Page 64 of Lethal Obsession

And I’m going back to the place where Alexei first kissed me.

Maybe that isn’t what I should remember about my twenty-first birthday. Maybe I should remember the way he rejected me, his face as he pushed me away.

But somewhere in my mind, Granada will always hold the magic of that kiss, of the realization that whatever lies between us is more than simply fantasy.

And now we can be there again. Together.

Because as Lars said: Alexei can’t go back to Miami, at least not for a while.

Which means he can come and find me.

And finish what we started last night.

“I’m so excited,” Lourdes says, her eyes shining.

I grip her arms, my heart thudding. “Me too,” I say breathlessly. “Me too.”

10

Alexei

Quantum Drift is smaller and faster than my or Lars’s superyachts and is already waiting at Marseilles. Instead of heading there, though, I send Lars a message from an internet café on the outskirts of Paris, using the private code we devised during my years in captivity with the Orlovs, giving him a longitude and latitude to send the yacht. Then I dye my hair black in a truck stop just outside Paris, swap my eye patch for dark glasses, and buy a shirt and jeans. I pay a homeless guy outside the truck stop twenty euros for his dirty Barça football cap, then buy dinner for a Spanish truck driver heading home to Barcelona. He talks almost nonstop during the eight hundred plus kilometers to the border and only falls quiet in the early hours as we cross the Pyrenees into Spain.

From a bus stop just outside the city, I take a bus down to Tarragona, then board the ferry out to Palma island. I spend an uncomfortable night curled up beneath a boardwalk, my hand tightly clasped around the square box in my pocket that has somehow survived the chaos to here.

In the early hours of the morning, I hit the fish markets and buy a large foam box of freshly caught bluefin tuna packed on ice. At the marina, I bargain with a local charter operation.

“It is for some rich man on a yacht,” I tell him, layering my Spanish with a heavy Russian accent. “My boss asked me to take it.” I shrug, as if I were any other immigrant worker doing whatever I need to for a cash rate. He rolls his eyes but casts off readily enough when he sees the roll of cash.

Quantum Drift is anchored in a small patch of international water between Palma and Sardinia. The crew drop the ladder down the side and take the foam box of fish. “The boss wants you to come on board too,” the crewman orders me.

I feign confusion. “Why?”

The crewman rolls his eyes. “Wants you to tell his friends exactly where the fish was caught or some bullshit. I don’t know. Hurry up.”

The charter guy snorts. “Rich people,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Rather you than me,” he says dryly as I mount the ladder. “If you want me to pick you up again, just let me know.”

“Doubt it,” says the crewman over my head. “We’re heading for Greece in the morning. But thanks.”

I climb over the railing to stand on the deck. The crewman waits until the charter boat is out of sight to drop the act. “Welcome aboard, sir,” he says, grinning as he shakes my hand. “Almost didn’t recognize you for a moment there.”

“That’s kind of the point.” I return his smile and turn to the captain, who is tall, extremely brawny, and grinning even more widely than the crewman. “Good to see you again, Andrew.” The captain is an Australian guy who’s worked for both Lars and me for several years now. He and Lola, his Spanish wife, are both ex-navy in their respective countries and double as very effective security as well as run an extremely tight ship.

Best of all, they know not to ask awkward questions.

“Phone,” Andrew says, handing me a box. “We keep several of them on board in case of emergencies. It’s as secure as phones get. And you’re familiar with the cyber room,” he adds. It isn’t a question, since he knows Lars and I designed the secure room together. “You have your own code for the door, obviously.”

“Yes.” I look around at sea, but there’s only the vaguest blur of land in the distance. “Where are we heading?”

“South, currently, but we can change course if you wish.”

“No.” I turn my face up to the sun. “South is good. I’ll let you know more later.” I yawn. It’s been a long couple of days. “For now, I’m heading for the shower. When I get out, I’ll take a bottle of vodka and some of that bluefin tuna I brought with me.”

Andrew grins. “Nice choice. I’ll get Chef to make up a plate of sashimi. And we’ve got Graf vodka in stock, of course.”

Of course. I return his smile. Graf isn’t just my family’s favorite vodka. It’s part of our family legacy, the means by which my father once smuggled the Naryshkin treasures out of Russia.

My father. Fuck. I promised we’d spend time together in Paris.