Chapter 4
COLE
My usual four hours of sleep drop to three in the aftermath of being manhandled by Nikolai Tarasov.
Lying in bed, I marvel at the peacefulness of Kate’s steady breathing.
In the shadowed bedroom, her tangled hair looks black.
I can barely make out the curve of her hip, where she’s thrown back the top sheet.
I’m still not used to seeing Kate in the dark. When she agreed to marry me, she made it a condition that she’d always have a lamp on, driving away bad dreams. She’s only learned to sleep without a light since she executed Pyotr Tarasov.
If Nikolai gets his hands on her, no lamp in the world will be bright enough to bring her peace.
As if she can sense my thoughts, Kate’s fingers scrabble beside her cheek.
Her forehead creases, and her breath comes faster.
She starts to murmur—something that might be Irish, or maybe it’s the twisted language of dreams. She moans, a shaky sigh that’s backed with terror, and her head thrashes. “No,” she mutters.
“You’re dreaming,” I whisper. Every nerve in my body is attuned to her. My fingers flex, desperate to soothe her, but I’m afraid her dream-mind will read my touch as a threat.
“Stop,” she pleads.
“Hush, Kate. Go back to sleep.”
“Please…” she begs, and now she’s crying, deep, ragged sobs that sound like something is ripping inside her.
“Sweetheart,” I say, and that’s a word I’ve never used before—not for Kate, not for any woman. It leaves my lips half a promise, half a prayer.
She screams, a sound of pure terror.
She wakes herself. She might be waking half of DC.
Her mouth is stretched and her eyes are wild.
She’s kicked off the sheets as if they burn her, and the red cap tattoo at the top of her thigh stands out like a black brand against her moon-white flesh, weeping the individual scars from her cutting.
Her stiffened fingers rake her sides—and still that terrible scream slices its way out of her body.
“Kate,” I say, grabbing her wrists before she can draw blood. “You’re safe. It was just a dream.” I pull her against my body, one hand spread across her shuddering back, one cupping her head. “I’m here. No one can hurt you. You’re safe. Sweet Kate. You’re safe.”
She gentles as I clutch her, her board-like arms and legs finally easing. When she buries her face against my neck, hot tears melt between us. Sobs turn to deep gulping breaths punctuated by hiccups as I keep up my stream of meaningless words.
“I…” she finally says, a single word that I feel more than I hear.
I kiss the crown of her head. In the quiet, I whisper, “Do you want me to turn on the light?”
She shakes her head, a trembling of butterfly wings so faint I’d miss them if I weren’t perfectly attuned to her body. For a moment, I’m certain that will be her only response, but then she whispers, “Just stay here. Just hold me.”
I tighten my arms around her, covering her legs with mine for good measure.
As she clings to me, I wonder how we’ve come this far.
The night we met, she threw champagne in my face.
Later, she slapped me as hard as she could, and I struck back, only drawing off some of my heat at the last possible instant.
Some. Not all. And both of us were surprised by the flare in Kate’s eyes. She’d never found a man to match her wild spirit. But at heart, Kate Lynch is a submissive—and I’m the Dom who can give her what she needs.
Her racing pulse is slowing now. Her breath is almost back to normal. I move my lips close to her ear. “Want to tell me what you dreamed?”
This time when she shakes her head, she’s more determined. But she says, “Pyotr. In the Cold Room. While you watched.”
My body turns to granite—ice cold and stained, a gravestone crumbling over a shattered casket. I can’t change what that monster did to her. I can’t erase the memories. There is no way for me to take on that burden, to carry her past for her, even for a moment.
No one can.
But I can promise I’ll do everything in my power to spare her from another animal.
So long as I have breath in my body, Nikolai Tarasov will not set a finger on her.
I don’t care what it takes. I’ll spend every penny I’ve ever earned, begged, or stolen.
I’ll move us across oceans, to the very ends of the earth.
I’ll kill the man myself or hire a hitman, an entire team of assassins to take him out, to make sure he suffers every dying second.
Kate is my wife. She’s mine.
I hold her until she sleeps again, her exhausted breathing even deeper than when I first woke. When I finally ease her back to the mattress, I settle her cheek on her pillow. I smooth the sheet over her shoulder and I kiss her hair.
Then I glide out of bed, like a panther in the dark. With a lifetime of practice, I dress in silence—black silk boxers, black jeans, sleek black tee.
