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He shook his head. “Annie Kamenev, someday you’re — ”
“… going to make some man very happy?” Annie asked hopefully.
“I was going to say, someday you’re going to present quite a challenge for some poor unsuspecting sucker,” Lyon said.
She glared at him. “I’d throw something at you if I had something handy. You love me, and you know it.” She flounced toward the door and Lyon eased into the room to give her space to pass. “And I love you too, which is why I’m going to leave you alone with Kira before you leave.”
She stepped out into the hall and they watched from inside the room as she started down the stairs.
Kira shut the door and leaned against it, looking at Lyon.
“Don’t be sad,” he said, his expression softening.
“I’m not.” It was a lie, but she couldn’t help telling it even as she knew he would see it for what it was.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her against him. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
She buried her face in his chest.
Once, she’d hated him. Now it felt like there was no place in the world safer than his arms. “I know.”
He stroked her back and she let herself pretend, just a for a minute, that he wasn’t putting himself in danger yet again. That he was just going to the warehouse to work or doing rounds with Alek.
Anything but another opportunity for someone to take him from her.
He pulled back a little and tipped her chin. “Look at me,malen'kiy sokol."
She looked up at him and found his eyes warm and full of love. That there was no fear there gave her courage.
“I’ll be back,” he said, more insistently this time. “And tonight will be the end of our troubles and the start of something new.”
He lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was full of longing and the new gentleness that had surprised her after their conversation on the terrace, but it wasn’t long before it turned heated.
She welcomed him into her mouth, their tongues sparring, his hands cradling her face like she was something rare and precious.
Tears pricked at her closed eyelids. She broke their kiss and stepped away before the tears could fall, holding his hand even though she’d intentionally put distance between them.
She knew from experience there was no easy way out of this. He just had to go.
She smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine here with Annie and the small army you’ve installed around the house.”She drew in a deep shuddering breath. “And I know you’ll be fine too.”
He lifted her hand to his lips, unfurling her fingers and leaving a kiss in the center of her palm.
Then he turned and walked away. He was almost out the door when she remembered the thing she’d forgotten to say, the most important thing of all.
“Lyon?” He turned back to look at her, and her resolve hardened. “End him.”
42
The tunnels weren’t from Prohibition. That was a common misunderstanding among people who talked about them. Some of the bars in the city had basements with interconnecting doors, but most of them had actually been installed in the 1800s as a way to ferry coal to businesses and affluent homes.
They’d come in handy during Prohibition, but that’s not why most of them had been built.
Ivan’s house had been built by a well-known architect in the late 1800s. Its size and design suggested it had been built for a wealthy client, which is probably why tunnels had been installed.
Then as now, the rich didn’t want to see how the sausage was made. They wanted dinner on the table, but they didn’t want to see the cooks at work. They wanted a clean house but didn’t want to see the staff with a feather duster.
They wanted warmth without the unsightly delivery of coal.
