Chapter 32
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Lucy
It took superhuman effort to act normal when Sato brought the Bentley around. Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. This isn’t the end of us, I told myself. Despite the unwanted guest waiting in the parlor room, Kirill walked me to the vehicle. I was still important to him.
His face was drawn in the granite expression he’d mastered when his soldiers were around. He was the one who opened the door for me, but he stopped me before I entered the vehicle and kissed me briefly on the mouth.
“Go,” he whispered, stroking my cheek tenderly. “Clear your head. But if you don’t come back by dinnertime, I’m fetching you myself.”
Normally, I would bristle at his highhandedness, but why was it I felt relief? He must have caught something in my expression because his eyes softened, even if his face did not.
When I was safely within the confines of the car, the weight in my chest wasn’t as heavy.
My initial hurt about Kirill keeping the secret from me eased a little, but it wasn’t completely diminished.
Our time in the cabin laid down a shaky foundation for our marriage, and it reminded me of our uncompleted jigsaw puzzle.
We were still learning each other. How each piece of us fit into the other, and we were an unfinished whole.
“The Grindhouse?” Sato asked.
“Yes.”
He relayed our destination to the rest of my security detail. I guessed King’s revelation spooked Kirill, and he beefed up my security.
I didn’t question it. I was used to heightened security when alliances were in question.
I could have raised hell about it just to piss Kirill off, but a growing sense of responsibility maturing into our marriage seemed to have taken over.
We had to find a balance in order to complete the puzzle of us if there was any chance of a future.
We needed to discuss how we could navigate my life in the bratva later, but not right now. Right now, there was a person I needed more information on, and since I had limited time, I wasn’t going to waste another second.
I slipped out my burner and called Trevor. He answered on the second ring. “Hey, heard you’re back in Manhattan.”
Heard or were you tracking me? “I’m on my way to The Grindhouse, but I need you to do a deep dive on Jeremiah King.”
“Heard he’s been around the Zahkarov mansion. Aralina?”
“Yes. I didn’t even know they were dating.”
“Well, Zahkarov’s sister frequented the New York library, and her security is quite lazy.”
“So, you already have info on him?”
“A little, tried breaking into the King Industries servers, but they’re locked tight like Fort Knox. You’ll need someone with genius hacking skills to break in, but also be prepared for consequences.”
Natalya. I didn’t speak her name out loud because I wasn’t alone in the car.
Zio Luca wanted to keep his wife’s hacking wizardry on the down-low.
According to Dom, even government networks were child’s play to her.
She worked for the Archer Syndicate from time to time.
She’d been a vigilante long before she married Zio Luca.
“Okay, if you can get—”
Rumbling thundered behind us, followed by metal crushing metal. It had me spinning around to check what was going on.
A garbage truck.
The screeching deafened my ears, and a shock wave shook the car.
“Is your seat belt on?” Sato yelled. The phone I was holding clattered to the floor as I fumbled with the seat belt.
Hold on.
“Hurry.”
My fingers were suddenly not my own, and I kept missing the latch. Panic trapped a scream in my throat.
“Lucy!” Sato shouted with an urgency engulfing me with dread.
The last thing I saw was another garbage truck hurtling straight for me before all turned dark.