by Lori King
His features softened somewhat. “You’re right, that was one of the worst lines I’ve ever used.”
The sudden easiness in which he spoke through her off and Harper couldn’t seem to get her bearings. Her whole perception of him was distorted. Gentle lover. Cold-blooded killer. Terrible flirt.
Who was this guy?
He shifted towards her and Harper curled in on herself. No matter how calm Nikolai acted, Harper couldn’t get past the image of him shooting a man in the head. The cruel, sharp twist of his lips as they formed a sneer, the satisfaction of taking a life glimmering in his eyes. She had never truly known fear until that moment. Knowing that fear was directed at the man she had been slowly falling for over the last year nearly undid the last of her sanity.
As if reading her mind, Nikolai placed the tray on the bedside table, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a key, holding it up in front of her. “I know you’re scared. For the most part, of me. I just need you to remember that I would never hurt you, okay? Do you believe that?”
The truth was, she didn’t. If she had learned anything over the last few hours, it was that she had no idea what the man in front of her is capable of.
With a sigh, Nikolai leaned closer, seeming to ignore her panicked breathing, and unlocked her left wrist. “Listen, I’m undoing this because I trust that you know not to do anything stupid. There is a lot I have to explain to you, and I’ll do that while you eat. Just...don’t be stupid.”
Pressing her lips tightly together, she nodded.
Harper winced as he lowered her arm and gently soothed the area where the cuffs had rubbed a little too harshly.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make them so tight. I just had to make sure you wouldn’t try and run again before I could explain.”
She stared at him incredulously, as she sat up and tucked the sheet tighter under her arms. She may have her bra, and he may have seen it all before, but she needed some sort of barrier between them. “Explain? I think it was all explained when you shot that guy.”
Immediately, she clamped a hand over her mouth, mentally chastising herself for not keeping it shut. Her lack of a filter always got her into trouble.
Unexpectedly, instead of annoyance, Nikolai chuckled. “Your honesty is so damn refreshing. You know that?”
Dropping her hand, she cocked her head to the side. “That so?”
“You have no idea.” The words sounded almost...wistful? “In my line of work, honesty is a rare commodity. A safety net that doesn’t exist.”
“In your line of work? You mean the hired gun for the mob, and killing people kind of work?”
They were both startled when a phone chimed, and Nikolai quickly tugged it out of his pocket. As he read whatever message he had received, a peculiar expression flittered across his handsome face. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, and morphed into something far graver. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Oh? How so?”
Instead of answering her question, he gestured to the food on the bedside table. “You better eat before it goes cold.”
He stood and made his way to the door.
“Wait,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. Nikolai didn’t face her, but his head was partially turned in her direction. “You said you’d explain while I ate.”
“I’ve got something I need to do first.”
With that statement, he left the room and firmly closed the door behind him. The sound of a lock sliding into place making her flinch.
“Oh, Harper. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?
3
Pacing the patio of his apartment, Nikolai continuously threw looks toward the now closed and locked doorway that lead to his bedroom, while he waited for his call to be answered.
He blew out a sharp breath and leaned against the chrome railing, flicking off a stray leaf and watching as it fell eleven stories to the ground. Ironic that the leaf seemed to be mimicking the direction his life had suddenly taken. Down, down, down. All the way to the bottom where it would land with a splat. Everything was going to shit.
I’m so screwed.
“Quinton’s Patisserie. You crave ‘em. We bake ‘em. How may I help you?” an overly sweet voice greeted him finally.
“I’d like to place an order for a dozen red velvet cupcakes with green icing,” he said simply, following the protocol previously established.
The woman on the other end went quiet for a moment, before responding. “Are you sure you don’t want white icing, sir? That is more traditional.”
He grunted, knowing this was all part of the screening process. “No. Green icing. I like the festive coloring.”
“It’s never too early for Christmas,” she answered. “And when will you need this order filled by, sir?”
“Immediately.”
“I see. Please hold.”
Within seconds there was a distinct click, and then a gruff and more familiar voice picked up. “Wilks.”
“It’s me.”
His words were met with a long string of cursing. “Tell me your cover isn’t blown?”
Nikolai grimaced, and dragged a hand through his hair. “Not exactly, but there is a situation.”
“There always is with you,” his FBI handler, Wilks, grumbled.
“It’s a girl.”
“Of course, it is.” Wilk’s clipped monotone pissed him off.
Choosing to ignore the man’s jabs, he continued, “Her name is Harper. She’s a college friend of Annabella’s. She was out of the loop. Had no idea about Annabella or her family.”
“I’m assuming she does now,” Wilks drawled, his sarcasm grating on Nikolai’s already frayed nerves.
“The drop-off Travis and I were supposed to intercept was actually a kidnapping, not some kind of package like the Martinellis expected. The target was Annabella. Before I could stop things from going down, Annabella and Harper were taken. By the time I caught up with them, Annabella had escaped, but Harper was still in danger.”
He waited for the reprimand which didn’t take long. “The girl wasn’t your responsibility.”
