“Okay,” he says. “I get that. I don’t like it, but I get it.” He reaches into his breast coat pocket and pulls out a business card, his name on the front with his phone number. “You find yourself in trouble again, I want you to call me. Though you should know, I’m not a good man, Everleigh. I’m actually a very bad man. So, if you call me, you have to really want me.” He says it so blasé that I’m not sure he’s joking or not, though the fact that he’s following me around should be a solid indicator that he’s not joking.
“What makes you so bad?” I twist my hair into a spiral as I wait for his response. I’m not sure what to expect.
“Power probably.” He smiles, that same half smile he’s had since I met him. And though he’s just told me how bad he is, I only see the hot stare in his eye.
“Power?Do you have a lot of power? I know a lot of professors have a god complex, but I don’t think that makes youa bad man.”
“It’s not that,” he says, gesturing his card toward me to take. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“What kind of complicated?” I don’t intend to call him, but I take his card anyway, tucking it into the pocket of my sundress as I stare back at him, waiting for a response.
“The kind where if I tell you, you’ll wish you didn’t know.”
I nod. “Oh, I see, so you’re going to lie to me instead?”
He looks at me with a straight face, a flare of heat in his gaze. “I will never lie to you. Do you understand that?Never.”
“Okay, Mr. Intensity. You’ll never lie.Whatever.”
“It’s important to me that you know that. I want you to trust me.”
“Yeah, I get it. It’s usually not so… point-blank is all.” I squeeze my legs together slightly to quell the urges building again, then straighten my dress. “Anyway, thank you again.”
“For what?”
“For stepping in with that reporter guy. I couldn’t take another trauma. I have enough of those already. Maybe you’re not as bad as you think.”
He grins, this time it’s genuine, though there’s a pain behind his eyes I can’t account for. It’s that pain, that weird, tortured pain that has me tipping up onto my toes to land my lips on his cheek.Fuck.Even as I’m doing it I know I’ll regret it, but I can’t stop myself. It’s a motion that moves before I’ve given it permission to act.
His huge hand lifts and brushes down over my face, his gaze never leaving mine.
“Make sure you’re on time Monday. I’d hate to have to make a spectacle out of you again.”
I nod, our eyes locked on one another, and though I know we’ve said we’re done, I have a feeling, we’re just getting started.
Chapter Nine
Viktor
Getting ahold of a high-profile guy like Gedeon Novikov is like trying to contact the pope. If the pope was a mass murdering, criminal mastermind with an army of men beneath him. I hold on to the line as his assistant walks the phone to him. I have no idea where he’s stationed right now. He’s been moving all over the country since a few years back, evading the police. He used to have it easier, much easier. Now, I’m sure all the moving is exhausting him. Every time we talk he sounds more and more wary.
“You do as I ask?” Every time I hear that voice, I’m reminded of Russia. If he weren’t my father, I’d think he grew up on unfiltered Marlboros and bourbon. The truth is the Marlboros were filtered.
“It’s done,” I say, my chest tightening. It’s a lie. A dangerous lie. One that Gedeon would easily kill me for.
“The girl too?”
“Yes.” The words come out flatly. One dangerous lie after another.
“Good,” he says, clearing his throat. “You make your father proud.”
Making my father proud is something I’d have fawned over as a child. Now I’d rather get punched in the throat every morning. I do his work because I have no choice, not because I enjoy it.
“You’re stressed,” my father says, his voice gruff. “I hear it in your tone. That’s not good. You need to get that under control or it will affect the work. We need you to be on point. The family is counting on you.”
The family is counting on me.I almost laugh as I try to imagine what a life is like where family doesn’tcount on youfor murder.
“I’ll get it under control,” I say, tightening my breathing again.
