by Lara Swann
And after hearing everything they’d done, I couldn’t just run back to Leo with nothing. He’d been framed and used by my family almost as badly as I had. Sure, he was a hitman and maybe it was part of the job, but I wanted to get him the missing information he’d needed. It felt crazy now to think that instead of being my kidnapper and almost murderer, what he’d done had saved me from my uncle’s schemes.
After all, ‘what fucking useless hitman doesn’t kill a witness’?
So I tried the door to my father’s office, and to my relief found it open. It wasn’t surprising - he didn’t make a habit of doing business here, and the office was off-limits to the women in the family. Something that none of us had ever thought to question or disobey, so it didn’t exactly need a lock.
I slipped as quietly as I could across the floor, grateful the full moon from outside was shining directly into the room and providing enough light to make out the ghostly shadows of the furniture. I didn’t want to risk turning on the main light, but…as I reached the desk, I picked up the lamp he used there, hoping to angle it to let me read whatever I found.
My blood pulsed in my ears, but I ignored it as I started carefully looking through the desk, trying to find something that might link them to this. I couldn’t quite believe they’d be stupid enough to have evidence lying around, but then…they were stupid enough to talk about it openly this evening. My uncle had always been rash and impetuous like that, and he’d always been safe here - there was no reason for him to think otherwise now.
The top of the desk only had a few papers on it - my father’s fastidious nature keeping it tidy - and it was clearly a couple of ledgers and reports from his more legitimate businesses. I frowned in irritation, then gently tried the desk drawers.
One simply held stationary and writing implements, laid out in an orderly fashion that I knew better than to touch. My hopes were slipping away from me as I opened the next one - and found a stack of papers that could be my answer.
Carefully, I placed them on the desk and started looking through, making sure I maintained the order so that no one noticed my intrusion. But there was nothing there about Viktor, or anything that implicated them in any crime.
C’mon!
I was growing more scared of being caught here in this room rifling through my father’s papers with every passing moment, and I wasn’t finding anything. Disappointed, I finished looking through the stack and returned it exactly as I’d found it. My heart was sinking in my chest - despite my best intentions, I might not be able to find anything useful for Leo. My father was too careful.
I tried the last drawer with a quick tug - only to find it locked. My pulse sped up with simultaneous hope and disappointment, and I bit the inside of my cheek in thought. I didn’t have time to go looking for a key, and it could be with my father for all I knew. It wasn’t long before I’d need to get out of here.
I glanced around the room hurriedly, the desk offering no joy - of course, why lock a drawer if you’re going to leave the key on the desk - and the interior of his office was largely unfamiliar to me. Then my gaze caught on his long coat hanging on the rack to the side of the door, and I wondered…would he have?
Not stopping to think a moment more, I hurried over to it and carefully started going through his pockets, feeling for anything resembling a small, desk drawer key. My heart fell again as I didn’t find anything loose, but my fingers caught on his wallet. I shrugged and pulled it out, flipping through it - plenty of odd change, but no key.
Tough luck. Should’ve known better, Alessa. You’re not made for this sneaky crap.
I allowed myself a small sigh, and started rifling through the notes instead. He probably wouldn’t notice a missing $20, and it would be enough for a cab fare…once I figured out where the hell I was going to go.
As I was taking a couple of $20s, my fingers caught on something else and I drew it out.
A photo. A thin faced, wiry man looked back at me - unremarkable brown hair and dull green eyes sporting middle-aged wrinkles. No one I recognized.
I flipped it to the other side.
Jimmy O’Connor.
And a string of numbers that I didn’t recognize.
The argument earlier came back to me, playing backwards through my mind as I put together pieces I’d barely been paying attention to.
Manny’s death spooked O’Connor…fucking bastard was supposed to give us the hitman’s identity…untrustworthy intermediaries.
This was something. Maybe not a silver bullet, but Leo might be able to use it.
My heart racing, I pocketed it and the $40, then returned my father’s wallet. If he was keeping the photo that close, I was pretty sure he’d realize it was missing quickly - but I needed to be away from here by then anyway.
They might not know what I’d heard, but the moment they realized I knew something…I was dead. And at the moment, I wasn’t sure I could look my father in the eye without giving it away.
I bit the inside of my cheek again in thought and stepped out of the office. I had information that might help Leo now, but I had no clue where he was. My father owned at least half this city, his most bitter rivals owned the other half - and I already knew they were looking for my blood. I had no friends who could possibly shelter me from any of that, and I was likely to be recognized the moment I stepped out of the house.
There was only one person I could think of who might be willing to stop and listen to me…and could possibly reach out and find Leo for me.
It might be a long shot, but that was all that was left to me now.
Chapter Nineteen
Leo
I slowed automatically as I neared New York City - and it wasn’t just the traffic.
I knew the call I had to make, but I’d been putting it off for the last day and a half. I had nowhere else to go - but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to trying to convince Jay to help me again. Especially after I’d lost Alessa…I wasn’t sure I could stomach hearing his reminder that I should have killed her at the start.
