by Ruby Laska
“Rufus!” Chelsea protested. And then, a moment later, “Am I really that bad?”
“No, of course not, sweetheart,” Rufus relented, putting down his dishrag to give her a hug. “You’re beautiful, always. Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on in your life or not?”
“Soon, I promise,” Chelsea said. “But I need to meet a friend before work.”
In reality, she wasn’t due to meet Jade until the afternoon, but the little harmless lie let her escape without more scrutiny. Chelsea wasn’t planning to go back to work today. She bought a coffee from the corner bodega and called the gallery.
“Hi, Naomi,” she said, relieved when her favorite employee answered. “I’m just calling to let you know I’m still down with that bug. Think you can handle the place without me another day?”
“Sure, no problem. Oh, Mr. Surikov came by and said to tell you he’s ready to sign the papers.”
Instantly, Chelsea went on alert. She didn’t know any Mr. Surikov—but Vasily Surikov had been a Russian painter famous in the late nineteenth century. “Can you tell me what he looked like?” she asked.
“Yes…big man with short gray hair, about six feet tall, but built, you know? Strong accent. Oh, and he had a scar under his ear. Kind of a big one. Do you know him?”
Chelsea thought fast. She didn’t want to worry Naomi needlessly, and she doubted that anyone but herself was in danger. On the other hand, someone was sending her a message, but was it meant to intimidate or warn her?
She had never seen the men who Ricardo warned her about, the ones he worried were following her, the ones who’d left the note at her apartment. Until this moment, she’d kept alive the possibility that they didn’t really exist.
But Naomi’s description made him real. He might not know where she was right now—but he wasn’t giving up. And it was only a matter of time before he found her.
“Oh yes, I’ve dealt with him on the phone but never met him in person,” she hedged. “What did you tell him?”
“Just that you weren’t feeling well. He said to tell you that he hopes you feel better soon so that you can conclude your business.”
“Thank you, Naomi. I’ll—I’ll call you later today and check in.”
This new development meant that she couldn’t go back to the gallery today, in case the Russians were watching it. For the hundredth time, she regretted leaving Ricardo’s house impulsively yesterday morning. At least she should have made sure she had a way to contact him.
There was always the café. Alexander and Boris knew how to reach Ricardo. And they had welcomed her and offered their help. She felt a little guilty reaching out to them again when she wasn’t sure she trusted Ricardo—but all she needed was a phone number, a way to get in touch with him and figure out her next move.
The walk to the café was a pleasant one. The morning was sunny and bright, busy with people going to work. When she got within a few blocks of the café, however, the air was split with the sound of sirens. She began to get concerned when an ambulance raced past her in the direction she was heading.
When she got to the intersection before the café and discovered that it was blocked off by emergency vehicles, she broke into a run.
In the mouth of the alley where the café was located, a uniformed officer was keeping bystanders at bay. Down the alley, a swarm of EMTs and cops clustered around the café tables and the opening of the shop.
Without thinking, Chelsea broke past the cops and ran to the café, her heart in her throat. She caught a glimpse of a heavyset woman in a flowered dress—Darya—and called her name.
She was answered with a wail as the woman collapsed in the arms of her son: Alexander, ashen-faced, held her while the EMTs wheeled a stretcher past them and into the alley.
Boris?
As they came closer, she saw that a sheet had been pulled up over the body.
“Get back!”
One of the cops was jogging toward her, hand on his baton. Chelsea looked around wildly, her heart pounding with shock and fear. If she didn’t move fast, they would drag her off.
“Sorry, sorry,” she managed to mumble as she hurried back behind the barricades and melted into the crowd.
When she turned to check a few minutes later, she was relieved to see that she hadn’t been followed.
She didn’t dare come any closer. She pretended to browse shop windows a block away. As the ambulance went by with lights flashing, she dialed Jade’s number.
It rang and rang, but there was no answer. And no voicemail.
Chelsea’s panic deepened. There was no one who could help her. And Boris had been killed just because he was close to Ricardo. Did that prove anything? Did it mean that Ricardo was innocent…at least, innocent of the things Stone wanted her to believe? Or was this war doomed to be bloody on both sides, with everyone’s hands dirtied and all their lives in danger?
A little boy came up to her, holding something in his fist. “Are you Chelsea?” he asked.
Chelsea whirled around, scanning the crowd. She didn’t see anything out of place, just commuters gawking at the accident scene, and the crowd beginning to disperse.
“Who are you?” she demanded, shrinking against the building where the overhang would provide some cover. “What do you want?”
“That man said to give you this.” He opened his fist. Inside was a key card in a paper sleeve, with the number 332 written on it. A hotel key.
Chelsea took it, turning it over in her hand. It bore the logo of the Maximilian, a luxury hotel less than a half mile away. “What did the man look like?”
The boy shrugged. He was nine or ten years old, wearing a backpack over the maroon colored polo shirt and plaid shorts that identified him as a student at the parochial school nearby.
“I don’t know. Tall. Dressed fancy. He gave me five dollars to give this to you.”
“Where is he now?”
