Chapter 13
Kolya
Her Volvo sits pathetically in the driveway, the spare tire I changed last night looking even sadder in daylight. The thing’s practically a bald disaster waiting to happen. The knowledge needles at my skin. She shouldn’t be driving on that garbage.
The urge to take her home in my Audi is difficult to resist.
She chews her bottom lip. After the battle in the store, glitter covers her body like a bizarre form of war paint. “Will you be okay?”
“I’m good. Get in. Lock the doors.” My directives come out harsher than intended.
She flinches but complies, fumbling with her keys.
I wait until her engine sputters to life before I move to my own car. Through the windshield, her hands grip the steering wheel too tightly, her knuckles white with tension. Her eyes meet mine for a second before she pulls away.
I follow at a distance, that raw, protective instinct gnawing at my insides. Her car wobbles slightly as she rounds a corner. That spare tire is a fucking hazard, though I guess it’s better than the flat.
I changed it because…she’s mine now. My project.
My responsibility.
Until I get what I want from her, I control what happens in her life. Good and bad.
Roman’s voice echoes in my head. “Attachments get you killed.”
I rub my jaw. When did I start caring if a mark lives or dies beyond mission parameters? Caring about someone is a liability. I bury the strange feeling under layers of cold purpose.
Three blocks from her house, I turn down a side street, pulling over once I’m out of sight. I yank out my phone and stab the keypad with more force than necessary.
Kirill Khitrenko answers on the second ring. “Did you find them?”
No hello. I expect nothing less from my fellow enforcer and the man I’m reporting to for this mission.
I keep my voice neutral. “Not yet.”
“What’s the complication? She’s a kindergarten teacher.” His tone cuts straight into what he perceives as weakness.
I stare through the windshield at nothing. “She doesn’t know anything. Doesn’t have a storage unit or safe deposit box either.”
“And? Your job is to get in, retrieve the diamonds, and come home.” A pause. “Why are you lingering?”
I ignore him.
Another beat. “How hot is she?”
The question ignites wrath in my chest. “I’m lingering because the diamonds aren’t where MJ’s intel said they’d be. Not in her classroom. Not at her house. So, now, I have to figure out where else they could be.”
The angry words spill out, piled like sedimentary rock. The top layer is professional frustration. The mission isn’t going according to plan. But a more volatile emotion I refuse to name lurks underneath.
It’s too much like weakness.
“Since she doesn’t know anything, fear, intimidation, and torture are all a waste of time. The diamonds are connected to her, but I don’t know how. I have to stay close and see where she leads me. It’s the only strategic play.”
I’ve always been the enforcer.
Cold. Professional. Logical.
So why, then, does my pulse race as I picture Chloe’s wide eyes and trust? As I relive that guy in Hobby Hut coming for her. Imagine him grabbing her. Touching her. Hurting her.
Because I need her alive to get the blasted diamonds.
That’s all.
Kirill’s command cuts through my thoughts. “Pick up the fucking pace.”
At his obvious tension, my attention spikes. “What’s going on?”
“Things are quiet. Too quiet. And Gio has become vapor. Just gone.”
That doesn’t surprise me. The man’s a bad penny, only showing up at the worst times. “You sure Alexei hasn’t killed him?”
A brief chuckle. “If only. No one has seen Gio since the art show. Alexei can’t find him, and he’s been searching since he returned from his honeymoon. The man’s in the wind.” His voice hardens. “Get the diamonds.”
The line goes dead.
I grip the steering wheel, my knuckles white. That’s when I notice a spray of gold glitter across the back of my bloodied hand. The glitter mixes with my blood, shimmering in the light filtering through the windshield.
My violence blending with her brightness.
I wipe my hand on my jeans, but the glitter stays. I rub more vigorously, frustration building in my throat. The damn stuff is like herpes. Spreads easily and never really goes away.
I’ll be dealing with this shit forever.
And no part of me should want that as a reminder of a perky schoolteacher.
CHLOE
I stand in my driveway, squinting down the street where Kolya’s car should be. A few blocks after leaving Hobby Hut, his sleek black Audi just vanished from my rearview mirror.
His absence leaves me hollow in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Did he abandon me? Leave me to face whatever danger we stirred up alone? If so, that’s good, right? That’s what I wanted all along.
A drop-dead gorgeous package of menacing mystery isn’t exactly on my Pinterest board.