As if that would ever have truly been an option for me.
I was late getting to New York anyway, after stopping at Pittsburgh for sleep and a change of car on the way. I knew that I should have been racing to what little safety I could find before the news got out, but somehow this time my hard-wired instinct for survival wasn’t driving me the way it used to. And the break had been good for me, at least in some ways.
I still didn’t know whether I was going to find myself smashing down Santini’s door to ask Alessa why she’d left, why she couldn’t have waited just a few more days, why she went back to live a life she didn’t really want…all the unanswered questions that I couldn’t quite move past. Or whether I was just going to accept that kidnapping was never going to work as a way to form a relationship. Obviously.
But however confused my feelings there were, at least the anguish had dulled to a slow, steady ache that left me with a little room to think about how to get out of this alive. Whatever mistakes I’d made, I’d never given up before and I wasn’t going to start now. I could figure out the rest of my life once I found a way out of the country.
Biting the bullet, I finally entered Jay’s memorized number into the new phone I’d picked up in Pittsburgh.
For once, he picked up after the first ring. Now I just had to stop him from hanging up.
“Jay, I—”
“Leo?” His gruff voice interrupted me with a tone I couldn’t interpret - at least not over the too-loud bluetooth coming through the car stereo. Probably disapproval. That was usually a safe bet.
“Yeah, listen, I’m sorry—”
“I have Viktor’s killer for you.” His voice didn’t change, but he could have reached out through the phone and slapped me over the head and I would have been less surprised.
What?!
“You…you do? After this long?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity at bay. Not just a lead - the actual, honest-to-god answer. I had
no idea how hard Jay must have been working to get this, but I didn’t know how I’d ever return a favor that big.
“That’s what I said, boy.” Okay that was definitely disapproval. Jay didn’t like repeating himself.
“How the hell did you manage that? Have you told the bratva—” I couldn’t help myself.
“No, this is your shit. You fix it.”
“Of course, sure - so who is it? Do you have proof?” My mind was already going at a mile-a-minute pace, trying to work out how to play this. It was almost enough to overwhelm the constant hurt of Alessa’s abandonment.
“Get your ass over here and you’ll see.”
“Okay, sure. When?” I was too shocked to refuse Jay anything right now.
“Now.” It was a typically outrageous demand - Jay would have no reason to even think I was near NYC.
I glanced at the clock, and judged the traffic around me.
“Two hours?”
Jay grunted and hung up. I took that for a yes and then tried to get my head around what had just happened.
I’d called him to beg for some form of shelter, and received both that and the potential way out of this crazed situation. Without even trying.
Maybe I’d been screwed when it came to Alessa, but this was a stroke of luck that felt more like divine intervention.
Of course, he hadn’t given me a chance to tell him Alessa had escaped - or, rather, I’d inadvertently let her go - so when he heard about that, I could still get thrown out on my ass. Though, really, he should know about that by now - that sort of gossip would have been everywhere within hours, and Jay had his ear to the ground.
Fuck. Stop questioning it.
I needed to take everything I could get right now. I sped up as I turned into NYC proper, my earlier reluctance gone now that I could be sure of my welcome, at least initially.
The streets passed in a blur as I made the familiar turnings, trusting that Jay’s Russian connections had at least kept him out of Antonio Santini’s wrath, whatever Alessa might have said. I didn’t feel entirely comfortable in Brighton Beach - but then I couldn’t be comfortable anywhere anymore, if everyone knew what I looked like now. At least until I squared things with the bratva, then maybe I had a chance.
I kept my head down, grateful that I knew the route to Jay’s place without thinking about it, and pulled up into the same space Alessa and I had parked in only a couple of weeks ago.
Fuck. It felt like a lifetime.
And the thought of Alessa had my heart thumping uncomfortably again. Irritated, I shook my head. I couldn’t meet Jay like some love-sick kid - even I wouldn’t blame him for withholding the information if he saw that.
I made my way down the side of the house and gave the familiar worn wooden door down to the basement a knock before pulling it open.
Or, at least, I tried to. It was locked.
I frowned at that. It was never locked. Jay had never needed to lock it.
Fuck, the Italian threat must be worse than you thought.
I felt a twinge of guilt, and hoped it hadn’t caused him too much difficulty as I knocked again - louder this time.
Then I waited, until after several minutes of impatience I heard the sound of a key rattling in the lock and Jay finally swung the door open.
I gave him a quick smile of greeting as he stepped back, following him in and pulling the door shut behind me. Then I headed down the stairs and took in the unchanged place around me before finally settling my gaze on the older man.
He was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t place, but I offered him a grim smile anyway.
“Thanks, Jay. Seriously, I owe you.” The heartfelt appreciation snuck into my words before I could stop it, but I didn’t regret it. I’d meant what I said.
He just shrugged awkwardly. “Yeah, you do.”
“So—” I gave up on waiting for him to offer what I needed - he always preferred for me to ask anyway.
“There’s someone here to see you.” He cut in before I could finish, and my blood froze.
Was this a trap?
