Damn it. I was going to have to tell Demetrius about this, and I really didn’t want to talk to him.
“Um,” I said, and my voice sounded all strangled and weird. Great.
He turned to look at me.
“The translation’s nothing,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
I stood up, gesturing to my chair and the computer screen. “Read the email yourself.”
He came over.
When he got close, I backed away.
And he flinched, looking down at the ground. “Listen, Kiera, I really need—”
“No, you don’t.”
He heaved a huge sigh. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I backed up some more. I wanted to run away. Stop treating me like a little kid, I wanted to scream. Instead, I went into the kitchenette and poured some cereal in a bowl.
I opened the little mini-fridge, looking for milk.
There wasn’t any.
“Hey,” I said, coming back to the doorway. “Did you use the last of the milk?”
He turned from the computer. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” My voice was steadily increasing in volume. “You kidding me? What the hell am I supposed to eat? Dry cereal?”
“There’s cold pizza,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I’m not touching that pizza.” I didn’t think I would ever eat pizza again. It only made me think of what had happened last night, which was the most embarrassing, awful experience of my life.
“That’s what I ate,” he said. “There was only enough milk for my coffee.”
“There’s creamer for the coffee,” I said.
“I don’t like creamer. I prefer milk.” He stood up, and there he was. Hulking and enormous, taking up the whole room.
And I was angry now. Angry, and I wasn’t really sure why. So, I stalked across the room, and I shoved him.
It was like shoving a stone wall, but he stumbled anyway.
“I can’t believe you would do something so inconsiderate.”
He hung his head.
“You didn’t plan this well at all, you know,” I said, gesturing all around me, at the computers, the couch, the air mattress, the window. “That’s your damned job, to plan everything out, and you suck at it.”
He bowed his head down further.
I shoved him again.
He seized my wrists. “Kiera,” he said in a soft, even voice, “please stop doing that.”
“You should have thought about the fact that we would need food,” I said. “And let go of me.”
He dropped my wrists immediately.
“Why didn’t you think of that?” I was yelling, I realized.
He slowly raised his gaze to me, tendrils of dark hair falling into his eyes. “Is this really about the milk?”
“Yes,” I said, but my voice cracked.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You have no idea how sorry—”
“Stop it,” I said. “This is about the milk.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that too.” He held my gaze, and his brown eyes were pools of regret.
I looked away. Fuck him.
That’s when I caught sight of Nikolai’s office through the window, and realized that he was in there. And that he wasn’t alone. He was talking to someone.
“Damn it,” I said. “Why aren’t we hearing anything?”
“What?” he said.
I pointed. “There’s no sound.” I went back to my computers, checking levels. Everything looked good. I turned the volume all the way up.
Nothing.
“Damn it,” I said again.
“Kiera?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, okay. I’m working on it.”
“We could be missing the information we need to hear.”
“I know that.” I froze, simply staring at the screens, trying to think.
“Do something.”
“Give me a second.”
“We don’t have a second. We’re missing it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Demetrius
I didn’t want to scream at her, but it looked to me as if she was just standing there, doing nothing, and the whole reason we were in this stupid situation to begin with was to listen in on Nikolai.
Jesus Christ, this was my fault, wasn’t it? Whatever I’d done to her had ruined her, and now she couldn’t even concentrate to do her job.
She was staring at the screens, shaking her head over and over, chewing on her bottom lip.
“Kiera,” I said. “Kiera, snap out of it.”
“Shut up,” she said quietly. “You are breaking my train of thought.”
“Thought? Don’t think. Fix it.”
She glared at me. “Okay, I could restart the system, that might fix it. That’s what I’d typically do first. But that will take time, and I don’t know if that’s the problem or not. Everything looks fine on my end, except that I’m not getting any signal from the—”
Abruptly, she started walking around the desk where all the computers were set up.
“Kiera?” I said.
She knelt down behind the desk, going through the cords, which were all tangled up. “Come on, come on, where is it?” she muttered.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I said.
She seized a wire which was connected to another wire, and she jiggled the connection.
A burst of static.
And then, Nikolai’s voice, booming and loud. “…money will be waiting for him when he completes the job, not before.”
I winced, putting my fingers to my ears. It was really loud.
Kiera scrambled to her feet and ran back around to the computers. She did something with the mouse and Nikolai’s voice was back to a normal volume. “Sorry,” she said. “I turned it way up before.”
I nodded, rubbing my temple. I was pretty sure I was going to have a headache from that.
“Tell him that if he tries to get more money from me again, I will have someone else do job,” Nikolai said.
“Look, I’m just the messenger here,” said the other person in the room with him. That person had a typical American accent.
“Tell him that next time he wants to send message, to do it himself, not send some go-between like coward,” said Nikolai. He was angry, and the angrier he got, the worse his English seemed to get.
