But I also know that the reason we came here still matters. I need to give the blackmailer another chance at Tommy, and they won’t approach him if I’m hovering.
Tommy and Kira made several plans to split up during the event under the guise of mingling, getting air, grabbing drinks, even getting something from the car if nothing else works.Meanwhile, Yosef and my team are blending with the crowd, with the valets, with pedestrians on the street. My ‘eyes in the sky’ team are hacked into every traffic camera within a three-mile radius. When the blackmailer makes contact this time, they won’t get away.
“Mr. Sokolov!” I’m greeted enthusiastically by some general acquaintances. I join them, impassive and unmoved. These people make me feel nothing. Never have. Never will.
The person who brings me to life is downstairs, possibly needing me to understand how he feels right now, and I can’t.
I might not understand most emotions, but I do recognize frustration. My temper starts to fray and I hold tight to my self-control.
I just have to get through tonight. That’s all.
By the time an hour has passed, the mantra is near-constant in my mind. I’m itching to get my hands back on Tommy. To question him, to push him, to make him react in a way I can interpret.
He’s so good, I know he’ll give me all the clues I need. I just need to prod him a little more, and he’ll lay out exactly what this new test is. Like he always does, without even realizing it.
“Uncle Young-gi.”
I whirl. Kira blinks up at me, and I reflexively pat her on her head, as I usually do.
“Kira,” I greet her, my eyes over her shoulder, scanning for him. “Where’s Tommy?”
“This is one of our breaks,” she explains under her breath. “Giving him a chance to be approached alone. He’s just looking at the art while I visit with you.”
“Hm.” I know it was the plan, but I don’t like that he’s alone. Technically, he’s being watched by several of my people, men and women in the crowd, butI’mnot with him, and that bothers me.
“He’ll be fine,” Kira says.
“I know.”
“Do you? You seem…worried.”
Worried?“Is that what this is?” I murmur to myself, putting a hand over my chest with a frown. Yes, that makes sense. Perhaps this is worry.
“You really like him, don’t you?” Kira leans closer, making sure she isn’t overheard. The ambient noise in the church is quite loud; a hundred or more voices all talking at once, strains of music in some hidden speakers, and the dull roar of the storm still raging outside.
“I…I’m going to keep him,” I reply, because to me, that answers the question. That’s measurable action, not murky emotion. “Does that…bother you?”
Her smile lights up her entire face. “Of course not. I think you’ve been good for each other. He seems happy. Like, really happy.”
“He does?”
“And he’s always thinking about you, or looking for you wherever we go. He was so worried when, well, the other night when we met with you,” she whispers, smart enough not to mention the blackmail out loud. “I think he actually might really, really like you.”
At a loss for what to do or how to process that, I pat her head again.
She laughingly moves out from under my hand. “I mean it!”
“I know you do.”
“So…?” she presses. “Are you going to talk to him about it?”
“About what?”
“About how you feel, of course!”
This is too close to what I was fretting about earlier. Honestly, me fretting? Wringing my hands? It’s incredible that I’ve beenbrought so low. I’m the leader of a bratva for fuck’s sake. But Tommy makes me worry. He has me on a string.
I’ll never let him leave. As long as he wants me to keep him, he’s mine.
