Her lungs burned and she splashed to the surface. He fired another bullet at her, and she ducked underwater with barely a mouthful of air. She tried to surface again, but she had turned to lead. With no more energy left to fight, she sank into the cold blackness.
“Hey, ghost, are you remembering?”
“Yes.”
A warm hand squeezed hers, and gentle fingers brushed away a tear. She blinked.
Dmitri’s slumped shoulders matched his frown. “You were so quiet. I didn’t even realize…oh hell.” Her hand shook, pressing into his big palm. “Was it bad?”
Her world had come to an end in the stretch of three long minutes because of one faceless man. “He has to pay, Dmitri. Nothing else matters. Promise me, even if I am lost to this fury, you will make him pay.”
“Sonya, I—”
His eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open.
“Oh.” For a moment, asking for help avenging her blood debt had seemed perfectly normal, as if she’d asked him escort her to the train station. Maybe he planned to kill someone too, but that didn’t mean he took it lightly. “I’m sorry. It’s a lot to—”
“Let’s just make sure you get your debt paid yourself, so you can join your family.”
“Okay.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“We fled Kiev, but they found us in my mother’s village. They were militsya, Dmitri. And the one—he shot my parents and then me. I drowned in the river. I don’t know what happened to Anya.”
“Militsya?” His gravelly voice lifted up on a skeptical note.
Outraged, she pushed up onto her forearms to defend her family’s honor. “We were innocent, my parents were innocent.”
“I don’t doubt that. There is plenty of corruption in the militsya still. But what did they want with your family?”
She closed her eyes, allowing the heat of the sun to ward off the remembered chill. “A necklace. My father was doing a repair on a valuable necklace for some important communist party leader. Papa called him a muckety-muck.”
His silly tone and eye roll had incited much laughter at the time. Seated at his worktable and holding his brass hand lens to his eye, he’d inspected the broken setting on a jeweled pendant. Every time he bent over an object, it seemed like his bald spot grew bigger, and she would tease him that soon all his hair would be gone. When he sat back up, the jeweler’s loupe would leave a red ring pressed into his eye-socket.
Grief welled up inside her, and she worked to keep her tone flat and simply recount the story without dissolving in unspent emotion. “He was an expert at duplicating jewelry. Before the war, he’d created paste copies for private customers. Afterward, he did repairs, sold secondhand valuables—watches and wedding rings. His claim to fame was making the costume jewelry used in the National Opera.
“The militsya men threatened my father and instructed him to copy the necklace and return the forgery to the customer. Papa planned to double-cross them, but one of them returned early, demanding the necklace at gunpoint. Father gave it to him, and then we ran to the countryside, hiding in the village where my mother was raised.”
With all the calm she could muster, she spelled out the details she’d remembered about the night she drowned, until her memory lingered over her last glimpse of her father’s face, and Anya’s. Then the shaking took her. But as a human, only her flesh and bones rattled and trembled. There was no ghostly power to channel her furious anger into household objects.
“Sshh.” Dmitri pulled her upright and cradled her to his chest.
Sobs wracked her. She missed them so much—her sweet father, her capable mother, even her strident sister. How could people so alive be suddenly dead?
“Papa hid their names from us.” She gulped a breath. “To protect us from retaliation.” Another gulp. “But my killer didn’t care. That’s why I’m still here. To make him pay for our senseless deaths.”
She pulled away to look Dmitri in the eye, and he reared back.
“What?”
His nostrils flared. “Your eyes went green. Startled me.”
Instinctively, she squeezed them closed, hating that she’d repulsed him.
Lids pressed tight, she said, “Dmitri?”
“Yes?”
“I wish it was you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wish it was you and not this terrible blood debt that brought me back. I wish I could stay and hold your hand and have some of the life I missed.”