“I’ll tell him,” said the other person. “I’ll tell him exactly that.”
“Good. Then get out, because I do not want to look at you anymore.”
“Hey, hey, I’ve got no beef with you, sir. I just—”
“Out,” thundered Nikolai.
The man scurried out of the office, apologizing.
It was quiet for several minutes. I sank down in a chair.
Kiera sat down too. “The connection was loose. That’s all. I should have checked them before I went to sleep last night, but I was a little distracted.”
I rubbed my temples again. Yeah, I had a headache all right. “It doesn’t sound like it was an important conversation, anyway.”
“No,” she said.
We were quiet.
She cocked her head. “Demetrius, I’m not sure this is the best way to get this information. I know that you were sure that Popov would mention it to Nikolai, but does that really make any sense? I mean, if they both know where the girls are, why are they going to talk about it?”
I pressed my lips into a firm line.
“And everything with us being here, it’s… a mess, so maybe if you and I weren’t doing this—”
“You said I sucked at planning this,” I said. I scratched my chin. “Hell, maybe you’re right. I don’t even know why I’m doing this stupid job.”
“The girls have got to be down that elevator, right? It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“You looked at the schematics, Kiera. It’s a maze down there. They probably keep all kinds of shit down that elevator. We need it narrowed down.”
I studied my palms.
“Those cells we saw in the schematics—”
“They might not be cells.”
“Well, maybe we should go in and look.”
“You’re the one who said that we couldn’t get down that elevator,” I said. “You said that you can’t fool the retinal scan.”
She sighed. “Maybe if I took down the whole system, just knocked out the power—”
“Then there’s no elevator at all.”
She was quiet.
I took a deep breath. “We give this another night. Tomorrow, at the end of the day, if we’ve got nothing, we’ll try something else.”
She nodded.
More silence.
I got out of the chair and went back to the window. I was getting sick of the view from here.
“Danger?” she said.
I turned. “Yeah?”
“I think you should go.”
“I already told you that I’m not comfortable with your being here alone.”
“Well, fine, then have someone else stay with me.”
I snorted. “Who? Blaze? You think you’d be safe with Blaze?”
“I think I’d be safe regardless. But if you won’t be satisfied if I’m by myself then maybe he could—”
“If you got annoyed with Blaze and told him to leave, he would. Plus, I couldn’t even be guaranteed that he’d show up.” Furthermore, I’d seen Blaze with women. I wouldn’t put it past him to take advantage of her.
Of course, I guessed that I had taken advantage—
But I wouldn’t do anything like that again.
Hands off.
“Fine,” she muttered. “It’s just that it’s very awkward between us.”
I ran my hands through my hair.
“If you would stop apologizing all the time, stop being weird—”
“I’m being weird?”
She just glared at me.
I sighed again. “Okay, okay, fine.”
“Let’s pretend nothing happened. Deal?”
I placed my fingertips against the window pane. The glass was cold. “Deal.”
* * *
Kiera
“Danger said you wouldn’t show,” I said, leaning against the door frame as Blaze came in with his arms full of grocery bags.
“Yeah, I guess I almost did forget,” said Blaze, giving me a sideways grin. “I should have been here yesterday, huh?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Better late than never.”
He set the bags down in the kitchenette.
I peered into one. “What’d you bring?”
“Stuff,” he said. “You got a little stove here, I remembered. I figured you could cook something. There’s like hamburger and some pasta and some vegetables. Oh, and I got bread and shit for sandwiches.”
I rummaged through the bag. “You got horseradish!”
He nodded. “Yeah. You like it?”
“I love it,” I said, hugging it to my chest. “Oh, thank you so much.”
He laughed. “You really like horseradish, don’t you?”
“It’s just that it’s so boring here,” I said. “Nothing is happening, and this whole operation is going nowhere, and knowing that I have horseradish to look forward to—”
“Blaze,” said Demetrius, coming into the kitchen. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Blaze shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, not a problem. Said I would.”
“You should have come yesterday,” said Demetrius.”
“Forgot,” said Blaze. “You could have called me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We should have called him.”
Demetrius looked from Blaze to me and back to Blaze again. “Well, aren’t the two of you getting on so well in here.” His voice was hard.
Blaze snorted. “Don’t get any ideas, Danger.” He nodded at me. “See you around, Kiera.”
“Oh, you’re leaving? Too bad,” said Demetrius, who didn’t sound the least bit upset about it.
Blaze clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m not even trying to mess with that, man. Remember what I told you? If it really is so boring around here, why don’t you just get it out of your system, huh?”
“Shut up,” Demetrius growled.
“Get what out of your system?” I said. “What are you two talking about?”
Blaze just laughed. “Enjoy the horseradish,” he threw over his shoulder. And then he was gone.
I folded my arms over my chest. “What the hell was that? Why were you rude to him? He brought us food.”
