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“No.” Levin lets out a long breath. “Lidiya, it’s for–”
“Please don’t say it’s for my own good.” I close my eyes briefly, still feeling like I’m fighting back tears. “You really think this will help? You think this might make it so that we can be done? Completely done? We go back to Moscow, and I’m out?”
“I think it might. It’s a chance–but it’s a good one. Does he take everything with him, every day?”
I shake my head. “But he keeps all his things locked in the second bedroom. When I asked, he said that it’s investment papers, that he could get in trouble if it wasn’t secure.”
“He’s treating you like an idiot,” Levin growls. “I can get into a locked room. That’s not an issue. Just get me into the house.”
“Okay.” I breathe the word before I can think better of it, because I want more than anything to be done with this. I want it to be over, to be able to go home, to put Grisha and this entire job behind me forever. I’m willing to take a risk, if that’s possible.
“Tomorrow.” Levin looks relieved as he says it. “I’ll come at noon. Let me in the back, and I’ll be quick.”
I nod, feeling my throat tighten as I do. If Grisha finds him in the house, there will be no excuse I can come up with to fix it–nothing that will get me out of trouble. Levin will have to take me with him to keep me safe, and if he doesn’t–
I can’t think like that. He promised me I would be safe. I have to believe him.
“Tomorrow,” I echo, and then I get up, backing away.
I can’t let him touch me right now, or I won’t be able to stop. I’ll need the comfort of how he makes me forget everything, and I’ll lose myself in him.
So I turn around, without even a goodbye, and flee back down the beach.
—
Levin is there, at noon, as he promised. I open the sliding door at the back of the house, letting him in, my heart beating so hard that it hurts. “Quickly,” I whisper. “Grisha left an hour ago, he shouldn’t be back until at least five. But I don’t want to risk it. We’re getting to the end of the trip, there can only be so many meetings, and–”
“I’ll be quick,” Levin reassures me. There’s that sharp, cold professionalism in his tone, in the way he moves, like he was with me at first. There’s nothing of the warm, sensual man who has seduced me into bed so many times, who has made me want him in ways that I never imagined I could. “Just wait in the bedroom.”
I feel like I’m going to be sick, but I do as he says. I slip into the bedroom, closing the door behind me as I knot my hands in my lap, hoping that he can make this as fast as he claims he can.
What does he do, really?I feel a fresh wave of anxiety at the thought, my mind racing to places that seem impossibly ridiculous. But as I go back through it all, everything that’s happened since I tripped and fell in the train station, the pieces fit together better than I’d like for them to.
I jump at every sound, having to remind myself that anything I hear is almost certainly Levin, and not Grisha back early to surprise me and throw everything into a panic. The seconds that tick by feel like minutes, until I finally hear a knock at the door that makes me cover my mouth to muffle the small, frightened noise I make.
“Lidiya?” It’s Levin’s voice that comes through the door. “Are you alright?”
I swallow hard, getting up from the bed and crossing the room to open the door. “Yeah,” I tell him in a small voice, feeling a little embarrassed for being so jumpy. “Did you find anything?”
“I did.” Levin looks at me, and I can see a hint of concern in his eyes. “I took photos and left the papers as I found them, so don’t worry about him noticing anything is wrong.” He pauses. “Did you know that you’re going to a dinner party with him tonight?”
The look on my face when he says it makes it obvious, I think, that I didn’t.
“No.” I frown. “Grisha didn’t say anything.”
“It’s probably his fucked up idea of a surprise,” Levin mutters. “Look, Lidiya–I have to make a call when I get back to my hotel. But if that call goes the way I think it will, this will all be resolved tonight. Just keep your head down until then, play the game with Grisha, and I’ll get you out. Alright?”
He reaches out, his fingers brushing under my chin as he tilts my head up so that I’m looking directly into his eyes. “Alright?”
I nod. “I’ll play the game. Don’t worry. I can keep it up a little longer.”
“I know you can.” His hand shifts, sliding to cup my cheek as his thumb brushes over my lower lip, and a shudder runs through my entire body. “I believe in you, Lidiya. You’re the toughest woman I’ve ever met.”
Levin takes a step back then, glancing towards the front door. “I need to go. I’ll see you soon,” he promises, and then before I can say another word, he’s striding towards the glass door at the back–and then he’s gone.
I feel a little like I can’t breathe. I’d had no idea that I was going to be attending a dinner party with Grisha tonight–almost certainly with these “business” associates that I know are cartel members. The thought makes my blood run cold with fear.
I only have to get through tonight. And then Levin will get me out.
