21. Alexei
Alexei
I set a course for Italy, more because I won’t risk exposing Ofelia by hanging around the Spanish coast than for any real desire to go there.
What I want to do is bring her back to my yacht, get her clothes off, and spend the rest of this forced hiatus taking her body apart on every available surface.
If she was any other girl, we’d already be doing exactly that.
And that, right there, is the fucking problem.
Ofelia isn’t just any other girl. And not just because she’s Roman Borovsky’s daughter.
The simple truth is that it’s only been days since she left, and I already crave her like the worst kind of addict fiending for a hit.
I still haven’t let the cleaners launder her sarong, because I like the way her rose-and-almond scent clings to it, filling my cabin like she’s still in my bed. I obsessively check the satellite map, calculating exactly how long it would take me to get to her from each port we pass.
I pace the upper deck agitatedly for the tenth time since I woke before dawn. Normally the vast blue expanse would calm my mind. Today all it does is piss me off.
I don’t want Ofelia in her house in Granada talking to me down a secure line, no matter how careful we’ve been, how good the dragons are, or if there’s absolutely no reason at all to suspect anyone is watching her.
Despite knowing damned well that being close to me is literally the most dangerous place she could possibly be, I want her fucking here, on my yacht, surrounded by my men, with my gun and knife watching her back.
I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m the chief fucking reason she’s likely to need protection in the first place.
Goddammit.
It’s a frustrating circular argument that I’ve been having with myself from the moment she left. Before that.
Hell. I’ve been having the same fucking argument with myself for seven damn years.
And if I’d thought that sleeping with her would somehow put it to rest, I was sorely mistaken.
Our week together has made it abundantly clear to me that there’s no chance in hell I can give Ofelia Borovsky up.
If I’d thought my self-imposed distance from her difficult before, now it’s exquisite fucking torture.
I want her with me. Beside me every day.
Want to hear her playing when I come out onto the deck.
To lie on the sofa while she practices, watching expressions shift across her face as she loses herself in the music, listening to the parts of her soul that only emerge through those keys—or when she’s naked and gasping beneath me.
My body seizes so hard it takes my breath away.
Christ.
Celibacy is definitely a new experience. I’m accustomed to ruthlessly taking out my lust on whatever woman happens to be available. But after the week I’ve just had, mindlessly fucking a stranger just to scratch an itch holds no appeal whatsoever.
I want Ofelia. I want her here, and I want her forever.
I stare at the sun blazing off the deck, heady possibility warring with stark reality.
Forever isn’t a heady sojourn on a yacht. It isn’t an intense rendezvous every few months. And it certainly isn’t being on the run, dodging fucking bullets from an unknown enemy.
My hand goes unconsciously to the pocket of my deck shorts, probing the square box I’ve been carrying around for days now.
Why didn’t you just give it to her, you idiot?
But I know why—just like I know why I took the box in the first place.
Because some part of me always knew what giving Ofelia that gift would mean.
It would mean going to her father, and mine, and beating back every one of their inevitable arguments until they realize there’s no fucking chance I’m backing down.
It would mean a home. One somewhere far away from the swamp.
Ofelia playing stages around the world.
Maybe even children one day.
You’re fucking delusional.
I release the box like it’s a hot coal, reality searing away the fantasy.
How can you believe, for one minute, that any of that is possible?
Even if I lie low until November, Miami will have to be dealt with eventually.
I’m still bound to the swamp. To the vault in my family’s basement, and the blood and secrecy of the Naryshkin legacy.
Mak might talk about my coding abilities, and Andersson Technologies, like it’s a way out.
But while Lars might look good on the cover of Time magazine as an entrepreneur, my origin story is far too dark to allow me to sit in boardrooms in a shiny suit, flashing a thousand-watt smile.
I didn’t need to read the mass of dark tabloid headlines Lars sent through to remind me that I’m about as far from the American dream as a man gets.
My life isn’t the kind of darkness you get to just walk away from.
And the thought of bringing Ofelia home to that life makes me sick inside. Even imagining her in those echoing marble corridors, sleeping above the basement in which I tortured her, turns my gut.
There’s no sunshine in that picture. No golden afternoon. Not the peace, happiness, and laughter she deserves.