Unsure what color they would be, she opened her eyes just in time to see his face closing in. Firm but gentle lips pressed against hers. In the very first seconds of the kiss, it surpassed her greatest expectations, tingling across every inch of her. If she weren’t already dead, she could die happy. She sighed and parted her lips. He slipped his tongue, thick and hot, between them. He kissed her with a tender confidence so unlike the clumsy efforts of the grocer’s son. Of its own accord, her mouth opened wider and permitted her tongue to play along.
Her heart raced so quickly she might just die all over again. She pressed into his chest, which she’d already memorized with her eyes and fingers.
He groaned and suddenly she lay on the deck beneath him, her wrists pinned next to her ears under his big hands. “Sonya, if this is your rusalka shit, cut it out. I’m only a man. I can’t—”
“No, it’s not.” She clamped her mouth shut, unwilling to deny what she wasn’t quite sure of. Her desire for him wasn’t rusalka shit, as he’d so eloquently said. But maybe his attraction to her was only because of the bloodthirsty siren inside her. “You’re right. How can we be sure what’s real?”
He tilted his head, pressing his lips together in something very like a pout.
“Do you think those details are enough for your friend to start an investigation?” Keeping hold of his forearm, she rolled out from under him and pushed herself up.
He gave her some space but slid his arm up so she could hold his hand. “Yeah. I’ll call him. And then…” He cast a glance over her blanket wrapped form. “I’m taking you shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“Yep. A ghost’s gotta have something to wear.” He flashed a smile that was almost charming in his harsh face. Taking hold of both her wrists, he hauled them to standing. “What was that designer you liked so much, who made the silver dress?”
He remembered? She flushed all over. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. I can wear anything.”
“Yeah, you have more than proven that in your damp nightgown.”
Astonished, she gaped up at him. It seemed like he was saying—
“Dmitri!” Elena appeared at the bottom of the garden. “Breakfast is ready, and two goons are parked outside my house.”
Chapter 18
All the windows had curtains, and Dmitri needed to glimpse outside without alerting the jackasses he was on to them. This had control-freak Gregor written all over it—acting out because Dmitri was ignoring him. But it was also possible the target had turned the tables. After all, Makar had stared Dmitri down in the alley. Could he have recognized Dmitri and then found Elena’s house?
Elena. In America, she went by her mother’s maiden name for this very reason. No need for enemies of the Lisko family to retaliate against her. But still, Boris Makar had known the family a long time, would surely have known Elena as a young woman too. If Boris was as cunning as Gregor said, it was certainly possible he’d found Dmitri’s aunt.
Frosted glass paned the window in the front door and a narrow border ran around it, just transparent enough to see through. He closed one eye and peered through that half inch of visibility. Two Eurotrash thugs sat smoking in a black sedan, their hair too slick and their sunglasses too flashy. If the old lady he’d frightened saw these two, she keel over right there on the sidewalk.
Dmitri cringed at the memory of the woman’s fear. At least he looked a hell of a lot classier than these two when
he was on the job.
“We need to get out of here.” He scanned the street. “Elena, is your car in the garage?”
“Of course. But with three of us, it will be tight.”
“Find something for Sonya to wear, then we’ll split.”
“I do have one dress that might stretch over her…” His aunt closed the door to her room.
Dmitri licked his lip at the imagined end of that sentence. Could the tiny Elena have a single outfit that would accommodate Sonya’s impressive curves?
“Come on, I need to get my things.” He tugged Sonya’s hand, leading her back to his room, where he tossed extra ammo cartridges and a clean shirt into his pack. Once everything was crammed in, he said, “I need coffee. How ’bout you?”
Her stomach growled, roared really, like a ravenous lion that hadn’t eaten in decades. She blushed, wide-eyed.
He tried very hard not to laugh, but her embarrassment charmed him. To bury his chuckle, he said. “Sounds like you need breakfast.”
The now-familiar teapot steamed alongside a stainless carafe on the counter. There was something just wrong about drinking tea from Sonya’s ghost-home, so he poured them both coffee. He found a stack of blueberry pancakes in the oven. A spoon waited alongside a jar of jam and two plates. His stomach took its turn to grumble. She held on to the crook of his arm like they were on a date, while he served her a plate and then raised it up for her approval.
