Chapter 23
AMARA
Pretend like this isn’t the first time you’ve been handed a brick of cocaine, Amara.
I am silently scolding myself as I sit with a pound of drugs in my lap. But let’s face it. This isn’t a poorly rolled joint handed to me by a shaggy-haired kid with a shit-eating grin in high school.
This is real. Very, very real.
“So,” I start in. But the air in the car is so thick it feels like there’s no room for the words. “It’s true, then?”
“What’s true?” Ransome asks.
“All of it. I’ve researched the… the Bratva.” I stop, realizing I need to be very careful with my words. “Before you took my phone away. I know what they’re known for. What they do. What they are capable of. I guess I just didn’t realize…”
“That I’m part of that,” he says instead of asking.
“Well. Yeah.”
Ransome almost smiles. Almost. “You’re a good assistant, Amara.
You’re also a great detective. And an excellent stalker.
” I’m not sure which part of that statement made me smile.
The three back-to-back compliments, which must be setting a record for Ransome Rozanov.
Or just the fact that he said my name again.
But when he goes on, my smile fades and fast.
“Which is why I am going to need you to listen closely and pay attention. Because you need to do exactly what I say from here on out.”
“You know,” I start in. I feel like I am tip-toeing through a minefield, but something about knowing I could step in the wrong spot at any given moment is actually kind of riveting. “You still haven’t actually told me anything.”
Ransome’s eyes point at the lump in my lap. “That’s nothing?”
“So you deal drugs. That’s not unheard of.” I wave my hands, because I still don’t want to touch it and I don’t know what else I am supposed to do with them.
“First of all, I don’t deal. I trap. I flip. And I make a lot of money.”
“See that’s what I’m talking about. Trap, flip, I don’t know what any of that means.”
He rakes a hand through his hair. “You’re cute.”
“Are you hitting on me?”
“Far from it, doll.”
Doll. The word curls hot and warm into my belly despite myself.
“Look,” I start talking before he can. Because the ball isn’t in his court. It’s in my lap. “I know I’m no Walter White—”
“That was meth, not cocaine.”
“—but you can’t just hand me a pound of—of product and expect me to play along without telling me what’s going on.”
His expression turns stony. “Since when did you start presuming you can tell me what I can or cannot do, Miss Parker?”
“No.” I shake my head, hard. “Do not even try that. Don’t pull rank with me now.”
“I—”
“I have had to look out for myself and other people my entire life, Ransome.” His name slips out, but the shocked look on his face makes it worth the risk.
“I have had to be smart my whole life. And if I am going to be involved with this, which it looks like I am, I want to know more. Because this was not part of the contract.”
“Duties subject to change,” he says, and I blink.
“I’m sorry?”
“That was in the contract. Duties subject to change.”
“That can’t possibly include slinging glass!” I cry out, and Ransome laughs. He actually laughs. It’s a sound I have dreamt about and yet, right now, I don’t love it. “What?”
“First of all, get it straight. It’s cocaine, not meth, and we aren’t slinging it.”
“And I don’t know that because you won’t tell me shit!”
Ransome studies me for a moment. I half-expect him to slap me. Or hogtie me and toss me back in the trunk.
But he doesn’t. “Fine,” he says. “You want to know the truth? I’ll give you the truth, dorogoya.” His smirk widens. “But whether you can handle it or not, you will still hold up your end of the bargain by the time I’m finished.”
And before I can say anything to that, he begins to tell me everything.
He tells me about the territories. About the family feud between the Rozanovs and the Chadovichs and how the drug war between them is just the tip of the iceberg. The blood runs bad and it runs deep.
Then he tells me about their recent deal in El Paso and what that looks like in comparison to what they’re already doing.
By the end of it, my head is spinning and my nerves are tingling.
I pinch my lips together and study the brick before looking at him. “So… Why am I involved? You could have kept me as your assistant at Apex and even contracted me as your girlfriend without actually telling me any of that. I could have stayed in the dark and never been the wiser.”
“Surely you don’t believe that, dorogoya.” His voice is scaly and I can’t decide if I want to lean into it or pull away. “You have a knack for involving yourself in places you don’t belong. An itch for uncovering. You would have backed yourself into this corner eventually.”
