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“Do we have someone keeping an eye on the airports in the area?”
“Absolutely.”
He fills me in on the Moretti mess, how the authorities have already begun sweeping it under the rug. Moretti’s family and men know better, and they know who he was to meet that night so we won’t have a choice but to deal with their wrath in the future, but he reassures me there are no eyes on the church.
With the turn of events last night, I couldn’t leave Nikoletta so Dmitri and Grigori handled Silas and retrieved the money. I only hope they did it as painfully as I would have. I find little satisfaction in his death, only resentment it happened by their hands and not mine.
Joining Nikoletta, I let myself get closer than I have since we woke up tangled in one another under the heavy weight of how far we’d let things go the night before. When I reach for the knife, she flicks her wrist, flipping the handle in her hand until the blade is tucked along the edge of her forearm.
“So you do know how to use it?”
“I’m not a child anymore, Kostya.”
When I search her eyes, I see the challenge there, but also the quiet confidence. And love. So much love in those eyes for me. It’s so deep and fathomless I have to glance away.
“How would you like to see the place I first held you?” The words are out before I can consider how bad of an idea it is, and the hopeful look flashing in her eyes keeps me from taking it back.
Her lips part and the smile stabs me right in the fucking chest. Up on her tiptoes now, she moves in to kiss my cheek, but I turn my head so our mouths are right there, just a fraction of space between them.
I’m a fool to take this risk in front of Dmitri. He may be one of my men, but to take the chance of anyone knowing beyond the two of us will only result in weakness.
She settles her lips over the corner of my mouth and the gesture is so fucking intimate, but also innocent in a way that renders me speechless and unable to move.
I can only want.
My frayed control lies in tatters and I swear to all that’s holy, one gust from the Devil and I’ll be doing the things I can’t take back.
“Show me.”
The timing of those two words from her tempting lips with the thoughts burning through my mind take another swipe at my control, but I nod with every intention on fulfilling the offer.
After what she suffered last night, after being so fucking brave facing her biggest fear, what choice do I have?
Taking her hand, I guide her out of the crypts, along the long hall that will take us to the heavy wood doors leading to the vestibule. The tension simmering between us slips away as she takes in the stained glass, ornate woodwork, and brass grates along the stairs leading up to the old cathedral.
She’s all delicate touches and gasps of delight, closing her eyes as she inhales the scent of a long, unique history.
Maksim’s decision to baptize her here stunned everyone. We’d been in New York for the better part of a month while he secured alliances throughout the boroughs of the city. He always gravitated to more lavish spectacles, but when Nikoletta’s mother suggested St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown Manhattan, he immediately turned it down.
Instead, he favored something more personal. Closer to the part of the city that welcomed immigrants. The place where the foundation for alliances and power soared.
I’ll never forget that day. For once, we could focus on the family since we didn’t have to manage security in the middle of a global tourist attraction. Maksim’s wife and Vlad’s mother, Elena, had not intruded yet on the day, and Maksim carried a smile that reminded me of the boy I knew all those years before.
For just a few hours, I was able to pretend we were those friends again, that he hadn’t bound the woman I loved to him as he married another. I pushed all worry about the way he pitted his sons against one another out of my mind and focused on Nikoletta.
With a confirmation from Dmitri that they have the entrances covered, I usher Nikoletta through the heavy wooden doors into the cathedral. My past and present collide with each step deeper into the place we began, and of late, our sanctuary. Right away, her gaze sweeps up stained glass windows spearing into the domed ceiling overhead.
Her gasp of delight draws a genuine smile from me. I hang back a few steps and watch her every move. The way she’s light on the balls of her feet as she flits through the pews, running her fingers over the aged wood with a contented sigh on her lips.
I can’t tear my gaze from the way she wraps her arms around the column and laughs at just how big they are and how impossible they are to encompass.
“It’s stunning. I never want to leave.” Her cheeks flush as she makes her way to the altar and for a moment, I’m reluctant to follow to the place where I held her tiny body in my hands so long ago.
But Nikoletta has never been one to let me retreat into the shadows. Running toward me, she takes my hand and drags me along as she jogs up the stairs and stops at the altar draped in purple.
She bends down and lifts the fabric and her eyebrows bunch. “It’s a table.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Yes, but a marble one.”