Grinding his teeth, Nikolai glared into the dark. “So I should have just left her to them?’
“Exactly,” Wilks snapped. “We’ve got too much riding on this. Let me guess, she saw more than she should have?”
Sighing, he leaned his forearms against the railing and dragged his free hand through his short hair again. “She saw me take a guy out.”
“What?” Wilks shouted loud enough that Nikolai had to pull the phone away from his ear.
He winced. “I had no choice. He aimed at me, was already pulling the trigger.”
“You all right?” his handler asked begrudgingly.
Rolling his eyes, Nikolai snorted. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just a graze. I’ve already patched myself up.”
“So what’s the situation? Did you take her back to the Martinellis?”
“No.”
He could practically hear Wilks grinding his teeth. “What the fuck did you do?”
“She ran.”
“And?”
Looking over his shoulder at the bedroom door, Nikolai grimaced. “And I ran after her. The hired kidnappers ran after her. I got to her first and took out them out. She fell and knocked herself out, and I brought her back to my place.”
“When you say your place…” Wilks said slowly. “You don’t mean your place, do you? You did take her back to your temp house, right? The home of Nikolai Bianchi, right?”
Steeling himself for even more abuse, Nikolai answered, “No. I’m currently standing on the patio of Nikolai Holter’s apartment.”
“You fucking moron!”
Yep. That was exactly what he expected.
“I know it’s not ideal–”
“Ideal? No, it is not fucking ideal. What the hell were you thinking? Or should I ask what the fuck you were thinking with? I swear to God, Holter, if you have compromised this assignment because you were to
o busy thinking with your dick, I’ll–”
Before Wilks could get descriptive on his threats, Nikolai cut him off. “I wasn’t thinking with my dick. Christ, give me some credit.”
“Why should I?”
“Well for one, I’m the best damn undercover agent you’re got. And second, not even you could leave an innocent girl to the mercy of the five families. They would eat her up and spit her out. Apart from being Annabella’s best friend, she holds no use for them. She would have been a loose end, and we both know what they do with them.”
Wilks sighed with frustration. “You’re undercover, Nikolai. You and I both know it comes with sacrifices. Some of them are tough, others are excruciating, but all are necessary. Would I have liked that a young girl was a casualty of this war? Of course not. Necessary evils are part of our job description. You know that.”
“What’s done is done, and I won’t apologize for it,” he bit out, not looking to argue about it any further. He needed to get Harper out of there and to safety as quickly as possible. He could only explain his absence for so long before he drew suspicion. He’d worked too hard to give it all up now. “I need to know what my next move is.”
“Does she know?”
He didn’t need to ask what his handler meant. “No, not yet.”
“What do you mean not yet? For the love of...Nikolai?”
“I have to tell her. She saw me take a guy out, she has a target on her back from the five families, her best friend has been lying to her for years, and right now she needs to know there is at least one person on this planet she can trust.”
“And that has to be you, does it?” Wilks said, with a wealth of knowledge. “Don’t act like this is business as usual. I’ve read your reports. I know you have a soft spot for this girl. What exactly have you left out? Are you screwing her?”
“Wilks,” he warned. “Don’t.”
“Then don’t fuck up,” his superior snapped.
Grinding his teeth together, Nikolai forced himself not to lose his cool. “Just tell me how we can fix this?”
Nikolai detested that he sounded as though he was begging, but he had no choice. He wouldn’t leave Harper, and he plain refused to feed her to the sharks. Nikolai had lost track of the number of moral sacrifices he had made since taking on this assignment. He wouldn’t make another one. Not this one.
Not her.
Wilks was a smart man, and Nikolai heard the moment his handler realized he wasn’t budging on this. “Give me a day to set some things in place, then we’ll move in and extract her. Hopefully, she has known or has heard things that could work towards making her viable for witness protection.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. This goes against every rule, and if, by some miracle, I manage to make this work, you’ll never see her again. And don’t think you’ll slide on this one. When the time comes, you are going to have to answer for your actions.”
He nodded. “I know.”
Silence met him for a moment, and then Wilks' voice came across the line, softer than it was before. “Is she really worth it?”
Nikolai didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
* * *
After finishing her meal, fairly certain it hadn’t been laced with anything, and too hungry to care, Harper struggled out of the bed. Her body ached, her head thumped loudly, and every time she moved, the scratches and bruises reminded her they were there.
Waking up with fear and adrenaline racing had masked the pain until now, and she finally took stock of her injuries. Her right wrist was discolored, not from the cuffs but from her fall. The entire right side of her back felt like it was on fire as she tried to stretch. The only part of her that didn’t hurt in some way was her legs, which was a miracle in itself.
With her lack of coordination on a good day, Harper often found herself tripping over her own two feet and doing serious damage to her knees or ankles. It had gotten so bad, she kept her very own pair of crutches in her dorm room just in case.
