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Had the bugs been from them? But then how did Owen know things he wasn’t supposed to? My thoughts went haywire with the forbidden connections, ones that I hoped and prayed weren’t true.
It was a dreadful realization as I stumbled backward, gasping when I bumped into Dmitri who was standing at the edge of my office. I nearly screamed but he wrapped an arm around my back when I twisted around and kissed me. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. The panic disappeared in an instant as I melted against him and then pulled away. “Why did you do that?”
“Didn’t mean to scare you, Love but I thought slapping my hand over your mouth wouldn’t be the way to go.” Sweet of him to think about my triggers like that. I nodded slowly, pushing him back into the hallway, eyes peeled for Paval. Dmitri pulled me toward the living room. “He’s in the guest bedroom, I hope you don’t mind.”
I didn’t. “Why were you outside my office?”
“Heard some noise and then I found you and you looked like you saw a ghost. Didn’t want to interrupt your train of thought and I knew that we probably shouldn’t be in here without an invitation. Unlike last time. So, this is your office? There’s a lot of numbers. I didn’t get a chance to look at them before.”
Once again, grade A guys. How they had fallen in my lap, I had no idea. “Yeah, um. I just… I called my advisor to let them know about Owen but he wasn’t answering. So I called the company I work for and he blew me off.” Dmitri frowned as he sat on the couch and I crawled on after him, situating myself on his lap, my back against his chest. He strung his arms around my waist and I closed my eyes, relishing the comfort this embrace brought.
“You mean he didn’t believe you?”
“No. Well, yes, he didn’t believe me.”
“I would have. You sounded terrified.”
I groaned because I hated that. I hated that these men could tell by the tone of my voice how I was feeling. “It’s just that none of it makes sense and so I went through my notes and… I don’t think they work for the government. They’ve moved my dissertation up to Thursday and I just—something’s off.” I twisted around so I was looking up at him from an odd angle. “You know they said they had surveillance on my house and that they haven’t seen anything suspicious?”
“That’s… interesting.”
“Yeah,” I twisted around again, threading my fingers through his. “I don’t get it. I don’t feel good about it either.”
Dmitri dipped his head and placed a kiss on the edge of my shoulder. “We’ll deal with it when the sun comes up, alright? For now, you need sleep. You’ve been strung out for the past few days and your body is going to start protesting. Do you want to go back to bed?” I thought about the two men snuggled up on my mattress right now and shook my head. I didn’t want to ruin that. “Okay then, go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up. There’s a full day tomorrow.”
Other than working on my dissertation, I had no idea what he was talking about. “What?”
“You left your phone out in the living room. Seems your mother called three times. Someone named Joey messaged you about what time you were going to be there and then Liam texted 7 pm. It wasn’t until I saw your father’s message that he was making your favorite that it all made sense. Someone has a birthday tomorrow, don’t they?”
The color disappeared from my cheeks as I froze. In all the craziness, I had completely forgotten what tomorrow was. May 3rd. My birthday. A day that I enjoyed forgetting because I would have rather stuck my head under the covers and eaten raspberry-flavored sweets all day in peace. Everyone in my family put so much stock in getting older whereas I liked to avoid the conversation altogether.
“Were you going to tell us?”
I shook my head. “No, I hate birthdays.” The fake happiness and pretending that nothing in life felt wrong as we ate dinner and cake and played games. The gifts were always atrocious as conversations morphed into my love life. Last year’s party had been the worst, Owen always trying to outdo everyone and parade me around as if he was the only one capable of taking care of me. I really didn’t want to show up to one of those things and have to play nice again, especially with the recent developments where Ada was involved.
I realized the words that had come out of my mouth, the dismissiveness of the relationship we were trying to start but it had been several seconds of silence when I finally addressed it and now it was awkward. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”
Dmitri snorted. “We haven’t given you a lot to work with, Rhys. I know that. And that’s on us. We’ve been so focused on making sure you’re protected that we’ve kind of forgotten to let you see who we are. You know that we work dangerous jobs and you know that we have Paval, a kid we love more than life but there isn’t much else you know about us.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Despite how comfortable all this felt, I still didn’t know the men in my house. He pressed another kiss to my shoulder. “I grew up in France until I was about 16 before I came to the States. Could you believe that my parents used to bake fresh bread? I thought I was going to be a baker.”
I choked on a laugh because there was no way the monster of a man I was leaning up against would have ever been a baker.
“Don’t laugh. I had dreams of creating pastries and savory snacks, opening my own shop in New York City.”
“Why didn’t you?” I twisted around again to look up at him but he wasn’t looking at me. He had this faraway look in his eyes, remembering years before this moment.
“Couldn’t. I couldn’t sit still. Saw something I wouldn’t wish on anyone and it ruined my perfect little dream. I went from wanting to bring a smile to everyone’s face with a snack shop to not being able to deal with anything out of place. Everything pissed me off. I couldn’t pretend that the world was this vast open place where I could do anything that I wanted anymore. I fell in with the wrong crowd and tried to make my way back. College happened but I don’t remember it and then something snapped.” His body tensed, his arms tightening around me as I waited for him to continue. “The anger, it was too much. Watching people get away with shit. I… someone died because of me.” His accent seemed to thicken with his dark emotions. It was both hot and slightly disturbing, considering what he was talking about.
“Did they deserve it?” I didn’t know why I asked it like that. I shouldn’t have. I should have been appalled that this dangerous man had killed someone with his hands but I kind of knew that already. I knew that all three of them had probably killed more than one person while they had been working and yet… it didn’t bother me as much as it should have. A week ago, I might have run screaming to the police. But today, just past midnight, I snuggled a little farther into his chest because it was warm and it was mine.
“Shit, yeah. They did. That’s how I met Val. Gianni followed soon after but without Val, I’m not sure where I’d be. He brought me into this world but it’s given me a way to release all those feelings.”
“Do you regret it? Being a part of this world?”
He fell silent for a moment before he relaxed, shifting me until I was curled up on my side, my face angled to meet his. “No, not really. I didn’t have much else to live for and when Paval came to live with us, it was like my whole world brightened.” His thick accent was making me really hot, even as much as I hated the reminder of what France had originally brought me. “Just like when we stepped into this house a few days ago, I had no idea we were going to meet you.” He bent down and placed a tender kiss on my lips. “Do you? Regret meeting us?”