“More jam, please.”
After adding another dollop of the gooey preserves, he placed it in her hand. But with her other arm tucked around his, she had no way to eat. She frowned down at the food.
“Let me.” He cut her a bite of pancake and raised it to her mouth. She parted her lips, and closed them over the fork. Her eyes rolled back and her guttural sigh was possibly the most erotic sound he’d ever heard. The world shrunk to that fork and her mouth.
“More?”
She swallowed. “Yes, please.”
When she opened her mouth, he remembered the soft heat of her tongue. If he kissed her again, she would taste like jam.
The sound of Elena’s heels distracted him from the fantasy. “This is the best I could do.” She lifted a hanger dangling a black dress. It appeared half a dozen sizes too small.
And this awkward process of eating while they stayed in contact did not bode well for getting her dressed, or for their shopping excursion. How in the hell would she get that nightgown off—one sleeve at a time, passing his hand from one of hers to the other?
Elena held the dress up to Sonya’s shoulders, seeming to anticipate the same problem. “Hold her ankle.”
Sonya’s eyes flashed wide with understanding, and he responded with a smile he hoped was more reassuring than wolfish.
Good idea, Elena. I will kneel at the feet of this naked goddess of a ghost, and behave like the gentleman I’ve never been. Over and over again, all day long in the dressing rooms of San Francisco. Clearly, his auntie’s opinion of him was entirely inflated.
He dropped to his knees, exchanging one hand for the other to maintain their contact. Elena cleared her throat, shooting him a meaningful glance. He turned his face to the floor and closed his eyes for good measure. Maybe the nightgown had left nothing to his imagination, but they could all pretend otherwise for the sake of her modesty. The soft cotton brushed his face as she lifted it.
When she wriggled, he wrapped both his hands around her heel and interlaced his fingers. Her skin was so soft, the bottom of her foot as tender as a child’s. The feel of it affected him the same way her pancake-induced sigh had—with a bone-deep longing that surpassed lust and desire—a promise, an illusion, that for her he could be someone else, the man he’d never had the chance to be. Absently, he stroked her arch.
She giggled, very nearly pulling away. “That tickles.”
He glanced up to find her wrapped in the dress. It was the type that tied like a bathrobe, which meant it more or less covered her, but her breasts threatened to spill out of the neckline, unhindered by a bra.
“I have shoes too,” Elena announced, holding up those stupid sheepskin boots that made every woman look like she wanted to be an American Indian Princess from a Disney Movie.
He grunted his approval. Even if he hated the things, they had to be pretty much one-size-fits-all. “Give them to me.” And, kneeling at her feet, he slid one over her ankle, then the other.
Winding her long hair into a loose braid, Sonya smiled down at him self-consciously. “Okay. We’re ready. No time to fret over how awful I look.”
Thing was, she didn’t look awful at all. She looked amazing, like a bohemian beauty native to the streets of San Francisco. But no good could come from arguing with her.
She extended her hand to help him stand and kept a firm hold once he was on his feet.
He tugged her. “Come with me to the door.”
She obeyed, and again, he peered through the thin band of clear glass in the windowpane. The driver occupied himself with something in the car, but the passenger stood, resting his hands on the roof of the sedan, his eyes glued to Elena’s house. Could he see the shadow of Dmitri and Sonya behind the frosted glass? This thug didn’t look quite as stupid as the other, and his massive shoulders towered over the roof of the car. Big guy. Bigger than Dmitri. And familiar.
Dmitri’s hands shook for want of his morning cigarette, and he closed his eyes, trying to place the thug’s face. Were they those fools who had tripped up Gregor’s Odessa security operation and been chased out of the country? If his uncle had called those idiots, he was more than a little pissed that Dmitri wasn’t calling back. But what could he do—phone Gregor and explain he just had to help a ghost and then he would take out Makar and come home?