Best to stay away so I can go back to my quiet and orderly life.
So I can return to feeling fine.
“Fine is for when people are trying to pretend they’re okay.”
When did I start seeing through my own bullshit? Probably around the time Kolya’s elbow connected with that man’s collarbone. Or this morning, while waking up with no memory of how I fell asleep and the ghost of his touch on my skin.
I head to my front door, keys jingling in my trembling fingers. Inside, my carefully constructed life awaits. The lesson plans and craft supplies, the romance novels I live through vicariously, the globe bar I dream of spinning someday.
Safe things that help keep the darkness at bay.
My hand hesitates on the doorknob. Do I really want to return to that? To crafting the perfect project while pretending I don’t have a taste for danger?
A flash of motion at the end of the street catches my eye. My heart seizes, then restarts at double speed. Kolya’s car approaches with the same controlled purpose as the man himself.
Differing reactions wash through me. Sparklers inside my chest. Cold chills that slither down my spine. Heat that pools low in my belly.
I’m not used to feeling like this, especially while lingering at my front door in full view of Mrs. Chen, who’s probably monitoring any outdoor activity through her curtains with her “bird-watching” binoculars.
His car pulls up to the curb, a dark and polished contrast to my cheerful blue house with its sagging porch and rainbow wind chimes. He climbs out and saunters toward me with an unnerving grace that dries my mouth, each step measured and deliberate…a predator’s advance.
My heart hammers against my ribs like a caged lion hurling itself against the bars.
I should demand he leave, lock my door, and distract myself with craft supplies and lesson plans.
Maybe I can pretend none of this ever happened.
Not the farmers market, not the restaurant, not my kitchen counter, nor the chaos at Hobby Hut.
I should reclaim my meticulously ordered life of alphabet songs and paper doll chains and proper dates with boring lawnmower aficionados named Greg.
But as he draws near, I note the tension in his shoulders, the tightness of his jaw, and the faint shimmer on his dark jacket.
Glitter. A stamp of approval.
His knuckles are red, scraped raw from the fight.
Because of me.
For me.
He might be a mistake, but he’s the most exciting mistake of my life. I feel terrifyingly alive in a way I haven’t since…
I was nine years old, sprinting through rain and gunfire on a beach that smelled of smoke and blood.
After that night on the island, I haven’t chanced many risks.
A nine-year-old is allowed to mess up. I’m twenty-four. Can I really afford to make a mistake now?
My focus fixes on his hard frown and the shadowed eyes that seem to see right through all my careful defenses.
Can I afford to not make one? I might never have another opportunity.
The last fifteen years have been a long exercise in ensuring my safety through cautious choices. In building walls to keep the fear at bay. But it found me anyway, in Hobby Hut of all places.
And Kolya slipped through the shadows with the ease of a longtime acquaintance.
Maybe it’s time to stop running and face the darkness. With him.
He stops a few feet away, that impossible stillness settling over him like a second skin, and I detect the pulse-skipping scent of him. Soap and heat and danger.
I’m teetering on the edge of a cliff that could shatter the careful life I’ve built.
One step forward, and there’s no going back to kindergarten crafts and dates with men who drone on about nothing that actually matters.
One step back, and I might spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been.
His gaze meets mine, and for the first time, I spot a genuine fracture in his perfect control.
His chest rises and lowers. “Hey.” That low drawl feels like velvet rubbing against my skin.
Like an invitation or a door opening. Permission to make the biggest mistake of my adult life.
I realize I’ve already decided.
Maybe I decided the moment I spotted him at the farmers market. Whatever happens next, I’ll walk forward with my eyes wide open.
Once we’re inside, I shut the door behind us and take a moment to catch my breath.
A difficult feat with Kolya so close.
I drink in the lean line of his torso, his tight ass, those muscular arms hanging by his sides…
The bright red blood on his knuckles.
“Oh, gosh. Your hand. One second.” I kick off my shoes by the door—muscle memory more than conscious decision—and slide my fuzzy pink slippers on. A simple action to banish the outside and all its filth from my house.
The familiar routine grounds me, providing a tiny piece of normalcy in this surreal day.
He walks in, following suit and removing his dress shoes.
“Sit.” I gesture to the big recliner.
He curls his hand, careful not to get blood on the rug.
“I’ll be right back.” I hurry to the bathroom to retrieve the fully stocked and meticulously organized first aid kit I store under the sink.