7. Vera
VERA
Ileave Roman in the office and wander the halls like a ghost. The mansion is too quiet during the day, just the distant sound of Oksana directing the cleaning staff and the hum of the air conditioning.
My lips still feel swollen from kissing him, and I press my fingers to them as if I can erase the evidence.
What the hell was I thinking?
I wasn’t thinking, that’s the problem. I was feeling, and feeling is dangerous.
I find myself in front of the library without consciously deciding to go there. The double doors are closed, and when I push them open, dust motes dance in the sunlight streaming through the tall windows.
This room always felt separate from the rest of the house. Dmitri rarely came in here. He preferred his office with its leather and dark wood and air of intimidation.
The library is lighter. There’s a ladder on rails for reaching the higher shelves, and two wing-back chairs positioned near the fireplace.
I close the doors behind me and lean against them. My heart is still racing from the confrontation with Roman.
I need to focus.
Roman wants the ledger. If I can find it, maybe I can speed up this whole process. Get through the ninety days without incident and disappear before this thing between us gets any more complicated.
Before I do something even stupider than kissing him in his dead brother’s office.
I move to the bookshelves and start scanning the spines. Most of them are classics. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov. There are some American authors mixed in.
I pull out a few books at random, checking behind them for hidden compartments. Nothing. Just more books and dust.
The next shelf is history. I see thick volumes about the Russian Revolution and World War II. I run my fingers along the spines and something catches. A slight give in the wood behind one of the books.
My pulse quickens. I pull out the book and reach into the gap. My fingers find the edge of what feels like a panel. I press and it shifts slightly but doesn’t open.
“Come on,” I mutter.
I try pushing different spots on the panel, but nothing happens. Whatever mechanism is supposed to open it must be broken... or I’m doing it wrong.
I replace the book and move on. The third bookshelf holds fiction. Mysteries and thrillers mostly. I almost laugh at the irony.
The fourth shelf is different. These books are older, leather-bound with gold lettering.
I’m about to move on when I notice something. The bookcase itself is slightly off-center. Not much, just a fraction of an inch, but enough that it’s noticeable if you’re looking for it.
I kneel and run my hands along the base of the bookcase. The wood is solid and heavy, probably mahogany. My fingers find the edge where it meets the floor and I feel a slight gap.
I press my cheek to the floor and try to see underneath. It’s too dark. I need to move the bookcase.
I stand and brace my hands against the side of it. The thing is massive and doesn’t budge when I push. I try pulling instead and manage to shift it maybe half an inch before my arms start shaking.
“Damn it.”
I look around the room for something to use as leverage. There’s a fireplace poker near the hearth. I grab it and wedge the pointed end into the gap between the bookcase and the floor.
The poker slips twice before I find the right angle. Then I lean all my weight on it and the bookcase shifts. Just an inch, but it’s enough.
I drop the poker and get back on my knees. With the bookcase moved, I can see the floorboards beneath it. One of them looks different from the others. Lighter in color, like it’s been replaced more recently.
I press down on it and it gives slightly. I wedge my fingernails into the crack and pull. The board lifts free and I set it aside.
Underneath is a small compartment carved into the floor joists. Inside is a single object.
A key.
It’s small, brass, the kind that opens a lockbox or a safe. I pick it up and turn it over in my palm. There’s no marking on it, nothing to indicate what it unlocks.
It has to mean something. People don’t hide keys under floorboards for no reason.
I’m still kneeling on the floor, staring at the key, when the library doors open.
I look up and Roman is standing in the doorway. There’s a crease between his eyebrows like he’s been frowning at documents for too long.
His eyes move from me to the displaced bookcase to the floorboard I pulled up. “What did you find?” he asks.
I close my fist around the key and stand. “I’m not sure yet.”
He crosses the room in long strides. When he reaches me, he holds out his hand.
“Let me see.”
“Why?”
I should just give it to him, but some petty part of me wants to hold onto this small piece of power.
“Vera.” His voice is quiet but there’s an edge to it. “The key.”
I open my hand. The key sits in my palm, small and innocuous.
Roman picks it up and his fingers brush against mine. The contact is brief but it sends heat up my arm. I pull my hand back and shove it in my pocket.
He examines the key, turning it over the same way I did. “Where was it?”
“Under the floorboard, beneath the bookcase.”
“You moved that by yourself?”
“I used the poker.”
Something that might be approval flickers across his face. He pockets the key and looks at the bookcase, then at me.
“Show me exactly where it was.”
I kneel again and point to the compartment. “Right there. That’s all that was in it.”
Roman crouches beside me. He’s close enough that I can smell his cologne. It’s a rich, masculine scent that sends heat straight to my pussy. Not now.
He reaches into the compartment and runs his hand along the inside edges. “Empty.”
“I know. I checked.”
“You’re sure there was nothing else? No papers, no?—”
“I’m sure, Roman. Just the key.”
He sits back on his heels and looks at me. We’re at eye level now and I can see the flecks of green in his hazel eyes.
“Good work,” he says.
The praise catches me off guard. “It’s just a key. We don’t even know what it opens.”
He stands and offers me his hand.
