“All of them, Leks. I’m so sorry. I should have done it as soon as you told me the truth about what happened with Pyotr and Fyodor.”
A small voice in my head tells me this is stupid, that traitors don’t get second chances.
A much louder voice is screaming at me that Natalia loves me and wouldn’t work against me.
I harden my voice.
“Right now, Natalia. You’re going to draw a map of where these devices were planted and we’re going to collect them all.”
27
NATALIA
The communication devices are spread across the main headquarters where Leks and Yuri work.
I feel sick as I pick them up. As Irealizewhat I’ve done. I flash nervous, false smiles at the workers who notice me wandering around with a giant rucksack. Their lives could have been in danger because of me. My father knew everything that’s going on in this place, thanks to me. Thanks to the listening devices I planted.
He’s been trying to kill Leks for months.Not because of our marriage, but because Leks knows what he did to my brothers. And I’ve beenhelpinghim.
I stopped putting the devices out after the assassination attempt at Leks's fight club…but I did nothing about the ones I’d already planted. I didn’t want to have to explain things to my father when he noticed they’d been taken away.
I take a deep breath and focus on the work instead of the awful guilt in my chest. I planted them methodically, one at atime while I worked in the offices, according to a map my father gave me.
It takes all afternoon to collect them. I meet Leks at the edge of the dock with the bag full of listening devices. He’s going to send them on a fishing boat to Alaska, where they’ll be tossed overboard.
My father will know that something’s wrong as soon as they give him only the noise of a fishing boat instead of Bratva business… But I no longer care about disappointing him. His anger means nothing to me in comparison to the hurt I saw on Leks's face this morning.
Leks takes the bag from me, weighing it in his hand. There were so many of them. I can feel his judgment as he looks through the bag. Right under his nose, every day that I went to work with Yuri, I was betraying both of them.
“You’re sure this is all of them?”
I nod, trying to hold back another wave of tears. I don’t want to look like I’m trying to get his sympathy.
I give Leks the map, which he looks over carefully. God, he must hate me so much right now.
“These were all the placements. I’m sure I got all of them.”
My stomach churns with nerves as I wonder for a second whether he’ll believe me.
Leks gives me one hard look.“We will double-check all of them. If we find even one device still there…”
My pulse quickens. Leks doesn’t finish his sentence, but I know that he’s serious.
“You won’t. I promise. This is every single one.”
He gives a final nod, handing the bag to the ship’s captain, who gives him a salute.
Then his eyes soften again and he presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Don’t breathe a word to Yuri about this,” he cautions me. “He’ll think I’m being too soft on you.”
Relief floods my veins. It’s over. I smooth a hand over the shoulder of Leks’s shirt. “And are you being too soft on me?”
Leks brings his mouth down to mine, the rub of his rough lips on mine and the glide of his tongue making my knees weak.
“You’re lucky that you’re so fucking irresistible,” he murmurs into the hollow of my neck.
“Thank you,” I tell him, my heartbeat slowing as I realize what a close call this was. How careless I’ve been.