I wasn’t sure I could blame him if it was - giving me up for his safety, which I’d put in jeopardy in the first place. And when I was as good as dead anyway…
But the hair still stood up on the back of my neck, and I took a step back, just one.
“Jay…” My tone was measured and calm, a small plea to reconsider, but he was already walking away.
“Leo!” Alessa’s breathless voice ripped my attention away and it was all I could do to keep my mouth from dropping open as I saw her.
She ran up to me but I stepped back before she could throw herself into my arms. Everything in me itched to take her, to wrap myself around her and have her sweet, warm body once again resting against mine. To breathe in her intoxicating scent and never let her go.
But she doesn’t want that. Not really.
She’d left, and I wasn’t sure I could take the bruising mixture of hurt and hope and need that pounded through me. I’d spent the whole journey thinking about finding a way to see her when I got here, but it had just been an unhealthy combination of misplaced desire and my inability to accept her choice. I’d been an idiot in letting her affect me so badly, and there was no reason to put myself through it again.
“Leo?” She’d turned hesitant now, looking at me with wide eyes that seemed on the verge of reflecting the same hurt I felt.
I felt my face close off, the familiar arrogant mask coming down as I gave her a wry smile.
“What are you doing here, princess?” I raised an eyebrow, letting the mocking amusement flash through - only this time, it was self-deprecating more than anything. “You finally managed to escape - and I’ll give it to you, the fucking me plan was a whole lot better than the running ones.”
Okay, maybe that was a little more bitter than I’d expected—
“What?!” Alessa’s brow furrowed and I tried not to notice how cute her face was when she screwed it up like that. Then she was in my arms, ignoring my distant posture as she wrapped her arms around me and buried her head in my chest. She looked up before I had a chance to react. “You thought I—? You fucking idiot. Some guys were there - in the village - my father’s guys. They saw me and…I couldn’t exactly say no. I—I wanted to come back. To have those last few days together…”
She trailed off, biting her lip, and I could barely breathe through the relief that flooded through me. She hadn’t run. She hadn’t wanted to run.
I finally wrapped my arms around her the way I’d wanted to so much, cautiously trying to ease my bruised heart open again.
She was right. I was an idiot.
“Oh fuck.” I leaned down, breathing in the warmth of her hair and clutching her to me. “I’m sorry.”
She met my gaze, eyes shining with unshed tears and I couldn’t resist anymore - I kissed her. I pulled her to me and took her mouth in the sort of long, passionate kiss that I’d been dreaming about the last couple of days. The kind I’d thought had walked away from me. She moaned against me, instantly melting into my body and letting me support her as her hands ran all over my back, inflaming every need I’d tried to push away and ignore.
Fuck, I needed this. I needed her. I didn’t want to ever let her go again.
I finally broke the kiss, needing to talk more. I couldn’t help myself any longer. I had to tell her. Everything that I’d wanted to say that heart-wrenching day she’d left.
“Alessa, I wanted to—”
She broke into tears the moment I stopped kissing her, cutting me off before I’d said anything as she clutched me as if her life depended on it. My heart twisted in alarm and I stroked the drops forming in her eyes away as she shook in my arms, feeling terrible for doubting her.
“Oh fuck, Alessa, I’m sorry. You’re right - I was an idiot. If it makes you feel any better, it’s been tearing me up—”
“It was them!” She clung to me, her voice breaking as I held her tightly and rubbed her b
ack, wanting to take it all away. Then she looked up, gaze locking with mine in a sudden vehemence that surprised me, wet tracks still clinging to her cheeks. “My—my father, and uncle. They killed Viktor. T-they used me as—as bait, and…so the Russians didn’t suspect, kn-knowing I’d be killed too!”
My blood froze as I stared at her, the anguish written on her face seeping its way into my soul and turning it black.
It only took a split second before I saw red, sudden rage burning through me and calling for their blood. I wanted every one of those fuckers dead. I fought to come back to myself, to remember that Alessa needed me right now, and not a mad killing spree.
I breathed hard and when I could finally meet her gaze again without snapping, I saw the pain there, punctuated with a hesitant uncertainty as she looked at me.
I lifted her up in an instant, letting her legs circle my hips and pulling her tightly to my chest as if she was the most precious thing in the world. Which she was.
I cupped her head to me and kissed her thoroughly, letting her feel all my passion and anger and protective fury. Knowing she wouldn’t shy from it, that she embraced that part of me even if it was violent and coarse - because it was all for her.
“They don’t deserve you.” I met her eyes, my words fiery and intense. “They never deserved you, princess. They’re bastards and you’re the best thing I’ve ever known. I was—” I took a breath and continued anyway, guessing there was never going to be a better time. “I was going to ask you to stay with me - that day. You always deserved better than a life dictated by weak-minded, controlling fuckers. I—it’s not much, but we can go wherever you like, do whatever you like. I’ll show you Italy, and Europe, and any other dream you can think of. Just stay with me.”
I breathed deeply, seeing the stunned expression on her face, my heart beating at double speed as I tried to work out whether it was pure incredulity at the idea or…something more.