“You fascinate me.”
“Why? You stalked me. Don’t you know everything already?”
He pours the drinks and then slides one over to me across the island. “I don’t always know what you’re thinking. There is still plenty to be fascinated about.”
I lick my lips, his initial question still brushing against my mind. And maybe it’s because I never get to talk about my dream with anyone, or because he seems genuinely interested in what I have to say, but the answer rolls off my tongue effortlessly.
“I want to be a pianist,” I say.
“Aren’t you one already?”
“An eminent one, I meant.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I look down, softly drumming my fingers against the whiskey glass. “Music has always been a part of me. My mother used to play me lullabies when I was little, and it’s the only thing I still have of her. Now that she’s gone, I want the world to see her in me when I’m on stage.”
“Your recital was the only time you’ve been on stage,” he says knowingly. “That makes no sense. You’re fucking talented.”
That frantic heartbeat again.
I do my best to ignore it, but the pull of his words is stronger than my will.
I’m fucking talented,he says.
“I’m not ready yet… Maybe in a few years, if?—”
“Is that whatyouthink?” he asks. “Or is that somebody else’s opinion?”
“Well—” I ponder. “I still make mistakes, and…yes, everyone makes them, but…my mental health hasn’t been where it should be. Ms. Donatello says?—”
“Ah,” he drawls with a smile.
“No, don’t be like that. I don’t know why you dislike her, but she’s been like a mother to me. Of course, I don’t expect you to understand, let alone care.”
This time, his face is completely unreadable as he continues to stare at me, eyes swarming with something I can’t put my finger on.
“She’s good at pretending she knows best, I’ll give her that,” he says. “But I do wonder what she’ll do when you start to remember.”
My stomach flips with unease, my hand freezing on the glass of whiskey. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He downs his drink, ignoring me as he saunters over to the elevator, slipping a bill to the delivery person. I’m so caught up in those last few words, I haven’t even realized the pizza arrived.
Until I start to remember…?Remember what, exactly?
“Eat up and go to bed,” he says, placing the boxes in front of me on the kitchen island. “I’ll be out for a few hours.”
19
Mikhail
At two in the morning, I’m sitting across from an empty seat in a private booth at The Hive. After leaving Cecilia at the penthouse with her pizza, I was supposed to meet Massimo in the same old bar as last time—only he didn’t come.
Instead, an anonymous text dragged me to the high-end gentlemen’s club with precise instructions of where to sit and how long to wait.
If they had mentioned a different location, I would’ve brought Rodion and Niko, but here is a no-man’s-land for the corrupt powers of this country, which means no one enters with knives or guns. The message promised me intel on the Italians’ situation. So, I took the bait.
Red light flashes across my face, bringing in curls of cigar smoke from the other booths. You can’t see who’s meeting whom—the place is designed in such a way that privacy is paramount. Somewhere behind that black curtain in the back, you get to hire honeypots for whatever reason you can think of—many of thewives of dead governors, senators, and mafia heads are rumored to have been spies.
