Chapter Thirty-nine
Dmitri Konstantinov
The numbers from Hong Kong sat well. I scrolled through the monthly breakdown on my phone while the laptop ran a wider report across the sofa armrest. The pattern confirmed what I already noticed.
When Inna made the observation about the Hong Kong organization, I didn’t act because I trusted her judgment.
I acted on it to see whether her judgment held weight.
It did. She passed that test without effort.
She had an eye for business, yet she treated it as if it were nothing special.
The door opened, and I looked up.
Inna walked in. Ten in the evening, and she just remembered this floor existed. Last night I went down to the guest room and carried her to bed because if I hadn’t, she would have stayed asleep on that sofa until morning.
I watched her move through the room, her eyes doing their usual survey of everything before landing on the laptop. Her expression brightened as she sat beside me. “I forgot to ask, how is Hong Kong doing?” I didn’t answer. I just looked at her. Her smile faded. “Did I steal your money?”
I scoffed. She always walks into a room, and something in it rearranges itself. Before she arrived, my focus was entirely on data, but my thoughts shifted to a completely different subject.
After giving up on waiting for my response, she leaned against my lap. She cleared her throat, shifted, and clicked her tongue. She looked uncomfortable.
“Can you lower your leg a little? It’s too high.”
I didn’t move.
She sat up, bent over my leg, and pushed it down herself until it slid to a position she found acceptable. She returned to her place and rested her head back. A satisfied smile touched her lips.
“Much better,” she said and closed her eyes. “That’s exactly how comfortable you were when you put your head on my lap.”
I looked down at her, and my jaw ticked against the smile that was making a case for itself. This girl kept you on your toes without appearing to try, which was its own specific danger I loved.
She went quiet, which was unusual enough to note. I turned back to the laptop, and my free hand found her hair. I moved through the thick strands while my other hand worked the keyboard.
“That feels nice,” she said. I pulled my hand back, but she caught it immediately and placed it back on her head. “Don’t be like that.”
I left her alone and concentrated on the laptop. The data pulled me back in, and I followed it.
After a few minutes of silence, she shifted slightly, her eyes still closed. “My hair reminds me of my mum,” she said. “She loved short hair. I cut mine when she disappeared, just to remember her. She was really beautiful.”
My hand continued caressing her hair. She was to meet her mother in New York in four days. I didn’t have the energy to walk her through that. I had already arranged with Roman, and Inna would know who her mother really is.
“By the way,” she opened her eyes. “Did you know Grandma knows we were faking? She knows Cole isn’t your son.”
“Did you think it was convincing enough?” I asked.
She scoffed. “I didn’t think so, but I played along because somehow I assumed everyone around here was just oblivious.” She went quiet for a moment. “I have so many questions. But as you said, I’ll ask my father.”
I tapped the screen, half concentrating on the columns and half waiting for whatever came next. With Inna, there was always something next. She talked the way other people breathed. The silence between her thoughts was never long enough to mean she was done.
“Is there something else you do besides running DK Holdings?”
My hand paused on the screen for a beat before I looked down at her. “Why? Planning to steal from me again?”
“I didn’t steal. I took that money because…” She stopped. “Why am I even explaining myself? Also, why would I steal when I have a card with no limit? You said it’s unlimited, right?”
The card she only used at the pharmacy and the phone store? She talked about spending like someone who intended to, but then didn’t.
“You never answer questions the way they’re asked, do you?” she asked.
“What question?”
“What else do you do?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You think we don’t have enough money?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. I think there’s something else entirely.
You got shot, and you didn’t involve the police.
Everyone around you has this specific energy I wouldn’t even call “respect.” It’s fear.
They’re afraid of you. And you threatened Torres that if he didn’t pay, you’d take the building. Normal people take that to court.”
She looked at me as if presenting evidence.
“If you tell me you run a dangerous illegal business, I would agree immediately.” She bit her lower lip, thinking.
“Money laundering? No, you’d be in prison by now.
Florida isn’t lenient, and your family is friends with the governor.
” She sat up abruptly and reached for her phone on the cushion.
“How do you even spell Konstantinov?” She was already typing.
“Your family has a legacy, a history in Russia. I can feel it.”
She lay back across my lap and kept scrolling. “There are several Konstantinov families here. What was your father’s name? Or your grandfather? Or—”
I took the phone.
She laughed. “An innocent man doesn’t grab a phone like that.” She settled back with satisfaction, as if she had just won an argument without needing the other person to concede. “I understand it, honestly. It’s nearly impossible to find wealthy people who built it entirely clean.”
