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Kristoff Romanov was a man used to living in the shadows, and he operated best in darkness, or so he’d told me. But I refused to believe that. Maybe I was naive for thinking that I could have him walk into the sun with me. But even if it were only for a day, or even just an hour, I would take that chance. He didn’t have to exist in the cold and dreary, on that razor blade of despair and vengeance. All he needed to do was take my hand, just as I had taken his.
I took a breath and put my big girl panties on. I could do this. Whatever awaited me behind that door, whatevergrotesque, fearsome map into the depths of his soul I might find, I could handle it. Because I was not giving up on him, on us.
I pulled at his hand. “Lead the way.”
We moved past his cars until we reached a somewhat-hidden door that lead into the basement. My steps faltered. A sudden sharp image of Baldy, the man who had kidnapped me, flooded back into my brain. He had been tortured, almost beyond recognition. He was a vile man who I had detested, but who had become so desperate that he’d begged me to help him.
Kristoff seemed to sense what held me back. “No one’s down there.”
Meaning, he had disposed of Baldy. I gulped, and even though a part of me felt sorry for him, I didn’t really care about his fate. Perhaps that made me part sociopath, but the asshole had been a human trafficker and a rapist, forcing women into prostitution. Would I have killed him myself? No, but I wouldn’t shed a tear for him either. The world was a better place without him in it.
Kristoff led me down the stairs and into a back office.
He flicked on a switch, and it took my eyes a second to adjust to the light that burst into the space. The first thing I noticed was a large leather futon in the middle of the room. It was directed at a wall which held four massive whiteboards, all connected to each other.
Kristoff let go of my hand and sat on the futon. He didn’t say a word as I walked up to the boards, trying to make sense of all the notes, pictures, and red tape binding one piece of paper to another.
I felt his presence behind me, even though I knew he sat on the couch. He was giving me space to process what I was looking at. In the middle of it all was a picture of senator Ryan. To its left, as if she had been placed there as an afterthought, was a snapshot of Evie, the senator’s daughter. Below her was a grainypicture of some teenage boy. Chills went up my arms, dotting them with goose bumps.
I wasn’t sure how to go about this, so I just blurted, “This looks like a map of an obsessed detective or serial killer.”
He gave me a crooked smile. “I don’t want to catch the senator to bring him to justice. Lady Justice is truly blind when it concerns rich politicians.”
Sadly, that was a truth of life. The rich could get away with almost anything. “Then you want to kill him?” I wanted to just get it out there.
He shook his head. “No, I want to destroy him and force him to live in the world I created for him. Killing him would be an act of mercy, and to show mercy I would have to be able to forgive and forget. I’m not built to do either.”
Relief poured over me. Though perhaps the senator would prefer death over whatever Kristoff had planned for him, I hated the thought that he would kill his own father. No matter if the man deserved it, or if he’d only regarded him as a sperm donor. There were some things one couldn’t come back from, and I believed patricide was one of those.
It was only when I stepped back that I noticed the words in red at the top of the whiteboards. They said,Phase One,Phase Two, andPhase Three.
“What’s Phase one?” I asked.
He gave me a look as if he was contemplating something. “Want to accompany me to a fundraiser tomorrow night?”
12.
KATYA
It had the word ‘fun’ in it, but judging by Kristoff’s dark expression, tonight’s fundraiser was going to be anything but a happy occasion.
I sat across from him in the limo. Kristoff had gone all out for tonight. He hadn’t told me what the event was about or who was hosting it, but I knew it was important.
I put my high-heeled foot on the floor of the car, right between his legs. I wore stilettos because I knew how much he liked seeing me in them.
“What are you doing?”
“Right about now,” I said, while rubbing my foot on his heel, then heading up to his knee and beyond, “I’m trying to massage your dick with my foot.” Because I was mischievous like that. And because I didn’t like to see my guy look so tense.
Nothing ever seemed to phase him, and I liked that about him. Not because I believed he didn’t feel the way other people did, despite him claiming that, but because I knew that in a way he felt too much. So much so that he hadn’t stopped feeling the same dark feelings ever since the day his mother died. I wondered if he had any idea how much lighter he could feel if he simply threw that weight off his shoulders.
But I knew him. To Kristoff, a promise was a promise. And he had vowed to bring down his mother’s killer, so he would make good on his word. I just didn’t know what kind of a man he would be after he had done so.
It seemed like he wasn’t only going after the senator, but also everyone and everything in his path, including his own half brother and sister. Siblings he didn’t seem to think about for a second, because he was probably afraid that the moment he did,he knew he wouldn’t be able to let them go down in flames with their father.
I wondered if he realized that this would be the outcome, despite his efforts to only go after his father. If he meant to take the senator down, it would affect his entire family. To Kristoff, Evie and his little brother were just pawns on the board. They were faceless creatures he felt no empathy toward. That special feeling was reserved for his found family, the Bloody Ones, and his Bratva, and that was pretty much it.
“Tell me about the senator.”