I look at it for a moment. His palm is broad and his fingers are long. I remember how those fingers felt on my skin, inside me.
I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet. When I’m standing, he doesn’t let go right away. His thumb brushes across my knuckles and my breath catches.
“We should figure out what it opens,” I say. My voice comes out rougher than I intended.
“Yes.” But he still doesn’t release my hand.
“Roman.”
“What?”
“Let go.”
“Why?”
“We agreed this can’t happen again.”
“You agreed to that.” His thumb is still moving in small circles on my hand. “I never said I’d cooperate.”
I pull my hand free and put distance between us. My back hits the bookcase and books shift on the shelves above me.
“Where would Dmitri keep something that needs this kind of key?” I ask. It’s a shallow redirect, but all I can think of in the moment.
Roman lets me do it. He pulls the key from his pocket and studies it again. “A safe or lockbox. Something like that.”
“There’s a safe in the master bedroom.”
“I already checked it. Empty.”
“What about his study? The real one, not the main office.”
Roman looks at me. “He had a private study?”
“Down the hall from our bedroom. He kept it locked. I was never allowed in.”
“Show me.”
We leave the library and I lead him upstairs. The hallway is long and carpeted in deep burgundy. Oil paintings of people I don’t recognize line the walls. Dmitri’s ancestors, probably. Men with hard faces and women with sad eyes.
The study is at the end of the hall. The door is heavy wood with an old-fashioned keyhole. I try the handle even though I know it won’t turn.
Obviously, it’s locked.
Roman examines the lock. “This isn’t original to the house. Dmitri had it installed.”
“How can you tell?”
“The wood around it is newer. See?” He runs his finger along the edge where the lock plate meets the door. “This was done maybe five, six years ago.”
“So he didn’t want anyone getting in.”
“Or he wanted to make sure he knew if someone tried.” Roman pulls out his wallet and extracts a thin piece of metal on a small hook. “Stand back.”
I realize after a second it’s a lockpick. The lock clicks after maybe thirty seconds.
The study is smaller than I expected. There’s a desk positioned under the window, a single bookshelf, and a filing cabinet in the corner. Everything is obsessively neat. No papers left out, no books lying open.
Roman moves to the desk and starts opening drawers. I go to the filing cabinet and try the top drawer.
It’s locked, too.
“Roman.”
He comes over and I gesture to the cabinet. He tries each drawer and they’re all locked.
“The key,” I say.
He pulls it from his pocket and tries it in the top drawer. It doesn’t fit. “Dammit.” He tries the second drawer. Still nothing.
The third drawer clicks when he turns the key. Inside are files. Dozens of them, all neatly labeled and organized. Roman pulls out the first one.
“Financial records,” he says. He scans the pages, his jaw tightening.
I lean over his shoulder to look. The numbers are staggering. Hundreds of thousands of dollars moving between accounts. Some incoming, some outgoing.
Roman pulls out another file. Then another. They’re all the same.
“He was draining everything,” Roman says. His voice is flat. “Look at the dates. They start eight months ago and the amounts get bigger as time goes on.”
I take one of the files and study it. He’s right. The pattern is clear; Dmitri was systematically moving money out of what I assume were business accounts into personal ones. Then those personal accounts were emptied.
“Where was it going?” I ask.
“Offshore accounts, probably. Cayman Islands, or somewhere else we can’t easily track.” Roman sets down the file he’s holding and pulls out more. “He knew. He knew I was coming for him and he was planning to run.”
I watch his profile. The muscle jumping in his jaw, the way his knuckles have gone white.
The room feels smaller suddenly. Roman is too close and it makes my skin prickle with awareness.
“We’ll keep looking,” I say, and force myself to turn away from him.
“Will we?”
“That’s the deal, isn’t it? I help you find the ledger.”
He steps closer. “What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“What else is part of the deal, Vera?” Another step. I’m backed up against the filing cabinet now with nowhere to go. “It feels like there’s more happening here than just a business arrangement.”
My heart is hammering. “There isn’t.”
“No?” His hand comes up and cups my jaw. His thumb brushes across my lower lip. “Then why are you looking at me like that?”
This is insane. We’re in Dmitri’s private study, surrounded by evidence of his crimes, and all I can think about is my lips on his. I want him inside me so badly I ache for it.
His hands skim up my sides, leaving heat in their wake. His mouth moves to my neck and I tilt my head back, giving him access.
Then I shove Roman back and scramble away from the filing cabinet. He steps back, his chest heaving and his eyes dark.
Footsteps stop outside the door. “Mrs. Volkonsky? Lunch is ready.”
I run a hand through my hair, trying to compose myself. “Thank you, Oksana. We’ll be down in a minute.”
Her footsteps retreat down the hallway.
Roman is staring at me. I wish I could make out his expression, but he’s a closed book. His eyes are dark and narrowed, his lips pursed into a thin line.
He looks at me for a long moment. Then he nods once and moves past me to the door.
“We should go,” he says without looking back.
I follow him out of the study, my legs unsteady and my heart still racing. As we walk down the hallway, I catch my reflection in one of the gilt mirrors on the wall.
I look away from the mirror and focus on Roman’s back.
Ninety days. I just have to make it ninety days without completely losing myself to this.