Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
KOSTYA
I sat in the armchair by the window, watching Marina sleep peacefully.
There was so much I needed to do—calls to make, arrangements to finalize—but I couldn’t bring myself to do any of it.
Because all of it would’ve required leaving her side.
And that wasn’t happening.
The Ritz-Carlton was under Gregor’s protection. It should be safe from Solovyov and his men. But I couldn’t take that risk. If I wasn’t watching her, how could I be sure she was safe?
Not to mention, my little rabbit had a habit of running.
I had hoped we were past that. But then she said it, she thought she’d be free after this.
Free from Russia. Free from the mafia. Free from me.
She wanted to run from it all, and I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t take the first chance she got.
She understood I wanted to protect her. She knew I would never harm her. But after tonight, after the way she looked at me, wide-eyed and stricken, I wasn’t so sure she still believed that.
There was no universe in which I would ever hurt her. But I also had no intention of letting her go.
Her place was here, with me.
How could I make her see that? How did I convince her to stay?
When she admitted to feeling guilty for sleeping with me, I had seen the exact moment the realization struck her.
Her eyes went wide in horror, her face drained of color. The fork she’d been gripping so tightly that her knuckles had turned white slipped from her fingers, hitting the floor with a dull clatter.
She didn’t even notice.
She was too consumed by the storm inside her. Guilt twisting her features, grief darkening her beautiful eyes.
How did I convince her that wanting me wasn’t a betrayal of her sister?
It couldn’t be a sin.
Marriage was till death did you part, and death had parted us.
A heavy weight settled in my chest as I shifted in the chair next to the bed.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to be like this. Lost.
I was the man with the answers. The one people turned to when they had nowhere else to go. The one who found solutions when none existed.
So how the fuck was I the one without a solution now ?
Rationality was my strength. Cold, calculated precision. But there was nothing rational about this woman.
She was impulsive, emotional, reckless.
And I loved that I never knew what she’d do next.
A dull ache throbbed behind my eyes, my stomach twisting into knots. I told myself it was the rich food. It had to be. It couldn’t be her.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep.
A loud banging at the door jolted me awake.
I shot up. The bed was empty.
My pulse pounded, adrenaline slamming through my veins. My breath locked in my throat.
Fuck. She’d run.
She’d fucking run again.
Then I heard her voice from the other room.
“Should I answer that?”
The tension in my body loosened, just slightly.
She stayed.
“No,” I said, already moving toward the door. “Did you order more room service?”
“No.” She was flipping through the designer clothes that had been delivered late last night. Her fingers skimming across the expensive silks and cashmeres.
I approached the door, wishing I had my gun, and peered through the peephole.
One of Gregor’s men stood on the other side, a scowl set deep into his face. I couldn’t remember his name, but I’d recognize that glare anywhere.
He was carrying a duffel bag and was armed to the teeth, at least three guns that I could see.
I opened the door just enough, keeping my body in the way, my foot wedged against it in case he tried to force his way through.
He was friendly. But I didn’t know him well enough to let him near my girl.
The man said nothing as he handed me the duffel bag. Then, without a word, he drew two guns from his shoulder holster and passed them over, grips first.
Gregor had sent up supplies. And the bag Marina stowed in the storage locker.
I should have been pissed that he retrieved it without me. But all I felt was relief. If we had the bag, there was no reason to put Marina in danger.
“Were there any issues?” I asked.
“None.”
I gave a curt nod, dismissing him with a glance before shutting the door.
As I turned around, Marina was slipping into the bathroom, a few hangers in her grip. Pity. I had enjoyed having her in just that robe. Her body within reach, one pull of the terry cloth belt away from being mine again.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” she called through the door. “Just getting dressed.”
“I prefer you naked, but if that’s what you want to do.” I shrugged, smirking when I heard her suppress a laugh.
Getting dressed wasn’t the worst idea.
I went to the rack and picked a pair of slacks and a gray cashmere sweater to pull on. Comfortable. Warm. Functional. What more did clothing need to be? I told myself that was the only reason I chose it, not because I wondered if Marina liked the way I looked in cashmere.
I tucked the smaller Glock into the back of my waistband, keeping it ready. The other I set on the side table. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my leather holster. That was on the train, along with the gun that was no doubt already in security’s hands.
What was I going to do? Walk up to the station’s lost and found and ask if they happened to come across a firearm with the serial number filed off? Yeah. No, thank you.
I wasted no more time. Unzipping the duffel bag, I dumped its contents onto the table.
Stacks of cash spilled out, crisp bills fluttering in uneven piles. At first glance, it looked like a fortune. But something was off.
Why this much cash? And why in such small denominations?
This wasn’t just money.
There was something else here.
Something I wasn’t seeing.
