Page 114 of Mile High Ruin

His eyebrows draw together.

I continue before he can interrupt. “If I go with you, I’m going because I’m choosing the option that currently seems less dangerous than wandering around Bucharest alone while somebody may or may not think I know something about a tracker. I’m not going because you ordered me to.”

He studies me for a long moment. “If that distinction matters to you, keep it.”

I glance at Marek. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, caught between a frown and scheming. Am I imagining it or does he know something?

Anton finally intervenes. “We need to leave within the hour.”

“Leave for where?” I ask.

Vadim answers before Anton can. “Somewhere more secure.”

“Which is?”

“You will know when we arrive.”

I stare at him. “You really enjoy withholding information.”

“I enjoy limiting information.”

“Same thing.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

His mouth almost curves.

There’s something deeply irritating about the fact that we are already slipping back into this rhythm after everything that happened last night.

He still doesn’t trust me.

I certainly don’t trust him.

Yet I’m sitting at his table wearing one of his hotel’s robes, eating his breakfast, holding the phone he had searched, and agreeing to follow him somewhere he refuses to name.

It should feel absurd. Instead, it feels like we have quietly entered some kind of contest without setting the rules.

He watches me for lies. I watch him for whatever he’s hiding. Neither of us wants to give the other too much. Neither of us seems willing to walk away.

I pick up my coffee and meet his eyes over the rim. “All right. I’ll go.”

Vadim nods once. There’s no triumph in his expression, which somehow makes me trust the decision slightly more.

“But if you take my phone again while I’m sleeping,” I add, “I’m going to pour something much worse than champagne on you.”

Marek laughs into his coffee.

Vadim holds my gaze for another second before answering.

“I believe you.”

18

VADIM

By the time we leave the hotel, Sloane has stopped referring to herself as my captive only because she discovers she’s not the only one.