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He throws me one last pleading look, but I stare blankly back at him. Without another word, he skulks off with his shoulders slumped. He pushes through the restaurant doors and disappears.
“Well,” Nikita says after a moment, “that was a surprisingly entertaining lunch.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Why?” she asks. “I’ve always enjoyed a side of drama with my pasta. Shall we head off?”
I hate that Anthony’s surprise appearance has Nikita in a better mood than my company could have done. But I don’t have the energy to try anymore. I’m ready to go home.
I nod silently and follow her outside to the street where our car is parked. I scan the area, but I don’t see any sign of Anthony lurking around.
I take a deep breath once I’m in the car, but I’m still rattled.
“You okay?” Nikita asks.
“Not really.”
“I’m assuming that’s the first time you’ve seen him since he disappeared on you?”
“Correct.”
“Why do you think he showed up today?”
I bite my tongue and shake my head. “I have no idea.”
It’s the first time I’ve lied to Nikita. I’m just hoping she can’t smell it on me. Because I do have an idea of why he’s resurfaced. A very good idea.
I think it has everything to do with the ring on my finger.
66
MISHA
“Something isn’t right here,” Konstantin muses.
“Obviously not. Yan sold his soul for a measly million dollars,” I say, gesturing to the paper trail of betrayal Yan left in his wake. “I expected him to be smarter. Especially with his life on the line.”
“It’s more than that,” Konstantin says, picking up another stack of papers. “The attacks on the safehouses. The missing money man. I have a feeling they might be connected.”
“You think Yan was the rat?”
“One of several, maybe.”
It’s rare to see Konstantin without a smile. But for the last hour, the two of us have been sitting here, trying to figure out what we might be missing. It has put an uncharacteristic frown on his face.
“The missing money man—what’s his name?”
“Jimmy Garner. He has a reputation as a con man.”
“Most of them do. Which is why the money men rarely handle anything too sensitive. You can’t be a rat when you don’t have real information.”
“But you get close enough to the important places to be able to pick up information if you’re paying attention,” he says. “It might be just the currency he needed to curry the favor of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
I hate when he has a point. “There’s no trace of him yet?”
“Not yet. For all we know, he could be lying in a ditch somewhere.”
“If he was, we’d have a body.”
