“Happy New Year, Matvei.” I open my eyes. “Let’s go kill my husband.”
13
CASS
But even though we’ve said it, the decision has been reached, the line in the sand crossed, Matvei doesn’t let go of my hand.
I don’t let go of his, either.
I think we’re both aware that, the second we drop our fingers, the spell breaks, and I have to walk back out there and be Mrs. Snyder again.
So we just stand there, a bit too close in a banquet chair closet, while the muffled cheers of a thousand drunk Manhattanites bleed through the door, neither one of us daring to move.
“Matvei…” I whisper into the dark. “I have to tell you something else.”
That right there—opening the metaphorical door to this conversation—was the hardest part of the whole shebang. And yet I’m still finding myself lost for words, because the rest of what I have to confess isn’t that much easier.
“It’s—it’s a… It’s, well… I’m… You’re…” I laugh crazily, all breathy and wrong. “Okay, this is harder than I thought it wouldbe.” I suck in a deep breath.Rip the Band-Aid. Go ahead, just tear that sucker off and let it bleed. Open your mouth and say, “I’m?—”
“Cassandra!”
But it isn’t Matvei who spoke. That voice is coming from somewhere out in the corridor on the other side of the door, muffled but unmistakable, a brash, booming, country-club bray that I’d recognize from across an ocean.
It’s Raymond.
Every cell in my body folds itself up small.
“Cassandra,” he bellows, “where are you?”
He’s not close. Not yet. He’s far down the hall, almost certainly bullying some poor coat-check girl into scouring the ladies’ room for me. But he’s looking, and he’s loud. The volume is the warning.
Be where I can find you, or there will be consequences.
Matvei’s hand goes tight around mine. “Well?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. It can wait.”
He searches my face in the darkness. Whatever he finds there, he doesn’t like, but he also doesn’t have the time to dig.
“Fine,” he says. “Listen to me. Don’t talk, just listen. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because we only have six weeks to get this done.”
That makes me do a double-take. “Why six?”
“In six weeks, Raymond’s getting on a plane to the Caymans. Some kind of sit-down with his network down there. And he’s bringing you with him.”
I remain puzzled. “Why on earth would he do that?”
“Same reason he brings you to every other function: A pretty wife on his arm makes him look like a respectable man instead of what he actually is. But these aren’t steakhouse dinners with boring lawyers and bankers, Cassandra. These are dangerous people. If anything goes sideways in that room—and with Raymond, something always goes sideways—you won’t be coming home. They’ll keep you and use you as leverage… Or worse.”
I try to swallow and find I can’t. “How do you know all this?”
“I hacked his calendar.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” I say breezily. “As one does.”