Seeing a bathrobe hanging from another doorway, she tiptoed over and pulled it off the hanger to cover herself. A quick peek showed a lush-looking black and white marble bathroom with a ridiculously large shower.
“Fancy,” she muttered, turning around to get a better look at the rest of the room.
The queen-size bed was in the middle of the room. Her eyes caressed the beautiful mahogany furniture, the Prussian blue comforter, and matching curtains. The room was simple, but homey.
She frowned. Something about the place was...off.
It was unlike any hideout she’d ever imagined. She’d been to his place, but for some reason, the bedroom felt familiar.
Walking to the dresser, she eyed the framed photos sitting on top. Images of Nik with other people she had never seen and knew he had never mentioned. All smiling, with arms around each other.
Nik looked extremely happy and more than anything, he appeared relaxed. Opening the top drawer, she peered inside, eyes widening at the normalcy of it all. Underwear, socks, t-shirts. She knew if she checked the other drawers, she would only find clothing. If she didn’t know any better she would have said this was his bedroom, but how could that be?
Nosing around more than she should, something black at the bottom of the drawer caught her eye. Harper shoved the socks out of the way to retrieve what looked like a flat leather wallet. Turning it over in her hands, she bit her lip and opened it, the air leaving her lungs instantly.
Harper had seen enough cop shows to know what she was staring at. A badge. An FBI badge.
Nikolai’s handsome face stared back at her, serious and professional in the image attached.
“What’s going on?”
The question had only just slipped out when the bedroom door opened slowly, and Nik entered the room.
She barely gave the man time to register the fact that she had moved from the bed before she pounced, all fear in the light of her current discovery disappearing. “What’s this?”
Nikolai turned around, eyes widened in horror as Harper waved the black leather wallet with his credentials inside.
The words oh fuck should have been flashing on his forehead as far as his reaction went.
“Harper, listen. It’s not what you think. You have to beli–”
“Don’t you dare throw more lies at me, Nik.” She paced, as agitation and anger welled up inside of her. Could anyone in her life tell the truth? “Tell me what the hell am I supposed to believe, Nik? Are you a dirty cop, or just a dirty liar?”
He growled at the insult. “I’m not a dirty cop.”
“Oh, God. Is your name really Nik? I guess it says it on this thing but who are you exactly? Nikolai Holter or Nikolai Bianchi? The cold-blooded killer for the mob or…” She paused to glance down and reread the credentials. “A member of the fricking FBI? I mean, seriously. What are you?”
“I’m both.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No, it’s not what you want to hear,” he corrected her. “But it doesn’t make it any less true. It’s the only answer I have for you.”
“I can’t believe this,” she whispered absently, her mind racing with the new information. Daytime soap operas had nothing on this shit.
Nik moved closer, reaching for her and wrapping a hand loosely around her arm to stop her pacing. “You have to, because right now I’m doing everything in my power to keep you safe. I need you to keep your head on straight, okay?”
“No, not okay. None of this is okay,” she said, slightly more hysterical than she had meant.
“I know.”
The softness in his tone, his expression, made her uneasy. It was almost too comforting.
“What’s going to happen to me?” her voice wavered.
He cleared his throat and dropped their eye contact. This couldn’t be good. “I’ve spoken to my handler–”
“Oh jeez, a handler?” Talk about official. Whatever he was wrapped up in had to be big. How the he
ll had she managed to fall into this mess? She used to pride herself on being smart, but she felt like the most oblivious human being in the world. “You’re undercover, aren’t you? How deep?”
“Deep enough.”
“How long?” she demanded, needing to know the full depth of the situation.
Nik seemed to think about his answer, and she could tell he was judging just how much he should tell her. Lips pursed, he considered her, then finally said, “Almost three years.”
“Okay. Alright.” It was anything but okay, though at that moment she had no clue what else to say. “And when you killed that man? Nik, whose orders were you following? The mafia or the government?”
“Neither.”
His response stunned her. “What?”
“You were in danger. I reacted.”
His careless shrug did nothing to hide the rigid set of his shoulders. She had a brief second to wonder how he managed undercover work with such obvious tells, then remembered she couldn’t talk since she’d been duped.
Harper knew the tension had very little to do with concern for their safety. There was no way they’d be sitting there twiddling their proverbial thumbs if that were the case. So that left only one other reason for an undercover FBI agent to be worried. “How much trouble are you in?”
“Depends on what line of work you are referring to.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. “Oh, God. Just answer the question, will you?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in God,” he quipped, with a smirk.
Smartass. And she was definitely not in the mood to deal with him being a smartass.
“Funny man, not.” She rolled her eyes. “Now is not the time to be funny, Nik. Seriously, what are we dealing with?”
“Well, I’m dealing with a pissed off handler, a director who is ready to grill my ass as soon as the case is over, and all of that depends on whether or not I’ve blown my cover. Then three years of undercover work and sacrifice will go down the drain within a matter of a couple of hours. Overall, if I’m not royally fucked, I’d be impressed at the amount of trouble I’ve managed to get into so fast.”