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“How do you—”
“It was easy for me to find you, Cora. Your neighbors were willing to tell me anything I asked. If that sniper knew where you worked, he sure as fuck knows where you lived.” Ivan reaches out and taps the center of my forehead where the killer’s bullet might’ve gone. “Think it through. You’ll see that I’m right.”
The fight in me vanishes all at once.
I thought I was safe. But Ivan knows everything about my life and we only met twelve hours ago.
Who else knows?
He is still standing in front of me when the door swings open. It’s the man who escorted Jorden outside and cleaned up the body. Yasha, I think he said.
“The inside is clean and the manager scrubbed the tapes. I got the backups, too, and everyone else is clear on the story,” he explains. “When the cops come asking, they’ll say the robbers were wearing masks, no discernible features, nothing noteworthy to share as a description. Same ol’, same ol’.”
How many times have they done this before that it has become a routine? They have a built-in story that they feed to witnesses.
“Tell the kitchen staff to wait half an hour before they call the police,” Ivan orders. “That will give me time to get Cora out of here and somewhere safe. There’s no way to know how many hitmen have been sent to—”
“My friends!”
Guilt hits me hard. I’m a terrible person. How has it taken me this long to think about my friends?
“They’re fine,” Yasha dismisses. “All the shots went through the windows. I got them to safety while the shooting was still going on.”
I spin to Ivan. “They have to come with me. You said it isn’t safe here, right?”
“Let me take care of this.”
“Sure, ‘cause you’ve done a fan-fucking-tastic job taking care of things so far. You show up, and within minutes, my work is in literal tatters. I don’t even know if I’ll have a job after this. You might have just gotten all of my friends fired. How are any of us supposed to survive when—”
“If your friends are in danger, it has nothing to do with my choices and everything to do with yours,” he growls.
“Mine?” I yelp. “You’re telling me that all of this is my fault? Are you serious?”
“What the fuck did you expect to happen? Everyone else at that party would have killed to be in that office.Did you think the other ladies-in-waiting would give you a polite golf clap and congratulate you on a job well done?”
Yasha is biting a knuckle to hold back a laugh, but I ignore him. I have to; my entire body is burning with shame.
“I never would have touched you if I’d known—”
“But you did. Choices and consequences, Cora.”
“Stop saying that!”
He steps closer, but doesn’t touch me. It doesn’t matter, though. I feel his presence like a finger stroke down my spine. My body shivers closer to him. Parts of me remember what it felt like to be this near. To smell him. Feel him. Taste him.
“Don’t pretend you would have walked away from me if you’d known who I was. Youdidknow,” he chides. “You knew who I was and you still decided an orgasm from me was worth whatever trouble might come.”
He's right. I knew who he was when he touched me. When I asked him to make me scream.
Ivan takes my silence for agreement. “Good. So we’re agreed. You’ll play my wife and I’ll take down whoever is after you.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything.”
He grimaces. “On second thought, maybe I should get an actual chain.”
"I appreciate your help, but this is my life on the line. I don't even know you. Either of you!" I rub my throbbing temples. "I'm not going to marry someone I don't love. I ran from that fate once before and I'll do it again if you make me."
The words tumble out of me before I can stop them. Ivan leans back and looks me over.
