Page 117 of Lethal Obsession

You’re fucking delusional.

I release the box like it’s a hot coal, reality searing away the fantasy.

How can you believe, for one minute, that any of that is possible?

Even if I lie low until November, Miami will have to be dealt with eventually.

I’m still bound to the swamp. To the vault in my family’s basement, and the blood and secrecy of the Naryshkin legacy.

Mak might talk about my coding abilities, and Andersson Technologies, like it’s a way out. But while Lars might look good on the cover of Time magazine as an entrepreneur, my origin story is far too dark to allow me to sit in boardrooms in a shiny suit, flashing a thousand-watt smile. I didn’t need to read the mass of dark tabloid headlines Lars sent through to remind me that I’m about as far from the American dream as a man gets.

My life isn’t the kind of darkness you get to just walk away from.

And the thought of bringing Ofelia home to that life makes me sick inside. Even imagining her in those echoing marble corridors, sleeping above the basement in which I tortured her, turns my gut.

There’s no sunshine in that picture. No golden afternoon. Not the peace, happiness, and laughter she deserves.

My father has hinted, more than once, that I could join Roman in Spain. But much as I admire Mercura and Roman’s organization, the thought of coexisting with him makes me want to grind my teeth. I don’t want to work with him, and I don’t want him to be my competition. Nor does Roman want anyone dragging his family back into the streets he worked so hard to pull them away from. He created Mercura so that he could transcend the day-to-day blood and violence that has always been bratva business, and when he looks at me, that business is all he sees. I know it’s the reason for his thinly veiled hostility, and I don’t blame him.

Which leaves me where, exactly?

I pace the deck, my hand returning to the box in my pocket.

What I really want is to just disappear.

To sail into the sunset with Ofelia at my side and no fixed destination.

Fantasy.

That’s what that is, and I know it.

But if it’s fantasy, then what the fuck am I doing?

I won’t walk away from Ofelia. I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to.

But I don’t know how to make a life with her either.

The truth is that some inner part of me has, for a long time, known Ofelia is forever.

But when I can’t even plan for a tomorrow with her, how dare I contemplate forever?

Midmorning three days later, when I’m going half mad waiting as Mickey takes his sweet time setting up Ofelia’s secure room, we weigh anchor just off the coast of Sardinia, and Andrew joins me on the deck.

“We’ve got company.” He gives me a rather dry look and hands me a set of binoculars, through which I see a high-powered boat streaking across the water toward us.

Seated at the rear, wearing deck shorts, dark glasses, and his ever-present loose grin, is Lars.

“You crazy bastard,” I greet him as he leaps from the boat onto the docking platform, unable to keep the wide smile from my face despite my words. “You’re lucky my crew didn’t put a bullet in your boat. Ever heard of comms?”

“Comms are the reason I’m here, motherfucker.” He wraps me in one of his enveloping hugs, which he always holds for far too long. I get a secret amusement out of watching hard men like Roman dodge hastily when he approaches them with his arms wide.

But Lars’s hugs have never bothered me. And on days like today, when the isolation is starting to feel like a fucking prison, I don’t mind at all.

“Coffee,” I say, when he finally releases me, “or booze?”

“Oh, fucking please.” Lars rolls his eyes, slinging an arm around my shoulders as we reach the lower deck and steering me toward the bar. “Idiotic question.” Reaching for the Akvavit I always keep on hand for him, he pours us both an icy cold shot. “Don’t argue,” he says, clinking his shot glass to mine. “Akvavit was originally medicine, you do know this?”

“It was also used as gunpowder,” I say dryly, but I drink anyway, grimacing at the bitter taste. “Now—why the fuck are you here? I thought you were supposed to be impersonating me on an island somewhere.”