He’s not wrong. Annoying, but not wrong.
“So as your girlfriend… the girlfriend of a pakhan… what corner do you have me backed into?”
“I’m not the pakhan yet. My dad has that title currently.
And he is so caught up in chasing dollar signs that he forgets about the Chadovichs and the bad blood between us.
” He scoffs. “He thinks me marrying Jenica will actually suffice. It’s a distraction at best. If they knew we were running this much blow, they’d want to get a hold of it.
They might even turn us over to the police. ”
I frown. “I thought you had the police paid off.”
“We do.” He does not so much as blink as he says it. “But if they knew how much of this is in that building, how much more there is about to be, they’d want to be paid a lot more.”
“Oh, no. A pay cut. How will you ever pay for your next Rolex?”
He shoots me a withering look. “The bottom line is, things are about to get very dangerous, and my dad is in over his head.”
I think about that for a minute. “So, if it’s not about saving Apex’s Christmas bonuses, where do I come in?”
Ransome surprisingly chooses to blow around my sass. “Your job is to be distracting.”
“You mean look pretty and keep my mouth shut.”
“It’s not as negative as you’re making it sound.”
“Arm candy. You want me to be your arm candy so the media doesn’t see you tossing this stuff all over the streets.”
“You’re more than arm candy, Amara.” His gaze on me turns intense.
“You’re what is keeping me from marrying into the contract that would put Tristan Chadovich in the passenger seat of this operation.
And if you think I’m bad, Tristan is worse.
He’s out for himself and he will stop at nothing for power.
If I marry Jenica, he has an in. Intel. And I can’t risk that. ”
If I am being honest, I don’t know what to say. All of this just got way more complicated. But as usual, I have no idea how to say no to him.
So I don’t.
“Alright,” I say. “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.”
It’s not like I have a choice. It’s not like I signed a contract and didn’t comb the fine print.
I do feel a little gaslighted, though. I didn’t ask to be brought here or to see any of this.
Ransome puts the blindfold back on me. I guess he still isn’t too comfortable about me knowing where we actually are. I don’t say anything. I just sit quietly in the dark, singing to myself as we drive back through all the turns.
Once we are back at the office, Ransome turns to me. I am no longer holding the block—thank God—and I feel him reach behind my head to untie the blindfold.
But then… he stops.
And I wait.
I feel his breath before I feel his lips. Warm. Smoky. Eager.
When his mouth covers mine, I knew it was coming, but that doesn’t change the surprise. For one, we are alone. There’s no reason for the show.
But also, it’s deep. Deep enough that I need to lean into something, and I’m not about to lean away. So I arch my back and press my body against his.
When the kiss ends, I pull the blindfold the rest of the way off myself. “Let me guess. More practice to be convincing? You really have no faith in me.”
“That wasn’t practice.”
“Then what was it?”
He studies me. But there is no smile or warmth in his expression. “The benefits clause. Now go inside.”
Benefits clause… Oh.
Oh.
Right. I don’t know how I could forget such a thing. It’s not like my life has been flipped completely inside out in the last week or anything.
“Inside?” I ask, looking out the window. “But we aren’t at my house.”
“No. We are at the penthouse. You’re not going back to your apartment, Amara. I think you understand why at this point.”
But I don’t. As I get out of the car, I can’t seem to make sense of any of it. I close the door and turn to walk towards the elevator, but Ransome rolls his window down, stopping me.
“Amara…”
I spin around and find him holding my phone out the window. Wordlessly—because what the fuck is happening right now?—I take it.
Then I make my way up the stairs and wait for Ivan to open the door for me. Once I am inside, I look around and decide to help myself to a drink. I notice that there is a bottle of tequila and I snort. Is it supposed to be some sort of peace offering?
I choose not to overthink it and just drink it. Just a shot to sip while I think.
He doesn’t trust me to stay at my own apartment.
He regulates my phone, deciding when I can and can’t have it.
But he shows me a warehouse full of illegal drugs and tells me the process of the entire operation.
It makes no sense. And I realize, as I come to the bottom of the glass, that Ransome isn’t who I thought he was.
He’s so much more complicated.