She rolls her eyes, then her gaze settles on me for a few moments. It’s as if the surrounding party has paused, no one elseexists apart from us. This was what it felt like that night too, like it was just us. No one else mattered.
She looks like she might believe me, but then I see the shift in her beautiful eyes. Hardening. Distancing. She shakes her head slowly. “You know what, Mikey? It’s not really my problem tonight… or ever, actually. Whatever happened, it’s all in the past, and I don’t want to hear it.”
“Ava—”
“All I ask,” she cuts in, “is that you be professional. That’s all I want from you. Let’s forget about all that… stuff. And focus on the auction.”
“That stuff,” I snarl.
She flinches, which makes me feel like an ass. Because I don’t want to scare her. And because, God help me, my body is roaring at me even now. My heart tugs too. A monstrous mixture of emotional rawness and savage desire.
“That stuff,” I repeat, husky. “That stuff meant more to me?—”
She waves her finger in my face. “I’m here for work. You’re here for work too, presumably? Is that what you are, an art collector?” She claps her hands suddenly, as if jolting herself from a dream. “Don’t answer that. I don’t care. I can’t afford to… Just, okay? Let’s just work around each other. Or whatever you’re doing.”
She turns and walks away, short heels clicking. I want to yell, to apologize, to do something other than stand here like a jackass. She leaves the hall again.
Across the room, Adrian is sneering at me openly in a blatant show of disrespect. I should know better than to let emotion rule me, but it’s like I go into autopilot, striding across the room,people parting like they know I’ll tear their goddamn faces off if they get in my way.
“I know what you did,” I snarl. “You and your.”
Adrian steps closer, head tilted, pale eyes watching. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Janos Nagy,” I snap. “Are you going to pretend you don’t know him?”
“I know Janos,” he says evenly.
“Are you going to pretend he’s not the consigliere of the Hungarian mob?”
Adrian looks around, an anxious flicker in his otherwise annoyingly calm face. “That’s none of my business.”
“Are you going to pretend…” I step closer, chest heaving, causing Adrian to look up at me with pursed lips. He’s not afraid. I know when men are, but he’s cautious. “That you didn’t send those men after me? That wasn’t when you spotted Ava? That you didn’t hire her to keep her close because you assumed she meant something to me?”
Adrian’s eyes widen in shock. “Rafael,” he says slowly. “Hand on heart, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The Hungarian mob traffic in people. In hard drugs. They cut hands and faces off their enemies. They’re the lowest of the low, and if this was my city, every damn one of them would be lying at the bottom of the river.”
Adrian grinds his teeth. “Janos’s business has nothing to do with me.”
“Hand on heart?” I snap. “That only works if you have a heart, Kovacs.”
I’mthis closeto grabbing him by the front of the shirt and shaking him until his bones rattle. I don’t like to plan or theorize when I’m angry, but doesn’t this make sense? The Hungarians saw me on their turf at Ava’s apartment. Then made their move, hiring their half-legit friend to keep an eye on her. Perhaps they were behind the death certificate crap too. They could have somehow gotten to Nico.
“You need to back up,” Adrian grits out. “People are looking.”
“Maybe I don’t give a fuck.”
“You’ll get thrown out. That’s a waste of time for you and your business, no? That’s all this is, Bellini. An attempt to make just a little more money than the next man, right?”
My hand curls into a fist at my sides, my head aching, my world feeling like it’s changing shape and remaking itself.
She was dead, and the last time I saw her, she wanted me, liked me. Now she’s alive and hates my damn guts.
“Make the smart move,” Adrian whispers. “For both of us.”
Fuck.
I back up, turn away, and scan the hall.
