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“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I’m serious, Sandra. I just want to talk. I need you to listen, and if this is the only way you feel safe, then so be it.” There isn’t any room left between us. He forces me to jam the gun against his chest over his heart. One wrong move on my part and he’s dead.
“Andrei, stop it!”
“I don’t have a lot of time.” His breath ghosts against my cheeks. It takes all my strength not to claim those lips for my own. “Ididn’torder a hit on your brother. I didn’t instruct any of my men to attack you. Someone set me up. Someone by the name of Gregor Ivanovich.”
Gregor Ivanovich.
The name echoes loudly inside my skull, bouncing around in my brain viciously.
“The detective,” I mutter.
Andrei frowns. “You know him?”
“I have footage of him leaving your taxi depot. You’re working with him, aren’t you?”
He shakes his head vigorously, lip curling into a sneer. “I would never stoop so low.”
“But he saidAndrei Nicolaevich sends his bestright before he shot my brother. You’re telling me you have nothing to do with him?”
Andrei looks utterly offended. “I would never. What gangster in their right mind would ever be caught working with the cops? That’s a death sentence in our world and you know it.”
I swallow hard, this new information taking forever to fully digest. I still can’t believe he’s here. It’s only been a week, but it’s like seeing him for the first time in years. I’ve missed him more than I ever thought possible, and it’s only now dawning on me how sad I’ve been without him.
I can practically feel his resolve radiating off him. There’s a sureness in his eyes, an honesty that makes me take pause. If Andrei really wanted to kill me, he would have done it by now. By placing his only weapon inmyhands, I know he has to be serious. Why would he take such a risk when he knows just how volatile our situation is? He’s either being reckless, which doesn’t line up with his personality at all, or…
“You didn’t order the hit,” I whisper.
Andrei shakes his head. “No, I didn’t. Itoldyou I didn’t.”
“Why did you come here?”
“You blocked my number. And I might have broken my phone. No one in my network knew how to get a message to you, and I frankly didn’t want my message to fall into the wrong hands and expose you.”
I ignore the sting of tears in my eyes and the warm ache in my chest. “So you risked everything just to tell me in person? What if you had been caught by one of my guards?”
“It was worth it,” he says firmly. “I can’t stay long, though. You have a gap in your patrol schedule, by the way. There’s a thirty second window where you’re wide open.”
I huff, both amused and flustered. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Andrei reaches out slowly, running his fingers through my hair. “I’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll figure out how to fix this.”
“We’re at war, Andrei. The Bratva wants you dead. You’ve taken so much territory—”
“Your men attacked first. My people were defending ourselves.”
“That’s not true.Youattacked first.”
Andrei sighs. “It doesn’t matter. The point is I don’t want to keep fighting you. Can we call a truce?”
“I… I want to, Andrei, but…”
“But what?”
“Think of the optics.”
“Screw the optics.”
