“Yes.” I’ve pulled off crazier shit before, but they won’t hear about it. “I’ll need a secure command center for me and Gigi’s team.”
Elio clears his throat. “I have a place not far from Newtown Creek that will work.” His gaze locks on Kirill. “I still don’t trust you, Baronov. But I trust the Ghost less.”
For the next few hours we hammer out logistics. There are details to finalize. Staging locations, soldier assignments, convergence timing.
I step back and let Kirill do his thing. I’m impressed by how he reads the other heirs, knowing when to push and when to compromise. At one point, Marcus makes a crack about letting the little lady handle the tech. The temperature in the roomdrops ten degrees. Kirill’s pale glare locks onto him with lethal promise.
Marcus raises his palms in surrender, grinning. “Just busting your balls, Baronov. She’s whip-smart.”
Once the details are locked down, the warehouse clears out until it’s just me and the Baronovs.
Matvey claps me on the shoulder. “Not bad, sister-in-law, not bad at all.”
Backing toward the exit, Dem salutes me. “You’re a welcome addition to the family. Especially if you can handle his stubborn ass.” He jerks his thumb toward Kirill.
“Very fucking funny.” Kirill flips them both off.
Once they’re gone, I exhale hard, the tension bleeding out of my shoulders.
“That went better than I predicted.”
“Vincent almost smiled at you,” Kirill says. “Coming from him, that’s high praise.”
The scale of what I need to pull off in two days is overwhelming, but I’m excited. Energized. This is what I’m good at. Give me a problem to solve, a system to build, and I’m in my element.
Working with Kirill makes it feel different, though.
Watching him command the room—negotiate with the toughest assholes in this city, knowing he’s doing this partly to save his sister—twists my heart into a knot. My feelings for him are a dangerous, tangled mess.
Sensing my thoughts, Kirill pulls me close, his hand sliding possessively around my waist. His mouth drops to my ear. “You were fucking brilliant, have I told you that today?” His grip tightens. “I can’t wait to get you alone.”
I press my hand against his chest, solid muscle beneath the fabric. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. We have work to do tonight.”
By work, I mean ambushing Abram at the club.
He cups my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheekbone with surprising tenderness given the violence simmering in his eyes. “After we’re done with that bastard, you’re mine.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO
KIRILL
We leavethe penthouse in a convoy. Five vehicles, our armored SUV in the middle sandwiched between two vehicles full of my men — soldiers I’d trust with my life, or more importantly, Dinara’s life.
The Ghost attacked us once already, and I’m not giving them another chance, but I’m also not missing this opportunity to learn what we can about Marina.
We take a circuitous route through downtown before the high-rise towers give way to Tribeca’s historic streets to ensure we’re not being followed.
Dinara’s running a surveillance program that monitors every traffic camera within a three-mile radius, flagging any vehicles that show up more than twice on our route or any patterns that don’t fit normal traffic flow.
If something suspicious pops up, we’ll be notified.
As we approach Tribeca, the convoy splits. Two vehicles peel off toward the Brooklyn Bridge, one heads north, another continues west, and we cut south alone.
If we are being watched, there’s no way to tell which SUV we’re in.
Dinara sits beside me in a sexy black bandage dress that’s going to make it hard to focus.