“Right over…” the boy pointed, then lowered his finger and shrugged again. “I don’t know, I guess he left. He said to ask you how the little birds are.”
Chelsea nodded. The Little Birds: that was a code only the two of them would know, the title of the painting that he had given her, a painting done by her late father. There wasn’t anything more to be gained from the boy. “Well, thank you,” she said, and he went running down the street.
Chelsea waited until a group of women walked past her and then followed them closely, pretending to be part of their group. Ricardo had been here, had been watching the scene unfold—and he had spotted her. It could easily have been the Russians or the FBI. Yet again, she had made a mistake that could have gotten her killed or arrested.
Her dread deepened as she thought of Jade, who wasn’t answering. Could they have gotten to her…? No, she told herself sternly. Stop thinking crazy. Jade was far more street savvy than she; she was an ex-con with training and her own detective business. She could take care of herself.
She would have to, for now.
Chelsea took a circuitous path to the hotel, staying with the crowds wherever possible, ducking under awnings and pausing to study window displays. She breathed a sigh of relief when she got to the busy hotel lobby.
She was suddenly painfully aware of how out of place she must look in her jeans and pullover. Men in suits and women in elegant daywear paid no attention to her as she made her way to the elevators and pressed the up button.
She found room 332 with no problem and knocked softly on the door. There was no answer. She waited a long moment and knocked again, more loudly. When there was still no answer, she tried the key, but the little light stayed red.
She had had a plan for if the wrong person opened the door—if the little boy had been mistaken, if it wasn’t Ricardo who waited for her. She would have started screaming and run for the elevators. Not, she knew, a very good plan, but the Maximilian was a busy hotel and someone would surely hear her.
“Don’t speak.”
He’d come up behi
nd her so quietly that she didn’t know he was there. Chelsea whirled around and found herself inches from Ricardo. He took her arm firmly and led her to the end of the hall, using his own key to open the door to room 345. He pulled her inside and closed the door and locked it.
Then he dropped her arm angrily and took a step back. “Chelsea,” he said, and it was both condemnation and entreaty.
They were standing in the lobby of a sumptuous suite, the room bordered by windows on two sides, a doorway leading into a bedroom. Breakfast sat untouched on a tray on the low marble table between sumptuous couches.
Chelsea looked at the key that was still in her hand. “Why this?”
“With you I take every precaution,” Ricardo said, barely containing his anger. “One of my oldest friends has just been killed, all because of me. I couldn’t guess what they would do to you.”
“But how did you find me?”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m surprised you asked me that. By now, I would have thought you might have some sense of the resources at my disposal…the priority I place on knowing where you are.”
An answer that wasn’t an answer.
“But why didn’t you talk to me yourself, out there?”
“I didn’t want to risk drawing more attention to you.”
“And…whose room did the boy give me the key for?”
“Mine. I rented both of them, but the key was for this one. I switched holders.”
“So if someone had followed me…”
“They would be most likely to act when you arrived. Luckily, that is not the case.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “The bratva are like blunt tools. They do not do well at work that requires patience or skill.”
“You were there,” Chelsea said, more to herself than him. Now that she was finally beginning to feel safe for the moment, her body was beginning to tremble with the aftereffects of adrenaline and fear. “By the café. Poor Boris, I can’t believe it. Were you there when it happened?”
“I was doing my best to keep an eye on you,” he said tightly. “Otherwise, I might have been there. I might have had a chance to protect him.”
And he might not be dead.
The words, both spoken and unsaid, struck Chelsea hard in the gut. The implication was clear—she was partly responsible for the death of an innocent man. But it wasn’t fair to blame her.
“I only left the other morning because—because—” But Chelsea didn’t entirely understand, so how could she expect Ricardo to? “How can I trust you? Before I met you, everything was fine. I didn’t have to look over my shoulder, didn’t have to wonder who was following me, who wanted to kill me.”
Ricardo looked like he had been slapped. He stood with his hands hanging at his sides, even his beautiful clothes failing to disguise the fatigue in his body, the emotional devastation on his face.
“You’re right,” he said woodenly. “I should never have…we should never…all of this was a mistake. All of it.” All the anger seeped from his voice, leaving him sounding simply devastated. He turned away from her and walked to the window, where he stared out over the city.
“I didn’t say…” Chelsea began, searching for the right words. Because even now, with what they had both been through this morning, just being in his presence was renewing the attraction between them, igniting feelings that only grew more real and more raw every time they were together.
Seeing Ricardo raging and demanding stirred Chelsea to passion…but seeing him vulnerable and self-blaming made her long to comfort him, to reassure him.
And what kind of joke was that—offering comfort to an international thief, a man with blood on his hands? She might as well stick her hand into the tiger cage and trust it not to bite.
“I can offer you safety, Chelsea,” Ricardo said, not looking at her. His shoulders sagged as he spoke. “I can have you on a plane this afternoon. There are…people I know in Madrid. Or Paris or London, if you prefer. You can stay as long as you need to. You’ll be very comfortable, I assure you.”
Chelsea barked out a short, bitter laugh. “Really? And my gallery will simply run itself while I am gone?”
