Eventually he slows, exits onto a smaller road that winds along the water, and pulls into an overlook that faces theriver. When the engine cuts out, the silence rushes in, almost overwhelming after all that noise.
I peel myself off his back and pull off the helmet, grinning like an idiot. “That was amazing. Best rush I can imagine.”
Kirill swings off the bike and takes off his helmet, tousling his hair. “I can only think of one thing I like better,” he purrs.
A rush of warmth settles in my core and I busy myself taming my hair while he leads us to a concrete barrier at the edge of the overlook, the kind designed to keep cars from plunging into the water below. Beyond it, the Hudson stretches wide and still, Manhattan’s skyline shimmering on the opposite shore. We sit, legs dangling over the edge, the city lights reflected in the water.
“I owe you an apology,” he says after a long moment of comfortable silence.
I glance at him. “For what?”
“Going quiet. Disappearing on you after everything that happened at Apollon.” He stares out at the water, and like this, he looks like a warrior God carved surveying his kingdom.
My chest constricts. “Why did you?”
“I was trying to protect you.” His laugh is bitter, self-deprecating. “There’s a situation. Something big affecting all the crime families in New York. It’s consuming all my time and energy right now.” He turns to face me, his eyes catching the distant lights, making them look silver. “My life is a shit show right now, and people close to me make easy targets. I don’t want to involve you in this mess.”
My throat thickens despite my effort to keep my voice light. “What does that mean? Did you bring me here to tell me tonight was a mistake?”
“Nah, I tried that and it didn’t work.” He tucks a strand of wind-tangled hair behind my ear. “Turns out I’m not as disciplined as I thought.”
Warmth unfurls behind my sternum. Because he’s admitting he can’t stay away even when he knows he should, and that means I matter to him in a way that goes beyond the sex, beyond the physical pull between us.
“I don’t need protecting,” I say. “I’m tougher than you think.”
His hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb stroking across my cheekbone. “I know you’re tough. You fought off a man twice your size. You don’t back down when I try to intimidate you. But that doesn’t make you bulletproof.”
His mouth settles into a grim line. “The situation I’m dealing with. If it goes wrong, people I care about are going to pay the price. My family’s future depends on me fixing this. It could blow up in my face at any moment, and when it does, the fallout is going to be ugly.”
His family’s future? Is this about the Ghost I read about it in his emails? He’s making vague references, but I file it away, a small piece of the larger puzzle I’m trying to assemble.
“Your father,” I venture. “Does he know how bad it is?”
Kirill’s expression hardens. “Let’s just say my father’s idea of leadership doesn’t exactly match mine. At least he’s in Russia right now. It gives me time to breathe.”
“Sounds like a lot of pressure,” I say.
“It is.” His arm comes around my shoulders, warm and steady, and I lean into his strength. “But this is the life I was born into, the only world I know. You, on the other hand, don’t come from this. You’re not tied to it the way I am.”
He has no idea how wrong he is, how tied to this life I actually am, how my entire existence has been shaped by the violence and cruelty of men like his father.
“I work at Velour. I’m in your world no matter what.” I clear my throat, sensing an opening. “I heard stories about Velour in the past, before you and your brothers took over. People say it used to be different.”
Kirill’s jaw locks, a muscle feathering along his cheek. “You hear a lot of things in this city. What kind of stories?”
I shrug, playing it casual. “Dark ones. That it wasn’t always a gentleman’s club. That the business was shadier back then.”
“It’s true.”
I drag in a slow breath, surprised at his honesty. “What kind of things went on there?”
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Those things will never happen again.”
The raw tension rolling off him warns me not to push. He was barely a teenager back then, so who knows the depth of what he witnessed. But he clearly despises what the club used to be, and in a strange way, I’m relieved.
His phone rings, shattering the quiet. He pulls it from his pocket, checks the screen, and every line of his body goes rigid. When he looks at me again, the man from the bike is gone and the bratva heir is back.
I already know what’s coming before he says it.
