Page 23 of Assassin's Heart


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It’s implied he’d be paying for it, which makes me less likely to take him up on the offer. I don’t want to owe Levin Volkov anything. When this business with Grisha is done, I want to walk away and put him in my rear view, a necessary evil that I can forget about.

Whatever it takes to keep us from getting closer to each other in the meantime, that’s what I need to do. No more nights like last night where we sit on the bed laughing, no more accidental moments like Levin feeding me that bite of food. I need to keep my distance.

I zip up the suitcase with more force than necessary, dragging it off the bed. Levin steps forward instantly, extending his hand to take it from me like a gentleman, but I shake my head stubbornly.

“I can manage.” My grip on the handle tightens, and Levin looks at me dubiously.

“You’re going to carry that all the way back to the hotel?”

“I’ll be fine,” I insist, and he sighs.

“Have it your way, then.” He inclines his head towards the door. “Is there anything else you need, or can we go? I’m pretty sure it’s warmer outside.”

He isn’t wrong. Even the bitter chill of the outdoors feels more tolerable compared to my apartment. The suitcasedoesget heavy as we walk back to the hotel, but I refuse to relinquish it, not wanting to give myself another reason to like him.

“You can take whatever space in the dresser you want,” Levin says affably once we’re back in the hotel room. “I’ll order us some lunch.”

The silence between us feels awkward as I fold my clothes into the top drawer of the dresser. For all intents and purposes, I’ve just moved in here, with a man I’ve known for less than two days and who is forcing me into a relationship with my ex that I don’t want. I’ve never actually lived with a man—the amount of time I spent at Grisha’s apartment was the closest I’ve ever gotten, and this feels uncomfortably intimate. We might not be dating, or sharing a bed, but we’re both living in this hotel room.

I gingerly set my stack of books on the side table next to the bed, aware that I’m making myself at home here, leaving physical reminders of my presence in the room. When I put my makeup away in the bathroom, it feels like the final nail in the coffin in accepting that for the foreseeable future, this is my home—this luxury room with this dangerous, handsome man who frightens and confuses me all at once.

“I should explain more about Grisha,” Levin says when our food comes. We’re perched the way we were this morning again, him on the sofa and me on the bed, the space of the room between us. It feels intentional, as if we’re both wary of one another, although I can’t imagine what reasonhehas to be wary ofme.

“Please do.” I poke at the sandwich he ordered me, a grilled chicken and avocado with a mustardy dressing on some kind of pillowy bread, with a pile of those lemon truffle fries next to it. They look crisp, the cheese clinging to them, and the food smells amazing, but just the mention of Grisha is enough to steal my appetite.

“I can’t give you all the details,” Levin says. “I’m sure you understand.”

“Give me as much as you can.” I bite into a fry, salt and citrus bursting across my tongue, delicious enough to make someone cry. But I’m too anxious to even really notice, my pulse speeding up in my throat.

“You’re looking for financial statements, listening for him to mention a cartel, dealings in drugs or fronts for significant amounts of money.” Levin pauses, taking a bite out of the steak sandwich he ordered, and I stare at him, the fry I just picked up dropping back onto my plate.

“Thecartel?As in like—Mexico? Mexican cartels?” I feel faintly nauseous. “You’ve got to be kidding me, they’re—that’s really dangerous, Levin.”

“I know,” he says dryly. “I’ve worked with them before, and come up against others, and some South American gangs, in the past.” He turns his arm so that I can see a long scar that runs along his forearm, knotted with scar tissue and purple against his skin. “A souvenir from a particularly touchy one, in El Salvador.”

I swallow hard, but my mouth has gone so dry that it’s nothing but my throat convulsing. It hadn’t hit me until right this second just how bad, how dangerous, this could really be. I’ve grown up in a country where people disappear sometimes, where the government has agents who hunt and torture and kill spies and dissidents, where opinions voiced too loudly can be dangerous. But I’ve neverbeenone of those people. I grew up quietly, first with my parents and then with mybabushka, after they died. I went to graduate school for archeology.

“This isn’t normal for me,” I blurt out. “I’m not an activist, or a protestor, or someone who has loud opinions. I keep to myself. I’m someone who goes out of her way to stayoutof danger, not walk into it. This isn’t, I can’t—”

“You can, Lidiya, because you have to,” Levin says bluntly. “I’ll do all I can to keep you safe. All you’re doing is keeping up the pretense of a real relationship with Grisha—that you love him, that you forgive him, that you want to be with him, and listening and looking as much as you’re able to in the meantime. You can do this—I know you can.” He smiles encouragingly at me, but it doesn’t do much to quell the nausea in my stomach. “I’ve put women less savvy and intelligent than you on jobs like this. You’re going to be just fine, Lidiya.”

“I don’t know—” I bite my lower lip. I want to run. I want to bail. Cartels, drugs, gangs, money laundering, it all sounds so far beyond anything I’d ever imagined myself adjacent to. But from the look on Levin’s face, I know there’s no out. We’ve gone too far—not that there ever really was an out, in the first place.

“Make the call.” Levin nods to the black burner phone on the nightstand next to me. “Call Grisha and set up a date.”

I swallow convulsively. I feel frozen to the spot, like I can’t move.

“Lidiya. Now. Put it on speaker.”

Something in Levin’s voice, the commanding note in his tone, thaws my blood, turning it from ice to something warm and pumping again. I feel myself flushing, a tingling racing over my skin at the sound of his orders, not unlike yesterday when he held me up against that door.

Slowly, I reach for the phone, if only to have something to do other than think about that, the one thing that I know more than anything I shouldn’t be remembering.

I dial Grisha’s number, wanting with every second that passes, every ring, to hang up.

“Hello?” His voice, smooth and elegantly accented, comes over the line.

“Hi. Um—Grisha. It’s Lidiya. I—”

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