"Combined with Dmitri's behavioral observations, the conclusion is no longer a matter of debate."
He looked at me with those silver eyes. Patient. Empty. The gaze of a man who had arrived at a mathematical certainty and felt absolutely nothing about the human life it affected.
"The blind girl has been listening. She is our leak."
I didn't move.
My breathing was even. My hands rested on my thighs, fingers loose, posture relaxed, despite the fact that every muscle in my body wanted to seize. Wanted to fight. Wanted to vault across that desk and put my hands around Konstantin's throat.
No. I gave him nothing.
But inside, the locked box shattered.
She told you she wasn't feeding anyone. She promised. And you believed her because you wanted to. Because you were buried deep inside her when she said it. Because her hand was over your heart and her voice didn't waver and she was either the most honest woman you'd ever met or the most dangerous liar on the planet.
And now you know which one she is.
Or do you?
The information surfaced in a DEA briefing. Listening and saving information "just in case" was one thing. But getting intel from a piano bench to a federal agency required a pipeline. A contact. A method. Things she'd sworn didn't exist.
I'm not feeding anyone to the Feds.
Her voice, low and urgent, in a dark alley with my hand around her wrist and her pulse slamming against my fingers, ricocheted around my head.
I don't have contacts. I've never spoken to law enforcement. The information stays in my head. That's it.
Either someone else found a way to extract what she knew, or she'd been lying to me from the night she pressed her fingers to my face and read me like sheet music.
Viktor leaned forward. "Milo."
I looked at him.
"You understand what this means."
"Yeah." My voice came out flat. Bored, almost. Like we were discussing a plumbing problem. "I understand."
"Good." Viktor glanced at Konstantin, who gave the slightest nod. "Because this is how it ends."
He stood and walked around the desk. leaning back against the front of it. He was close enough now that I could smell the cologne and cigarette smoke embedded in his jacket.
"You do this yourself."
What the fuck did he just say?
"It's a question of loyalty, yes? To prove you're not a part of this."
"I'm not a part of anything," I told him. "Without people like you, I wouldn't have a job, so why the hell would I do anything to disrupt that?"
Konstantin shifted, the leather of his chair creaking in the heavy silence. "Biology is a powerful narcotic, Mr. Scott. When a man is...entangled, his judgment rots. We found your excessive interest in the pianist concerning." He picked up his pipe, examining the bowl. "It clouds the mind. Makes a man believe a woman’s lies simply because he enjoys the way she screams his name when he's fucking her."
My jaw ached from how hard I was grinding my teeth. I kept my face blank, forcing my hands to remain still on my thighs, but my blood was burning me alive from the inside out. They thought Iwas compromised. That I was thinking with my dick instead of my brain.
And looking at the evidence they’d manufactured?
I couldn't even blame them.
"We do not know what she has told you," Konstantin continued, his voice smooth as oil. "Or what you have told her in moments of weakness. Therefore, your word regarding her innocence, and yours, is currently worthless to us."