“And your family?” I asked, returning to the laptop.
“Please. Would I have been wandering around half-starving with my brother if my family had any kind of legacy?” She started running her fingers through her hair.
“The world is brutal, and I spent a long time trying to be decent inside it. There were moments I thought that if the right opportunity landed in front of me, I would have done whatever it took. Just to feed Cole.”
“You did,” I said. “You seem to forget that regularly.”
She groaned. “Mister Torres’s brother was the actual criminal in that situation. He walked in, destroyed everything his brother had built, and got every employee fired. So, I took what he made us all lose. That’s practically justice.”
“Hm.”
“What did he owe you anyway? A kidney?”
“I don’t remember. He caused problems in one of my clubs at some point.”
She gasped and sat up, pointing at me as I’d just confessed to something in court. “There. See? Clubs. You have multiple clubs.” Her eyes went wide. “Do you run a casino? Because that walks a very specific legal line, and I knew it. I knew you were an illegal man, I said it from the beginning.”
I looked down at her, and a smile arrived before I could decide against it—this girl.
We stared at each other for a moment.
“Take me to a casino one day,” she said.
“For what?”
“To see if you sell drugs too. I want the full picture. I could learn something useful and become a supplier. I want to be a millionaire.”
“Millionaire,” I repeated. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Why is that ridiculous? You run a multi-billion dollar organization.” She lifted her hand and studied the ring on her finger.
“Caitlin said this ring alone could buy a car. Which reminds me,” she turned it.
“It’s mine to keep, right? Like, once this fake marriage ends, I can sell it? That’s a reasonable position.”
I just watched her turn the ring, examining it. Her mind moved exactly how people like me do. Knowing she was related to Iker, I was no longer surprised. I couldn’t wait to see her face when she finally met her mother as a woman who runs a Mexican crime organization.
“I’m looking at this ring, and I can’t help thinking how scary marriages are,” she said almost to herself. “My parents didn’t work out, and I’m desperate for my father to wake up so I can understand everything. But what makes it worse is Caitlin’s marriage. It’s terrifying.”
Marriage was never a structure I built my life around. Women weren’t permanent in my world. But sitting here with Inna across my lap, I was already inside a version of this that felt nothing like what I loved. I was comfortable in this version, where she was in it.
“Can she stay here longer?” Inna asked. “She can’t go back to that man. I haven’t talked to her about it directly, but it is messy. If I were her, I’d divorce him without a conversation.” She clicked her tongue. “I’m glad you haven’t let Ivan near here. That monster. Does he still come to work?”
“While he’s dead?” I reached over and closed the laptop.
She turned her head. “He is dead?”
I set the laptop aside and looked down at her. She sat up slowly, shifting her whole body toward me like the new position would help her process the information better. “Wait. Ivan is dead?”
“Didn’t I tell you Akim would handle it?”
Her mouth opened and stayed there for a moment. I got up and crossed the room to the minibar. “No, wait. Do you understand what that means?”
“What does it mean?” I poured a drink.
“Why are you calm about it?” she asked.
“Was he my husband?”
She sighed. “No. But,” she moved to the edge of the cushion and began tapping the armrest with her fingers, working it out loud, “that’s a serious case. He could be arrested. Killing isn’t a last resort, and it shouldn’t even be an option.”
I set the glass down on the counter and looked at her. “Let me ask you something. Your father was in the hands of a dangerous man, guarded, not free to leave. Do you think I walked in there, politely retrieved him, and then got shot on the way out by accident?”
She blinked.
“You get shot when you are shooting. That’s how a rescue works,” I declared.
“So,” she shook her head and looked at me again. “So you killed people.”
I took a sip. “You said it yourself. The world is cruel. So you get crueler and keep moving.” I let the smirk sit on my face. “That’s how you stay alive.”
She processed that. “What if you get arrested?”
“Why? Are you worried you’d lose your husband?”
“You don’t become important to someone and then just disappear from their life!” She suddenly raised her voice, making my smirk fade. “This marriage will end, I know that. But it doesn’t mean you aren’t special to me. To Cole, too. I don’t like it when people disappear.”
I moved back to her and settled beside her. “I’m special to you?”
She looked down, and I put a finger under her chin, tilting her to look up. I raised a brow, and she spoke. “What do people have to do to be special to you?”
“What you do,” I said.
“Am I special?” she asked.
I didn’t answer with words. My lips took hers in a deep kiss. I didn’t need the word ‘special’. It was too small. Inna was different. That was the truth. Being different meant a lot more than just being special. And kissing her was the most honest thing I could do tonight.