel like my heart was breaking? It could only mean he had found a way into my heart.
My hand closed around the closest thing I could reach. With a feral cry of pain, I hurled the delicate vase across the room. Fresh roses scattered across the cool marble tiles, water splattered up on the white leather couch, and shards of porcelain made an almost musical sound as they broke and hit the floor.
If my family suffered—if a single one of them died because I had been fool enough to believe Gavril’s lies, then I would never be able to forgive myself. No one in my familywould ever be able to forgive me, either, and that was the greatest pain of all, making me double over as I gasped for breath.
Oh, no, no, no. I couldn’t let him know how upset I was. If he returned and saw the mess I just made, there’d be endless questions. I had to be the one asking them, not him. I carefully picked up the pieces and mopped up the water, adding the roses that weren’t too badly mutilated into another vase.
Still shaking with anger and hurt, I wanted nothing more than to find Reuben and make him tell me what he knew. I even headed toward the deck again, but time was running out if Gavril hadn’t been lying about only popping into the club to be seen.
And what if Reuben was a test? The fact that might have been the case, and Gavril was testing my own loyalty, caused another stab to the heart. Almost the same as when we’d been swimming the other day. A little too far from shore, I started being dragged out by a strong undertow. No matter how hard I kicked my legs and flailed my arms, there were a few moments of sheer helplessness as I got sucked out to sea.
I was adrift again, and this time Gavril wasn’t there to haul me back and get my feet onto solid ground. Solid ground with the man who ran the Collective wasn’t possible.
Fighting tears I refused to let fall, I ran upstairs and used what little time I had left to search his pockets and the drawers in the office room he’d been using. Anything to give me a clue about what to believe. There was nothing, and I didn’t need to rush. It was another two hours before Gavril returned.
Despite the sleepiness that had crept up on me when I was out on the deck, before Reuben woke me up both literally and to Gavril’s possible plans, I remained wide awake.
He seemed shocked to find me perched in one of the master bedroom chairs, a book on my lap that I pretended to read. The words had been swimming before my eyes for almost an hour, and I long since gave up any pretense of turning the pages.
“This is a nice surprise,” he said, his genuine smile tugging at the bands around my heart.
His suit jacket was slung over his arm, tie loosened, and a couple of buttons at the collar undone. While his smile seemed real, his eyes were tired. The faint stubble around his chiseled jaw made a rasping sound when he ran his hand over it. “I’m sorry it took so much longer than I thought.”
He did sound sorry, but why? Because things hadn’t turned out the way he wanted, or because he knew he’d have to go back on his promise? Were my cousins under imminent threat of attack right now?
“What happened?” I asked, my eyes never leaving his.
He blinked, but perhaps it was only at my harsh tone. I put the book aside and waited with my arms crossed over my chest. I’d given away that I wasn’t pleased, may as well lean into it.
“Nothing exciting,” he said. “There was a special concert—do you know Destined… something? I forgot the name of the band, but it was obviously a big deal. I had to stay for that, and then I wanted to discuss some things with Ivan Morozov.”
“What sort of things?”
Gavril shrugged, then reached out to slide some hair behind my shoulder, his fingers lingering on the side of my neck. “Boring business things. Nothing important.”
“Important enough, though,” I said.
He sighed, leaning down to drop a kiss on my head. “Yes, important enough. It’s never a bad idea to maintain strong alliances.” What the hell did that mean? He only looked tired and mildly frustrated when I looked at him. “Let’s go to bed,” he said.
“No movie?” I asked, being ridiculous. It was close to two in the morning.
“We need to get some sleep,” he told me, already undoing the rest of the buttons on his shirt as he moved toward the closet. “It’s probably time to return to Los Angeles. We can leave some time tomorrow.”
His voice was calm and measured. Much too casual, as if returning to California had just occurred to him. If he wasn’t outright lying about what was going on, he was definitely holding back.
The honeymoon had reached its end, and not just because we were leaving Miami.
