Chapter Five
River
Living with Nadia turns out to be nothing like I expected. I thought sharing an apartment would be awkward, that we’d spend our days carefully avoiding each other until this whole fake marriage served its purpose.
Instead, every morning begins with an argument over coffee, and every evening ends with some sarcastic exchange that somehow leaves us both smiling.
And somewhere between brushing our teeth side by side and deciding whose turn it is to cook dinner, we’ve quietly slipped into a routine that feels dangerously normal.
I live and work in the shadows, wearing danger like a cloak. Normal is something I haven’t wanted in a very long time. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve simply never found the right person to share it with.
***
The problem with being a detective for all those years is that you never stop being one. You just stop getting paid for it.
I’ve been in the basement since six. Royal’s middle monitor has Damir Aronov’s face on it, the same photograph from a week ago, and I’ve been staring at it long enough that the pixels have stopped meaning anything.
“You’ve read that file four times,” Royal says without turning around.
“Five.” I drop into the chair beside him. “That’s the problem.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning there’s nothing in it.” I scrub a hand down my beard.
“A man finds his daughter after two years of looking. He calls her. He lets her hear his voice, lets her know he found her.” I gesture at the screen.
“And then nothing. Seven days. No second call. No one watching her apartment. Nobody’s asked a single question about her at the shop. ”
Roman looks up from the bench where he’s cleaning a disassembled Glock. “You’d rather he was kicking down doors?”
“Yes.” Then, I don’t have to imagine the worst. “A man kicking down doors is a man who doesn’t have a plan. This one’s got a plan.”
I pull out my phone and scroll to a number I haven’t used since I turned in my badge. My old partner picks up on the fourth ring and spends the first ninety seconds telling me exactly what he thinks of ex-cops who only call when they want something. I let him finish. Then I ask.
It takes him two days to call back.
***
“Aronov Construction,” he says, without hello. “Georgia Secretary of State filing, eight months ago. They’re prequalified on a redevelopment bid on the west side. Fully legitimate. Permits, bonding, the works.”
I close my eyes. “So he has a reason to be in Atlanta.”
“He has a reason nobody can question. A man with a bid in front of a city council can fly into Hartsfield twice a month for the next two years, and no one blinks.” A pause. “River. Whatever this is—”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s never nothing with you.” He hangs up.
I sit with it for a long time before I go downstairs and tell the others.
Raiden takes it the way he takes everything, arms folded, saying nothing until he’s turned it over completely. “Eight months. He filed before he found her.”
“He filed while he was still looking,” Royal says quietly. “He was building somewhere to stand before he ever picked up the phone.”
“So we take him,” Roman says.
“We vote on him,” Raiden corrects. “All four. One target at a time, and nobody moves alone. That hasn’t changed because it’s Nadia.” He looks at me when he says it, and I know exactly why.
Because it has changed. For me, it’s changed completely.
Royal pulls up something else on his screen. “There’s a clock, too. Ivan’s birthday is nineteen days out.” He glances over. “After that, whatever leverage the marriage bought us is gone.”
Nineteen days.
???
She’s been inside that apartment for nine days.
I notice it the way I notice everything about her now, which is to say constantly and against my own better judgment. She doesn’t complain. She reorganizes my kitchen, argues with me about towels, and doesn’t once mention that the last time she stood outside in daylight, she was somebody else.
“Get your shoes,” I tell her on the tenth night.
She looks up from the couch, immediately suspicious. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
She grumbles the entire way down to the street, right up until she sees the bike, and then she stops talking altogether. I hand her the spare helmet. She turns it over in her hands like she’s never held one.
“Have you ever been on one?”
“My father would have shot the man who put me on one.”
“Good.” I swing a leg over. “Get on.”
She’s stiff for the first two blocks, and then she isn’t.
Somewhere around the third mile, her arms tighten around my waist, her cheek settles between my shoulder blades, and she stops holding herself apart from me.
Atlanta streaks past us in hues of amber and red.
I take the long way for no reason at all.
When we stop at a light on Edgewood, a woman is breaking down a flower stall for the night, hauling in buckets. Nadia turns her head and looks. Just looks, the whole length of the light, and doesn’t say anything about it.
I file it away.
***
“You’re doing it wrong.”
I look up from the bed.
