Her face lifts, looking down at me. “Be quiet.” She mouths, but her expression is warning, and I quickly nod again. She moves away, climbing to her feet and heading for the bed. I clamber to my feet, stilling when I see the armful of devices in her arms. She looks around shrewdly before she finally decides on the bathroom. I follow her, watching in fascination as she dumps them all in the bathtub and turns on the faucet.
Neither of us speaks, watching the tub fill.
Finally, satisfied, she flicks off the faucet and turns back to me. “Go back to your room, Alonzo. And tell your men to start searching their rooms with a fine-toothed comb. If you think you found them all, look again.”
“There is no way they had time to set all this up before we got here,” I mutter, looking at the tub again.
A pitying stare. “This is a Russian Pakhan, Alonzo. They trust no one. Ever. This entire place is wired with any kind of device you can think of.”
Shit. I really am fucking this all up. I should know this. Should expect it. I’m allowing myself to get distracted by Rori. In making sure she’s alright.
One thing I won’t compromise on with her is leaving her to face this alone. Everything else, fine, she can call me out on, but not that. “I’m not leaving, Rori. Romanov and Belov can think and do what they want, but I’m staying. For you. Only for you.”
Her lashes flutter. A small trickle of hope. Is she affected by my words?
“Then it’s your own funeral, Alonzo, and I hope your father and Pietro know that when you get sent home in pieces if this blows up.”
Well, that’s certainly blunt. She’s back to looking detached, but I refuse to believe it. Those steel walls she’s erected can be scaled. Good thing I’m a strong climber.
“If I die helping you, Aurora O’Brien, then I’ll have done something right. If that’s what it takes for you to forgive me, then that’s what I’ll do.”
That finally gets a reaction. She gives an incredulous scoff. “You’ll die just so I’ll forgive you? You know what, this is getting ridiculous now, Alonzo. Is that all it will take to make you go home or leave me the hell alone to forgive you? Fine, I forgive you. I forgive you for being an arrogant son of a bitch, for hurting me, and for showing me what I could have only to rip it all out from under me by being cruel. Consider yourself absolved and go be happy. Far away from here. Away from me.”
She really thinks that it’s going to be that easy? She’s delusional.
Unwilling to prevail the distance between us, I stalk toward her. She doesn’t back away, but I see her body stiffen. Her lipspinch, and her eyes narrow. “You think I want lip service from you either, Rori?” I ask her softly, staring down at her, not touching her, but crowding her. “I want your forgiveness, yes, but I also want you. I want everything from you. I want the woman who was in my life before this. Before she finally told her secrets. The ones she didn’t trust me with. Maybe at the time, that was for the best, but deep down, you know that you could have trusted me. I would have understood. We could have worked to fix all of this before we got to this point. We?—”
“Trust you? You wanted me to trust you?” A sharp, sarcastic laugh fills the room. “I think I slammed your head a little too hard into the floor if you think I was ever going to trust you with shit, Alonzo. You let me know just how much I couldn’t trust you. Couldn’t trust any of you. The only person I could have trusted was Sienna, but telling her anything about who I am, what I am, would have put her in danger. I couldn’t risk that. It would have put you in danger too, and I didn’t want to do that either.”
That stings. “Fine, you have a point. Still, if you had been honest when the Chameleon was brought up instead of trying to handle it on your own, a lot of this could have been avoided.”
“No, it wouldn’t have. Nico was never going to be okay with me saying I was a trained assassin and hiding out under an alias. That I know one of the deadliest assassins in the world. He’d have locked me in the dungeon, tortured me, and eventually killed me when he realized he’d get nothing out of me.”
“I’d have never let that happen. I stuck up for you, Rori. They questioned you all the fucking time, and I told Nico to cut it the fuck out. That we could trust you. That you were on our side.” My own anger and hurt flames. “I have put my ass on the line for you every fucking time, even when you were pissed, when I hurt you. Yet you act like you will never trust me again. I made a mistake. A horrible mistake that I will apologize for the rest ofmy life if I have to, but just like then, I’m not going to walk away. I’m going to be here when you finally realize you’ve always had someone in your corner.”
“You were conveniently in my corner when it served you. The moment we fucked, you stepped back over the line and left me alone again. You just didn’t have the balls to tell me right away. You let me go on believing it meant something. And don’t tell me you defended me, because it was just to serve your own purpose. You didn’t trust me then, and now that you know the truth, you don’t fully trust me now.” Her eyes bore into mine. “I’m an assassin, Alonzo. I’m trained to lie and disguise who and what I am. I succeeded for over a decade. Not you, your family, your brother, or any of Nico’s men found it out. They saw what I wanted them to see. You think I don’t know you’re questioning whether I’m playing a role or being my real self now? If you can trust that I won’t double-cross you or use you to accomplish my own mission?”
I open my mouth to argue, to tell her never, that I know who she is. Who the real woman in front of me is, but no sound comes out. Her questions, her pointed jabs, echo in my head. The doubt that’s been creeping just under the surface is finally breaking through the fissure cracks.
“Exactly.” The words are cold, final, but her eyes are full of acceptance. Like she expected nothing else.
My heart sinks, watching those walls climb higher, grow thicker. I’ve fucked up. Again.
No, I’ll fix this.
I might be taking my life in my hands, but I wrap my hand around her biceps, holding her in place. Her eyes flash in warning, but I ignore them. If she hears nothing else from me, I need her to hear this. It’s too important.
“Listen to me, Aurora. I don’t care who you were. What name you were called. I don’t care who your father is, or what you’vehad to do to get the hell away from him. I know you. I know the woman who laughed at ridiculously stupid shit that probably shouldn’t even be funny, but every time you did it, I stared at you like a lovesick fool. I wanted to hear it again, even if it was at my expense. I know the woman who stood up for the other women every fucking time. Who protected them with everything she had, and not out of some sense of duty because of Sienna. Because you cared, because they are your friends.
“I know the woman who spent hours a day training her dog to be the best he could be. Who would go to bed exhausted, even though she always runs at max every day? I know the woman who never backed down, no matter how she was questioned or treated less than because of her family connections. I know the woman who lay in bed with me every night, talking about anything and nothing, just because she needed someone to talk to.
“I know the woman who made me lose control when I promised myself I wouldn’t. Who gave me every part of her, even if it was for only one night. That’s the woman I want. The woman I will do anything to have back. You’re going to want to tell me that you were playing a role, pretending, but we both know that’s not true, Rori. That was when you were the most you. You were safe and felt safe with me. That’s the woman I want back. I want the woman you are, not the one that everyone else expects you to be. I want Aurora O’Brien because that’s who you chose to be. Because that is the you, you’ve been hiding all this time. I want her back, Rori, and I aim to get her back, no matter what I have to do. And deep down, I know you want that too. You crave it. All you have to do is reach out and I’ll catch you. I’ll hold you up when you’re unsure. I want all of you, Rori. I want the woman I love right back where she deserves to be, and where she belongs. With me.”
Taking my life in my hands, I lift one hand away, snake it into the hair at the back of her head, and press my mouth down to hers. It’s a swift, hard kiss, but there’s no mistaking its meaning.
A claiming. A reminder that she’s mine. That she always will be.
I’ll take her surprise at my words as the only reason she isn’t fighting me, or trying to maim me. A part of me hopes that it’s because she’s missed this as much as I have. That she craves me as much as I crave her. Whatever it is, I’m taking it, as selfish as it might be.