First, the obvious.
I checked the bag itself, running my hands along every seam, feeling for hidden compartments. Nothing sewn into the lining. Nothing tucked into that stupid zipper pocket always hidden on the inside.
Nothing.
Completely empty.
“I told you,” Marina said, stepping into the room.
I glanced up and nearly lost my train of thought.
She wore jeans that hugged her ass in a way that made my mouth water, and a red sweater cut just low enough that I’d kill any man who stared too long.
“There’s nothing there,” she insisted .
“Maybe.” I forced my attention back to the task at hand, ignoring the heat pooling low in my gut.
Thumbing through the crisp blue-green stacks of thousand-ruble notes, I studied them carefully.
They looked real. They smelled real.
Still, I was meticulous, searching through each bundle, making sure nothing was hidden between the bills—no microchips, no thin slips of paper with encrypted messages.
There was an old KGB trick: bring in stacks of money just under the amount that required declaration at customs. The agents would glance at it, ask how much you were carrying. When you told them it was below the threshold, they’d wave you through. They didn’t care.
Back then, slipping something between the bills would’ve been easy. Even writing coded messages directly onto the notes.
It was old-school.
Outdated.
There were more secure, more practical ways to smuggle things into the U.S. these days.
But Solovyov’s obsession with such a small amount of money? That didn’t sit right.
I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that this was more than just cash.
“I told you,” Marina repeated, frustration creeping into her voice. “There’s nothing there. It’s just the money Veronika gave me. She told me to hold onto it.”
I stilled.
Veronika.
My fingers tightened around the stack of bills .
“Did you change the bag?” I asked, my voice quieter now, more dangerous.
I barely heard Marina’s response.
My mind was elsewhere, back in that room.
Veronika, gasping in my arms. Blood soaking her clothes. Her ice-cold eyes, always so unreadable, suddenly burning with emotion, more than I ever knew she was capable of.
Her last words whispered in my ear, her breath fanning against my skin.
She pleaded with me. Over and over. “It was a mistake,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. It was a mistake. Please, you have to protect my sister.”
Veronika had hundreds of thousands in her account. She had access to more money than some small countries. I made sure of it. Just because she was my wife in name only didn’t mean I didn’t provide for her. She never wanted for anything, not when I was the one ensuring she was taken care of. And it wasn’t as if she had any moral disdain for where the money came from. She had no problem spending it. No problem informing me when her next transfer was due.
No, this wasn’t about the money.
Something was wrong. So fucking wrong.
The hair at the back of my neck prickled. My instincts screamed at me, a warning just out of reach, like a shadow I couldn’t quite grasp.
The answer was staring me in the face. I just couldn’t see it.
“No. That’s the same duffel bag,” Marina said. “I didn’t put anything into it. ”
“None of this makes fucking sense!” I roared, the frustration boiling over.
I had been so sure that the second I got my hands on this bag, everything would fall into place.
That it would give me answers.
But all I had were more questions.
There was barely ten thousand USD in this bag. A laughable amount.
Solovyov wouldn’t get out of bed for this kind of money.
Hell, this wouldn’t even cover one of Veronika’s shopping sprees.
So why?
Why was this so fucking important?
My jaw clenched, fury curling through my veins. I hated this. Hated having so many questions and no fucking answers. Hated how Marina was still in the crosshairs.
“I didn’t take anything out,” Marina insisted, panic lacing her voice. “It’s exactly as she gave it to me. I don’t understand why?—”
Then I saw it.
I cut her off, sitting back hard on the sofa, my pulse pounding as I stared at one of the bills buried in the middle of the stack. “This is why.”
A single note.
Marked.
A series of numbers, written in pencil.
Barely there. Almost invisible. But I saw it.
Finally. A fucking answer.
I didn’t hear it at first.
Didn’t register the shift in the air.
Because I was staring at that bill, so absorbed in trying to decode what the numbers meant that I missed it.
The warning came too late.
BOOM .
The door exploded inward, the splintering wood a violent crack against the walls.
Fuck.
I was already moving, my fingers closing around the gun at the back of my waistband, spinning to fire. Too slow. I was too fucking slow.
A man stepped through the wreckage, icy blond hair, a jagged scar running down the side of his face.
The gun in his hand already up.
Already aimed.
Already pulling the trigger.
CRACK .
The first bullet slammed into my shoulder, a white-hot explosion of pain.
CRACK .
The second ripped through muscle, throwing me backward.
Marina’s scream split the air. “Kostya!”
My vision blurred; the world tilted as I hit the floor.
Pain.
Pain.
And blood .
Every instinct in my body screamed at me to move. To get up. To fight.
But I couldn’t.
Not yet.
And that hesitation—those few stolen seconds—might have just cost me everything.