“Um, Dmitri, are they coming this way?”
He opened his eyes to see the big one rounding the nose of the car, his coat flapping behind him to reveal his double holsters. The other guy stepped out of the driver’s side. They moved fast, black suits, sunglasses, no soul. No, not the thugs from Odessa. Just two hired guns same as Dmitri, a type as familiar as his own face.
“Go to the car,” he ordered, barreling down the stairs into the garage as quickly as Sonya could follow. Elena’s tiny red roadster left plenty of room in the dark, narrow space.
“How are we going to fit in that?” Sonya asked, voicing Dmitri’s question.
Elena brandished her keys. “Just get in. They are coming up the stairs, and I do not want a gunfight in my house. Enough priceless objects have been broken for one week.”
“I’ll drive.” Dmitri held out his palm.
“Nope. Your job is to hold on to the ghost. Sonya, sit in his lap. That’s an order.”
He threw his bag into the narrow space in the back and fell into the bucket seat. Folding his legs under the dashboard, he pulled her down onto his thighs. Christ, it would have been a tight fit even if he didn’t have a tall woman perched on him. She had to hunch, her shoulder blades pressing into the ceiling of the car.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and flattened his cheek to her spine. “All right?”
“Just fine.” She squeezed his knee.
With plenty of room on her side of the car, his aunt pressed on the garage-door opener. The motor roared to life, letting the thugs know exactly where they were waiting like sitting ducks. Dmitri held his breath and squeezed Sonya. But the sports car was low, and by the time the black-clad legs appeared in the strip of light beneath the rising door, Elena gunned the engine and tore past them, screeching onto the road.
Dmitri laughed. His aunt staged an escape as dramatic as his best getaways. She joined in the laughter, raising her hand for a high-five.
The car slowed. He pressed his foot to the floor beneath the passenger seat as if there was a gas pedal there. “Don’t stop, damn it!”
“I’m flooring it,” Elena replied.
They glided to a halt in the middle of the street, a mere ha
lf a block from the house. Sonya pressed into Dmitri hard enough to steal his breath.
Elena slammed down the gas, revving the engine.
“What the hell?” he asked.
Like a giant winch was tugging it, the car began to slide backwards. Dmitri looked over his shoulder, where the thugs stared at each other stupidly. Finally, they sprinted toward the car. Every time Elena pushed the gas pedal, the wheels skidded over the asphalt with a shivering rub. Sonya pressed into Dmitri, her hips into his gut and her spine into his ribs, making it hard inhale.
“Lay off, ghost. Can’t breathe.”
“Can’t.” She gasped. “Something. Pulling. Me.”
Elena glanced away from the displays on the dash. “Where’s the teapot?”
From another person, the out-of-the-blue question simply didn’t follow, but from his auntie, it was a hypothesis. “On the counter, full of tea. Why?”
“I think she is tethered to it. We can’t get away from it.”
He craned his neck to look out the rear window. “Guess we are going to have to talk to our new friends.”
The men approached on either side of the car. Elena threw it into reverse and gunned the engine. Between the supernatural and regular old horsepower, the car practically flew back to the house, leaving the men exchanging more astonished glances.
Elena yanked on the parking brake and hopped out. “Cover me.”
To do that, he needed to clear the car and get a grip on his gun, and he preferred Sonya stay in the shelter of the vehicle. Only, there was no way to get out from under her, and the jogging men would be in range of Elena in seconds.
“Here, hurry.” Sonya took hold of his hand and climbed out of the car so that he could do the same.
He shielded her with his body. Pressing her hand against his lower back, she freed up both of his for his gun.
He took aim, and the men slowed, raising their palms.
“Relax,” the less-dumb-looking one called out. “We’re friends. Just coming by to see that you’re all right. Gregor’s worried about you.” Not quite friendly, but not exactly threatening either. These guys were only sent to spy.
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