Danger didn’t say anything. He started going through the bags and putting away the groceries.
“What?” I said. “Now you’re not speaking to me? I thought we agreed we were going to stop acting weird.”
“I’m not acting weird,” he said, throwing open the door to the mini-fridge. He slammed the hamburger inside. There was also an onion, a pepper, and some mushrooms.
“Hell, he really does expect us to cook,” I said. “Well, that’s not happening. I’m shit at cooking.”
He straightened, shutting the fridge and turning to me. “If you don’t cook, what do you eat?”
“I microwave Weight Watchers frozen entrees,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Shut up,” I said. I left the kitchenette and went back to my computers. This place was starting to feel stifling. I wished there was somewhere else for us to be. These empty offices were beginning to drive me nuts.
“You don’t need to eat Weight Watchers,” he said from the doorway to the room. “You’re not even remotely fat.”
“That’s because I eat Weight Watchers,” I said. “I’m watching my weight, not losing it. Just trying to maintain.”
“It seems to me that you’re a little bit of a control freak,” he said.
“I’m not the control freak,” I said. “You’re the control freak. You’re the one who’s always up in my business, trying to keep me from doing shit.”
“I promise that will stop,” he said. “After this job is over, I will stay far, far away from you.”
“Oh,” I said. That was surprisingly disappointing. “Well… well, good.”
And then I didn’t say anything to him for hours.
We sat in silence, watching Nikolai’s office. Nothing was happening. He wasn’t even getting any phone calls. He seemed to be spending all of his time staring at his computer screen. For all I knew, he was playing games on there or something.
I didn’t talk to Demetrius, but I kept thinking about him. I kept thinking of the way his skin had felt when I touched him last night. Warm and smooth and solid. I thought about the way he’d kissed me. Hard and fierce, like he couldn’t get enough of my lips. It made me feel a little dazed thinking about it.
I kind of wanted to kiss him again.
Damn it.
And this was why I didn’t allow myself to get into these kinds of entanglements with guys. Because I was distracted now. All I could think about was him. That wasn’t good. I needed to be focused on the job.
Except, of course, there was nothing to focus on.
I started thinking of other ways we could find out Natasha’s location. Maybe we could just capture Popov and torture him. Sure, that would tip off Nikolai that we were pulling something, so it was probably a bad idea, which was maybe why Danger had decided not to do it. But I didn’t know. Maybe it would be worth it at this point.
Finally, it was time for lunch. I made myself a sandwich with horseradish and cheddar cheese and pastrami. It was amazing. Even better than the kind I got at the deli, I thought. Maybe I should start making my own lunch and bringing it with me to work.
Lunch was a welcome distraction.
But it didn’t take nearly long enough to make the sandwich and eat it. I thought eating lunch would kill a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes. It barely took fifteen.
Demetr
ius made a sandwich too. It took him longer to eat than me.
I watched him, wishing I had taken my time.
Part of me wanted to bail on everything. I should just drop out of the job, let someone else deal with Danger. I could recommend some other hacker who could take over for me. It was too weird between us now, and I was distracted, and I wasn’t good on it anymore.
But the thought of doing that made me feel cold all over.
I was Kiera Quill. I did not give up. I did not quit. I saw things through. And I made sure to do everything right.
So, no. No matter what, I was not giving up on this job. I would keep going to the end, no matter how uncomfortable things got with Danger.
As the afternoon wore on, I tried to force the sexy thoughts out of my head.
I did my best not to look at him. When I looked at him, he always looked so absolutely masculine that it turned me on. I didn’t know why. I wanted to go back to the way it was before, when I couldn’t stand him.
Of course, if I was honest with myself, I’d always found him easy on the eyes.
Eventually, it started to get dark again.
We both stared at Nikolai, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did.
“I’m going to make myself another sandwich,” I announced abruptly.
“Really?” said Demetrius. “But we have all those groceries.”
“I told you,” I said. “I don’t cook. I wouldn’t even know what to do with that shit.”
He got up out of his chair. “Why don’t you let me take a look at it?”
I arched an eyebrow. “You trying to tell me that you know how to cook?”
He spread his hands. “That so hard to believe?”
I looked him over. “Um, yes. You are the antithesis of a person who cooks.”
He laughed. “My nonna taught me to cook.”
“Your…?”
“My grandmother,” he said. “She’s passed now, but when I was a little boy, I spent a lot of time at her house. My mother worked, and Nonna took care of me. I would spend hours in the kitchen with her, sitting on a little stool watching, and she would explain everything she was doing. Now, I have to admit, my cooking skills are mostly limited to Italian specialties, but I know a thing or two.”
“Really?” Huh. I never would have thought that about him. “So, you think you can make something? Because he got pasta, but he completely didn’t get any sauce.”
Rough: A Hitman Romance Page 10