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“Peter Orlov,” he replies. “He’s a dead man.” He gets to his feet. “Stay here,” he adds.
My blood freezes as his eyes fix on me. They’re not a man’s eyes anymore. They belong to the devil.
He pulls the door open and disappears through it. I get to my feet and try the handle. He’s locked me in.
I go back to the desk and walk around it. I want to look at the screen, but before I can, I’m distracted by the papers on the desk. No, not papers, photos.
I pick some up. Pictures of me. On the street. At home. Taken through my window. Grocery shopping. In a cab. Hell, there’s even one of me arriving here this morning. What does this mean?
The earliest one is of my eighteenth birthday party, back when I had friends. They all drifted away as they went to college and I kept working. My nineteenth was spent alone.
I move my eyes up to the screen. Two camera feeds are visible, splitting the screen in half. One shows the desk where I was sitting until a couple of minutes ago.
The other side of the screen shows the building lobby. I gasp in shock at the sight. Half a dozen men are waving machine guns around, corralling people together in the corner.
The door unlocks as I’m staring and Alessandro strides back in, closing it quickly behind him. “What are these?” I ask, picking up the photos. Why do you have these?”
“Not now,” he says, grabbing the red phone on the desk. He hits zero, and it connects at once.
He snarls down the line. “Orlov’s here in my building. He’s hacked the elevator controls. On his way up now. I want him and his men skinned and in the Hudson River within an hour or I’ll rip your fucking head off.” He listens for a moment. “Her? She’ll come with me.”
A loud thud against the office door makes me jump. Someone, or something, is trying to break in. Alessandro remains calm, setting the phone down before reaching into his drawer, pulling out a gun.
“Get behind me,” he says as the thuds grow louder.
I can’t move. I’m frozen with fear.
The frame buckles under the force and crashes inward as Alessandro steps in front of me. A figure appears in the broken doorway. My ears ring as a gun fires next to my head.
Alessandro shot him.
The figure falls to the ground, blood pooling underneath the body. My obsession just killed a man right in front of my eyes.
Another figure appears. A man in his fifties, a shock of white hair and an eye patch over his right eye. He’s grinning at the two of us.
“Good morning, Vittorio,” the man says in a thick Russian accent. “Ready to talk yet?”
“Orlov,” Alessandro says, raising his gun. “You should have made an appointment.”
“You should’ve said yes last time,” Orlov replies, tossing something into the room before ducking out of sight.
“Grenade,” Alessandro says, reaching past me and pressing something on the wall by the bookcase.
A secret door slides open and Alessandro tosses me through the gap. He’s right behind me as the door slams shut. An instant later, the grenade explodes, the sound muffled behind the door.
“Relax,” Alessandro says, taking hold of my arm. His touch makes me want to melt into his embrace and never let go. I know I’d always feel safe in those strong arms of his.
“That door’s a foot thick,” he says reassuringly. “Nothing’s getting through.”
“You’re smiling,” I reply, shivering uncontrollably as I stare up at him. “You just killed a man. We almost died, and you’re smiling at me. Why?”
“Because we’re about to get married.”
2
ALESSANDRO
As I guide Emily through the secret corridor to the stairwell, a sense of satisfaction mixes with my concern. That scent of hers still drives me wild. I want to stop, turn around and fuck her, right here, right now.