Nadia stands in the doorway wearing one of my old T-shirts over leggings, her dark brown hair piled into a messy bun that somehow makes her look even prettier. She folds her arms across her chest and watches me with the unmistakable expression of someone preparing to criticize my work.
“I’ve made a bed before.”
“I’m starting to doubt that.”
I tug the comforter into place. “It looks fine.”
She walks over, grabs one corner of the blanket, and immediately starts pulling everything I’d just straightened.
“It was already fixed.”
“It was crooked.” She gives the blanket one final tug before stepping back with a satisfied smile. “There.”
I stare at the bed. “It looks exactly the same.”
“It absolutely does not.”
“It absolutely does,” I throw back.
“You have no appreciation for craftsmanship.”
“It’s a bed.”
“It’s art.”
I shake my head. “You know, I think you’re just making work for yourself.”
She places a hand over her heart. “I’m offended.”
“I was hoping you would be.”
She reaches down, grabs one of the decorative pillows, and throws it directly at my face. The pillow bounces harmlessly off my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
Her eyes widen theatrically. “Was that a threat?”
“It was a promise.” I pick up the pillow and take a threatening step toward her.
She squeals, spins, and bolts from the bedroom, laughing.
“Oh, you’ve done it now.”
“You have to catch me first.”
I chase her down the hallway, her laughter echoing off the walls as she darts around the kitchen island and into the living room. She snatches another pillow off the couch and launches it at me without looking. It misses by several feet.
“Terrible aim.”
“I was distracting you.”
Somewhere between the front door and the sofa, she realizes she’s trapped. Her eyes dart toward the hallway. Then back to me.
“Oh...”
“Yeah.”
“I surrender.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She grins. “You probably shouldn’t.”
She makes a sudden break for the hallway. But I catch her around the waist before she takes two full steps.
She laughs so hard she nearly loses her balance, and together, we tumble sideways onto the couch in a tangle of limbs and cushions. I make sure to take most of the impact, instinctively keeping her from hitting the armrest before she lands against the cushions beneath me.
“There,” I say, slightly out of breath. “Caught you.”
“This is unfair. You outweigh me by at least a hundred pounds.” She wiggles dramatically, her body sliding over mine, waking my nerve endings.
My cock hardens. “Careful, angel,” I warn softly, my gaze holding hers.
For a moment, neither of us says anything. The laughter fades. The apartment grows quiet. I’m suddenly very aware that she’s looking up at me, her hands still resting lightly against my chest. A loose strand of hair has escaped her bun and fallen across her cheek.
Without thinking, I brush it back behind her ear, and her breath catches. The air between us shifts, heavy with something that has nothing to do with laughter anymore.
“You keep looking at me like that,” she whispers, “and something’s gonna happen.”
“Something’s already happening.” I drag my thumb across her lower lip, watching it part for me. “Has been happening since you threw that pillow.”
“You started it.”
“I’ll finish it too.”
I lean down and kiss her, slow and deliberate, letting her feel exactly how much I want her. She makes a soft sound against my mouth and arches up, her body seeking mine. My hand slides down her throat, thumb resting over her pulse point, feeling it race beneath my touch.
“Daddy,” she breathes into the kiss, and the word sends a jolt straight to my cock.
“Say it again.”
“Daddy.” Louder this time. Needier.
I groan and kiss her harder, deeper, until we’re both panting. Then I pull back and look down at her, this woman who somehow became mine, and I want to wreck her. I want to ruin her for anyone else.
“I’m going to take my time with you,” I tell her, my voice rough. “Going to taste every inch of this pretty skin until you’re begging me to stop. Then I’m going to fuck you so hard you forget your own name. But you’ll remember mine. Won’t you, angel?”
She nods, eyes wide and dark.
“Words.”
“Yes, Daddy. I’ll remember.”
“Good girl.”
I start at her jaw, trailing open-mouthed kisses down her throat, her collarbone, tasting the salt of her skin.
I push the T-shirt up and keep going, over her ribs, the soft curve of her stomach, until I reach the waistband of her leggings.
I hook my fingers in and pull, taking her panties with them, stripping her bare while she lifts her hips to help me.
“Look at you.” I spread her thighs, settle between them, and look my fill. “Soaked already. Is this all for me?”
“Yes. Only you.”
“Only me,” I agree, and I lower my mouth to the slick heat of her pussy.