Understanding clicks. “The bride he picked for you.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “He’s so convinced I’m going to fail, he tried to set me up before the deadline was up. So marrying you solves several problems, including blocking an arranged marriage. But this ties us together. What benefits me, benefits you. What hurts me, hurts you. That’s how it works.”
Disappointment curls in my stomach and I don’t know why. What did I expect? A declaration of love? “You want a real marriage, yeah, but this isn’t real. You can’t force me to marry you and expect a true alliance.”
He reaches across the counter and takes my left hand, thumb stroking over the ring on my finger. “Maybe not, but how about we make a deal. Help me find the Ghost, and I’ll put every resource I have into learning what happened to your mother.”
It’s a good deal, but something still bothers me. “So this is all just a strategic play.”
“Fuck, no.” He rounds the counter, closing the distance between us until I have to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. His hand settles at my waist, thumb tracing small circles against my hip bone. “I did it because I want you. Because the idea of you belonging to anyone else made me want to paint this city red. Because sleeping beside you last night was the closest to peace I’ve found in a long time.”
There’s something stripped-bare in his expression, raw and unguarded in a way I’ve never seen from him. Like he’s letting me past every wall he keeps up.
I kiss him instead of answering. Hard and desperate, because this is the only truth I can give him right now.
He kisses me back like he’s trying to consume me, one hand tangling in my hair while the other grips my waist. When we finally break apart we’re both breathing hard.
“So we have a deal,” he says, voice raspy.
“I can’t resist a challenge,” I admit, and that’s exactly what hunting the Ghost is. A puzzle I’d love to solve. But tracking down and eliminating the Ghost is only part of this.
Finding my mother is where things get complicated.
Spider told me things I haven’t shared. My mother wasn’t just a victim, she was the daughter of Aleksandr Voronin. The Voronins partnered with Ruslan in the Network until something went wrong.
Kirill thinks my mother was just another trafficked woman.
But there’s much more to this story. And when the truth comes out, I know I’ll want blood. And if that blood belongs toRuslan Baronov, if Kirill has to choose between his father and me, I don’t know whose side he’ll be on.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
KIRILL
The warehouse is tuckedin an industrial part of Long Island City, the kind of place you’d never find unless you knew exactly where to look. I pull into the back lot and kill the engine, glancing over at Dinara in the passenger seat.
Feels weird to think of her as anything but Evelina, but I’m getting used to it. Especially now seeing her outside of Velour and in her nerdy hot girl element. Her hair is pulled back in a loose pony and she’s wearing slutty black-framed glasses that have me half hard.
“Did I tell you those glasses give porno librarian?”
She barks out a laugh. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I’d like to tip you over a desk and fuck you six ways to Sunday.”
“I’ll take that as a good thing.” She smiles and bats her pretty eyes at me. Then her attention shifts to the building ahead. “So this guy is your private tech dealer?”
I drape my wrist over the steering wheel and sit back. “Maurice specializes in equipment that doesn’t leave a paper trail. Anything you need, he can get it. No questions asked.”
Her face lights up. “Even military-grade processors? Custom liquid cooling systems?”
“Even those.”
She’s out of the car before I can open her door, practically bouncing on her toes. I follow her inside, watching her take in the rows of equipment lining the walls. Servers, monitors, graphics cards still in their packaging, hard drives stacked like building blocks.
Maurice emerges from the back, wiping his hands on a rag. He’s a bear of a man, former Soviet military who found his calling in the gray market tech trade after the Berlin Wall fell.
“Kirill.” He nods at me before his attention shifts to Dinara. “And you must be the specialist.”
