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My heart began thumping, racing, like the organ was trying to force its way out of my chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He slipped his hands into his trouser pockets. “There are video cameras all over the yacht.”
Merda. Why hadn’t I realized this? He’d obviously seen me eavesdropping outside his office door. What was he going to do now? My stomach clenched.
If he was here to kill me, I would not make it easy on him.
“Do not stare at me like that,” he said quietly.
“Like what?”
“Like I might hurt you.” When I remained silent, he dragged a hand down his face. “I won’t hurt you, Theo. I can’t. I’d rather cut off both my hands first.”
Despite this vow, I rushed to say, “I won’t tell anyone your secret.”
“I know.”
He did? I thought he was here to intimidate me. To scare me into silence. “Then why are you here?”
“I had to see you. I have been miserable the last five weeks. I . . . .” He grimaced, like this conversation was painful. “I miss you.”
“You shouldn’t have come. It’s too risky for both of us.”
“I know I hurt you. I am so sorry, Theo. If there had been any other way—”
“There was another way,” I reminded him. “You could have been honest with me.”
“Impossible!” His voice grew loud. “And you know why. It meant death for me. And if I told you, you never would have agreed to one night in my hotel, let alone two weeks on my yacht.”
“So you lied.”
“No lies. But I never told you what I did for a living.”
“Which is a lie by omission.”
“You never asked,” he continued. “With the guns and the yacht, you had to suspect. Yet you never questioned it.”
“So I’m at fault for not casually working murder and human trafficking into a conversation?”
“No.” He angled his head and stared at the wall. “And I do not sell flesh of any kind.”
I was relieved to hear it, but in the end it didn’t matter. “You’ve wasted your time in coming here. We’re through.”
“No.”
My jaw fell open. “You don’t get to decide, Nic. You are not free to live openly, and I refuse to hide in hotel rooms and on yachts for the rest of my life. I am not going back into the closet ever again.”
“I am not asking you to do that.”
“Oh? Then what do you propose? I give up my life to join the Bratva? Because that will never happen.”
He reached inside his suit coat and withdrew a folded newspaper. He threw it onto the ground at my feet. The headline was in Russian, and there was a grainy photo of an older man on it. “What is this?”
“My obituary.” He tilted his chin toward the story. “Nikolai Kuznetsov is dead.”
Chapter Eleven
NIKOLAI
