He’s never actually there.
Which is fine, honestly. I’ll be dead if I ever do see him again. The Feds told us the bratva think Mom and I turned witnesses for the government, but we never knew anything much about Dmitri’s work, much less Rafail’s.
Doesn’t matter to the Russian mafia. Perceived disloyalty is punishable by death.
“Hey. Miss.” A guy in a blue button-down, open at the collar, holds a twenty between two fingers trying to catch my attention. I ignore him until I run out of other customers to serve. Pricks like him never tip well, anyway. He takes his drink and confirms my suspicions by not tipping at all.
I’ll flirt for tips, but I don’t date.
I keep my head down and mind my business.
I don’t make friends. What’s the point when I might have to run again?
A lull hits. The other girl working the bar tonight taps my shoulder and jerks her head. “Who’s that scary guy?”
“No clue.” I barely glance the way she indicates. We get a problem drinker routinely. Baltimore has some rough characters, despite this being a bar that caters to a relatively upscale crowd.
“He hasn’t stopped staring at you all night,” she says.
I whip my head around for a second look. Subtle of me, I know. I stare at him for a long moment. Time slows. My pulse kicks into overdrive.
It’s him.
Rafail.
He looks the same, apart from slightly longer black hair and a few more tattoos peeking out of his half-unbuttoned shirt. A shiny gold cross hangs below the hollow of his throat. Truly a sacrilege if half of what the FBI told me about him is true.
“Cover me a minute.” I don’t wait for the other bartender to respond. I stride over to the man with tattoos on his knuckles and a strand of longish hair hanging over his sculpted features. I slam a tumbler of ice onto the wood before him and splash two fingers of vodka into it. “Remember me?”
That tiny little smirk I thought was infuriatingly sexy when I was sixteen is the same. It still sends a rush of heat pulsing through my core. I’m not a child anymore. I should really be over the whole bad boy thing, and yet…
“How could I forget?” he says.
“Smooth, Rafail.” I roll my eyes and lift the tumbler to my own lips, downing the contents straight. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t call the Feds on you right now.”
His amber gaze slowly scans my body, taking in the tight black tank top, black pants, and sensible black shoes. My hair is a little shorter than the last time he saw it, trimmed to my mid-back and held away from my face with an elastic band. Nojewelry except for a pair of tiny gold earrings in my earlobes. Heat radiates through my body.
Suddenly self-conscious, I nervously attempt to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, only nothing has escaped from the tight ponytail. An empty gesture that he follows with those compelling eyes.
“I warned you to stay away from vodka.” Hetskslike a disapproving babushka and ignores my question. I’ve picked up a few Russian words since my stepdad was arrested. Purely out of curiosity.
“Seriously. What are you doing here?” I have so many questions, but this isn’t the time or the place. He isn’t supposed to know where I work, where I live, or my fake identity. Lila Davis only exists on paper, but I’ve inhabited her for the past five years. He could shoot me right now.
Why hasn’t he?
I can’t decide whether I’m flattered or frightened that he sought me out after all this time. Frightened. Definitely. The things I’ve learned about him…Murder. Torture. Arms dealing. Bribery and money laundering. He is a very dangerous man.
“Do you still have the gift I gave you?” he asks bluntly.
I shrug. “Gone. Lost it in a move.”
It’s sitting in my childhood music box with the other handful of mementos from my previous life as Hailey Bennet. Photographs of my mother and me. Her and Dmitiri’s wedding picture. A few from my sixteenth birthday party. Every time I look at them, it feels like a dream. That was the last time I can remember feeling safe and happy.
I had no idea how much danger I was in.
He stares at me for a long moment. Tension stretches taut between us. A crowd comes in, loud and raucous.
“Good talk. I gotta get back to work.” I rap the gleaming wood bar twice and walk away. Already, my mind is whirling. I haveto leave. I should call my contact at the FBI and report that my identity has been compromised.