My father has hinted, more than once, that I could join Roman in Spain.
But much as I admire Mercura and Roman’s organization, the thought of coexisting with him makes me want to grind my teeth.
I don’t want to work with him, and I don’t want him to be my competition.
Nor does Roman want anyone dragging his family back into the streets he worked so hard to pull them away from.
He created Mercura so that he could transcend the day-to-day blood and violence that has always been bratva business, and when he looks at me, that business is all he sees.
I know it’s the reason for his thinly veiled hostility, and I don’t blame him.
Which leaves me where, exactly?
I pace the deck, my hand returning to the box in my pocket.
What I really want is to just disappear.
To sail into the sunset with Ofelia at my side and no fixed destination.
Fantasy.
That’s what that is, and I know it.
But if it’s fantasy, then what the fuck am I doing?
I won’t walk away from Ofelia. I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to.
But I don’t know how to make a life with her either.
The truth is that some inner part of me has, for a long time, known Ofelia is forever.
But when I can’t even plan for a tomorrow with her, how dare I contemplate forever?
Midmorning three days later, when I’m going half mad waiting as Mickey takes his sweet time setting up Ofelia’s secure room, we weigh anchor just off the coast of Sardinia, and Andrew joins me on the deck.
“We’ve got company.” He gives me a rather dry look and hands me a set of binoculars, through which I see a high-powered boat streaking across the water toward us.
Seated at the rear, wearing deck shorts, dark glasses, and his ever-present loose grin, is Lars.
“You crazy bastard,” I greet him as he leaps from the boat onto the docking platform, unable to keep the wide smile from my face despite my words. “You’re lucky my crew didn’t put a bullet in your boat. Ever heard of comms?”
“Comms are the reason I’m here, motherfucker.” He wraps me in one of his enveloping hugs, which he always holds for far too long. I get a secret amusement out of watching hard men like Roman dodge hastily when he approaches them with his arms wide.
But Lars’s hugs have never bothered me. And on days like today, when the isolation is starting to feel like a fucking prison, I don’t mind at all.
“Coffee,” I say, when he finally releases me, “or booze?”
“Oh, fucking please.” Lars rolls his eyes, slinging an arm around my shoulders as we reach the lower deck and steering me toward the bar.
“Idiotic question.” Reaching for the Akvavit I always keep on hand for him, he pours us both an icy cold shot.
“Don’t argue,” he says, clinking his shot glass to mine.
“Akvavit was originally medicine, you do know this?”
“It was also used as gunpowder,” I say dryly, but I drink anyway, grimacing at the bitter taste. “Now—why the fuck are you here? I thought you were supposed to be impersonating me on an island somewhere.”
“Don’t worry.” He waves a hand airily. “Lance Ryder hired several stand-ins and is having a marvelous time flying around the world on our money photographing them all. Last time I checked the Darkside, you’d been sighted in Buenos Aires, on Richard Branson’s private island, and at the mansion of some model in Costa Rica. ”
“Good to know I’m having fun.”
“Oh, you’re partying hard, motherfucker, believe me.” He pours another shot, shaking his head when I cover my own glass. “Pity you can’t live up to the fantasy in real life. Anyway. I didn’t just come here to drink Akvavit and spy on that gorgeous captain of yours.”
“Keep your hands off my crew. Especially Andrew. He’s still scared after the last time you hugged him.”
“It’s your fault.” Lars is entirely unrepentant. “You shouldn’t hire such fuckable boys.” He opens a laptop that looks rugged enough to withstand a Saharan storm and goes through a complex set of biometrics and codes to open the screen.
“That’s some hardware,” I say, eyeing it with interest. “You could just use the secure room.”
“That’s why I’m here.” He gestures to an array of cases behind him, carried up by my crew.
“We’re going to need to do a little upgrade of your secure room.
I’ve also brought you one of these.” He pats his laptop.
“Mickey and I adapted them from the military models Mak snagged for us, then upgraded them with our own personal twists.”
I feel the familiar twinge of envy as he launches into an explanation of the modifications he and Mickey have made. These moments always make me feel like I’m sitting back in the Orlovs’ basement, looking at Lars’s face on the cover of a magazine, taking public credit for a concept I came up with.