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“To live,” he explains. “She thinks it would be good for her to be back in America and with me. Apparently, I have authoritarian tendencies.”
I gasp in obviously sarcastic shock. “You? No. Never.”
He smirks for a moment before it fades back into brooding. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. Mariya is allergic to authority. The last thing I want is for her to come here and break the rules I put in place for her protection and end up getting hurt. I also don’t want my mother to be alone.”
“She wouldn’t move back to America, too?”
“She feels safer there. After what happened to my father, she needed to get away. Now, she’s older and her health is starting to fail. I don’t think uprooting her life there would do her any favors.”
“But you miss her,” I guess.
His brow creases, but he keeps his eyes on the ceiling. “Missing them isn’t a good enough reason to put them in danger. They’re both better off there.”
He’s answered so many of my questions already that I can’t help myself. I can’t stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth. “Is it the same people who are after me? Are they after the rest of your family, too?”
He rolls onto his side. Awareness tingles through me. “If I could tell you what is going on and know that the information wouldn’t put you in danger, I’d tell you.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I know.”
“No, you don’t.” He presses his palm to my cheek. “I want to tell you. But my job is to keep you safe. No matter what it takes.”
I’ve never been more turned on by someone refusing to answer my questions than I am right now. I bite my lower lip. “You know, I’m starting to think that under these superhero movie muscles, you might actually be kind of a softy.”
“Not as soft as you.” His hand trails down my neck and beneath the comforter. I never put my pajamas back on last night, so it’s a very quick jump from touching to Yakov curling around me and entering me from behind.
When we both finish, he hauls me back against his chest. I fall asleep with his arm around my waist and his breath in my hair.
Three hours later, I wake up alone with a note on the bed next to me.
Something came up this morning. There are pancakes in the fridge for you. I never break a promise.
26
YAKOV
The man across the table from me is rubbing his hands raw trying to figure out what he should do here.
I don’t know why. It’s simple. I’ve told him exactly what he’s going to do.
“There isn’t a choice here, Feliks,” Nik chimes in, growing frustrated. “Yakov is giving you a better cut of the money than Akim ever has. There is no decision.”
Feliks obviously disagrees. He is shaking. Has been since he walked into the hotel room an hour ago. I didn’t even need to freak him out by laying out the years’ worth of transactions I gathered together into a tidy little folder.
If he refuses my deal, I’ll make sure they are “anonymously” handed to a federal agent. But I think if I tell him about that little incentive now, he’ll combust, piss himself, or both.
I would usually take a meeting like this at the mansion, but I don’t want business like this too close to Luna. Especially when it has anything at all to do with Akim Gustev. She asks enough questions as it is.
I answered them last night because she made it well worth my time. This morning… I don’t have an excuse for that. Having her in my bed felt right. She asked questions I could answer, so I did.
Now, the image of her lying in my bed, the duvet around her waist and her smooth skin glowing in the early morning light, is stuck in my head.
Goddammit.
Fucking her out of my system might take longer than I planned.
“I have a lot to think about,” Feliks mumbles, bringing me back to the here and now.
“Like how to end your arrangement with Akim?” Nik asks. “I’d suggest a tasteful fruit basket with a little card. He’ll like that.”