He turned then, his hands in his pockets, his face shadowed with uncertainty and misery. “If it is a matter of money—”
“It’s not!” Chelsea cried. “That just shows that you don’t know me at all. If it was money I wanted, I could have gone to work for any number of established galleries. But I wanted the freedom to build my own gallery, to—”
“To collect your father’s work, and honor his legacy,” Ricardo said quietly. “I know. But I can help with that too, Chelsea. Surely you understand that by now.”
Chelsea stared at him, speechless. Shortly after their first night together, he had given her a gift of The Little Birds, which was assumed to have been lost. He offered no explanation of how or where he had gotten it, and Chelsea hadn’t asked.
What he was offering now—her life’s dream in exchange for not asking questions. For running away so that he could keep her locked up, with the promise of finally getting Marcus Ryder’s work the attention and recognition it deserved. She could lend the collection to museums, launch a retrospective. She’d be asked to write for journals and catalogs, perhaps to curate exhibits. But what good would any of that be if she couldn’t return home?
“And how long would I have to be imprisoned in one of your beautiful cages?” she asked.
Ricardo’s jaw flexed with rage, his brow furrowing. “Only until I can make this right.”
“How do you make this right? Boris is dead.”
“He knew the risks.”
“The risks of what? Of being your friend? Of trying to help you? Of—” her voice cracked. “Of trying to keep me safe?”
“Chelsea!” He yelled her name, advancing on her so fast that she thought he might strike her. Instead, he stopped a foot away, his fists clenched. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. No idea who Boris was. Who any of us are.”
“That’s exactly the problem!” Tears of rage and fear came to her eyes as she refused to back down. He was so close that she could smell his scent, see the fine texture of the fabric of his jacket. The full, sensuous lips that had teased and tormented her, the flashing black eyes full of secrets. “I don’t know who you are. That’s why I left yesterday. Do you have any idea what it’s like to wake up from the most amazing night of your life and realize it’s all an illusion? That you’ve fallen for someone you can never introduce to your friends, that you can never—”
But she couldn’t finish the sentence. That you can never settle down with. Never marry. Never dream of committing your heart to forever.
Chelsea had long ago resigned herself to the fact that such fairy tales were not for her. Which made it a thousand times worse when her rogue heart fell anyway.
“I’m not an illusion,” Ricardo said.
“Yes you are, you—”
His hand shot out and grabbed hers, his grip like iron. He splayed her palm against his shirt, over his heart. She felt it beating, strong and regular. Felt the heat of his skin…and her body responded.
“I’m real. And what I feel for you is real. You know that, Chelsea. You know it. Trust your feelings this time.”
“I don’t know anything except that everywhere you go people are trying to hurt us.”
He shook his head and pulled her closer so that her face was inches from his. “Those are facts. Terrible facts that I would give my life to change. But I am talking about what is in your heart. About what you know deep in your soul. Tell me, Chelsea…the time we have spent together, the things we have done. Could you do those with a man you do not trust?”
A whirlwind of images tumbled through Chelsea’s mind. Red silk scarves. Hot, dripping wax from an ivory candle. The sharp blade of a knife. The sparkling crystal of a toy meant for exquisite torment. The polished box full of clothespins…
Her knees weakened at the memory of his hands in her hair, his cock in her mouth,
her ass. With another man, these acts would have been debasing, humiliating.
With Ricardo, they were something else entirely. Submitting to him made her…stronger. It quieted her mind and expanded her awareness, satisfied her hungers and quelled her restlessness.
Without really meaning to, she stepped into his arms, closing the distance between them. For a moment he froze, his arms suspended stiffly around her. But it was too hard to resist; she had been through too much. She pressed her face against his chest and bowed her head, feeling her eyelashes flutter shut against the fine fabric. And then he was holding her, encircling her with his arms, pressing his chin to the top of her head and murmuring in Spanish, endearments that she only caught a few words of. Mi corazon…mi alma…niñita linda.
The stirring inside her turned to a raging current of need. Her pussy lips swelled and her nipples hardened, and her fingertips twitched with the need to touch, feel, explore. She longed for him to yank her head back with his hands in her long hair, to rip the clothes from her, to drag her anywhere in the suite that he wished to go.
Fear had made her need greater. It would not be enough merely to make love. There would not be enough release in simply reaching orgasm. Chelsea needed to feel more, to feel everything…every bit of sensation her body was capable of, from pleasure to pain. She needed to disappear into the physical contact, to lose herself in giving herself away.
She tipped up her mouth and brushed her lips against his, quickly, softly, tracing with her tongue. Needing the taste of him, needing to meld him with her.
Her head was yanked back, hard, and then he pulled her hair so hard she was forced to stand on her tiptoes.
Desire rocketed through her. Her hips bucked ineffectively in the air. “Please,” she muttered.
“You don’t touch me without being told,” he said ominously. “Have you forgotten?”
“I…no.” She mewled with need and frustration, but his grip only tightened, pulling the hair from her scalp.
“If you cannot trust me, I will walk out of here today. Mr. Smith will come for you and he will personally escort you where you will be safe. I will transfer enough money into your account that you can build any collection you want. And I will leave your life forever.”