I could work at the table in the corner of the room; the computer there is wired into my network, secure behind the military-grade firewalls that protect my entire business empire. But I don’t want to risk Kate waking again, so I pad across the room on bare feet and make my way downstairs.
In my office, I turn on the single anglepoise lamp on my desk and fire up my computer. It only takes a minute to create a secure new workspace, to carve out an electronic corner for the work Nikolai Tarasov has demanded.
Before I can start the project, though, an unwelcome thought intrudes. Tarasov is doing his level best to destroy my life—going after Kate, threatening to reveal my past, using the Andersons as leverage. But there’s a weapon he hasn’t hinted at using yet.
Megan.
My sister and I have had more than our share of difficulties over the years. She learned all the same cons from Shannon that I did, but she’s never seen any reason to step away from a grifter’s life. I swore I’d never forgive her when one of her exploits brought Pyotr Tarasov to my doorstep.
But if Nikolai decides to go after her…
Long ago, Megan refused to carry a cellphone; she knows if she did, I could track her anywhere in the world. We set up a system, though, for me to reach her in an emergency, texts she can retrieve at will.
I type out a message, knowing it will be routed around the world several times, making it impossible for me to trace my sister’s actual location. Nutmeg, I type, using the nickname I gave her decades ago. You’re in danger. Call me.
After I send those words, I stare at my screen for several minutes.
I’ve dabbled in cryptocurrency before. Every billionaire has.
No bank regulates crypto; no country controls it.
Some transactions return shocking wealth—tens of thousands on the dollar—while others collapse into deep, sucking holes.
But I’ve never tried to structure my own coin. I understand the theory. I’ve exploited some of the same tactics when I’ve secured my clients’ holdings against online bandits, like the Red Cap Raiders Kate used to lead.
I’m aware of the irony as I type the first few lines of code.
Thanks to a looming tax bill, I’m flirting with personal bankruptcy even as I create a new form of money.
But my body settles into its usual hyper-awareness at the keyboard.
My breathing slows. My vision sharpens. The connection between my brain and my fingers slips into a higher gear.
I forget Kate’s tortured nightmares. I forget the feel of a Turkish kilim under my bare feet.
I forget a thousand nagging details—reviewing the anti-drone measures for Sawgrass’ implementation, mopping up the last details from breaking the Quebec hospital’s ransom attack, restructuring Cayman Rochester’s network…
RedBear takes its first shadowy form.
“Sir.”
From the assertive pitch in Nilsson’s voice, he’s already requested my attention multiple times.
Pushing back from my keyboard, I feel a familiar stiffness in my shoulders.
My forearms twinge with a warning that I should have given them a break hours ago.
Twisting in my chair, I relieve pressure in my lower back as Nilsson lowers a polished ebony tray to my desk.
“Sir,” he says again, watching with a field marshal’s attention as I pick up the stainless-steel tumbler he’s brought me.
“What’s this?” I ask, touching the bottom of the cup to a thin manilla envelope.
“It arrived by courier, sir. The new security team has scanned it for powders and explosives.”
I frown at more than the taste of my usual breakfast smoothie. I’ve long since learned to ignore the flavor of kale blended into yogurt and almond milk, along with flaxseed, protein powder, and collagen.
The envelope bears a printed return address—the accounting firm I keep on retainer to handle my always-complex taxes. I slit the envelope with a dagger-shaped letter opener and slide out two sheets of paper.
The first is a hand-written note from James Sterling, senior partner of Sterling, Johnson, and Michaels. It’s characteristically brief, slicing straight to the point, which is one of the reasons Sterling still has my business.
As expected, the Internal Revenue Service has been notified of last month’s divestment of assets from the Diamond Freeport tax haven.
See attached for tax payment due on September 15, with equal amount expected January 15 of next year.
We strongly recommend identification of substantial business deductions this quarter, including business losses, donations, and appropriate restructuring of accounts.
Please call to discuss at your earliest convenience.
The IRS doesn’t care that my assets are safely back in my gallery at Diamond Freeport. I still need to pay for my mistake.
Setting aside Sterling’s note, I scan the IRS letter for the exact dollar amount. “Fuck me,” I whisper as the number registers.
“Sir?” Nilsson inquires, taking a half step forward, as if I might require his services to crush a cockroach or stomp out a kindling fire.
I wave him back with an absent flip of my hand. I have no one to blame for this mistake but myself.
The IRS calculations are crisp. Clear. Set out in whole-dollar amounts, not bothering with a few stray pennies.
The sum has three more zeroes than my own worst-case estimate.
I’m ruined.