Chapter 12 Milo #2
And I'd accepted her word that she wasn't doing anything with it.
My jaw ached from clenching.
She wouldn't. She had no contacts. No FBI connection. No journalist on speed dial. She was a blind pianist who lived in a studio apartment and rode the 42 bus and let me fuck her until she cried.
But.
She was also the woman who'd cataloged an entire criminal organization from a piano bench for hundreds of nights without anyone noticing. The woman who remembered conversations verbatim. Who could identify a man by his breathing pattern and smell the bleach on my hands after I'd washed them twice.
If Raven wanted to feed information to the Feds, she was more than capable of figuring out how. And she was more than smart enough to make sure I never found out.
She told you her secret. She trusted you.
Or she told me a version of it. A controlled confession. Enough truth to explain her behavior if I caught her listening, but not enough to incriminate.
God dammit. I was thinking like Viktor now. Poisoned. Suspicious. Pulling apart the one good thing in my life with the same clinical detachment I used to pull apart crime scenes.
I hated it.
And I hated even more that I couldn't stop.
"Fuck," I whispered.
I left cash on the table and walked out the front entrance.
Then circled the block and waited for her in the alley.
She came out the back door at 10:47.
"Raven—"
"You were at table fourteen tonight." She stopped a foot away. Tilted her head. Not looking at me. Listening. Cataloging. "Vodka, neat. You didn't touch your dinner. And Viktor pulled you away around nine-fifteen. You were gone for..." She paused. "Seven minutes. Give or take."
Seven minutes. The walk to the freezer, the conversation, the blood. She'd timed it from across the room while playing.
Three weeks ago, that would have made me want to pin her against the wall and kiss her until neither of us could breathe.
Tonight, it made my blood run cold.
"What else did you hear tonight?" The question came out harder than I'd meant it to.
Her head cocked. A micro-adjustment, like a bird sensing a predator's approach.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what else. While you were sitting at that piano, cataloging how long Viktor and I were gone—what else were you listening to?"
The silence stretched. I could see her thinking, deciding how much to give me. The same careful calibration she'd shown before. The same measured honesty that I'd mistaken for total transparency.
"The usual," she said carefully. "Silverware. Conversation. Viktor arguing with someone in Russian near the kitchen. The same things I always hear."
"The same things you always catalog, you mean."
Her fingers tightened on her cane. "Why are you saying it like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like it's an accusation. I told you what I do. You didn't have a problem with it then."
No. I'd been too busy with my tongue in her mouth to have a problem with anything.
"Things have changed."
"What things?"
"Viktor's looking for a leak." The words fell between us like stones. "Someone feeding information to the Feds. Shipments have been intercepted. The DEA knows exactly which trucks to stop. And Viktor thinks—" I stopped. Breathed. "He thinks it might be you."
I expected panic. Maybe anger. Indignation.
What I got was stillness.
Complete, absolute stillness. The kind that meant her mind was moving faster than her body could keep up with.
"Does he have proof?" she asked quietly.
Not that's insane. Not how could he think that.
Does he have proof.
The same question a guilty person would ask. The same question an innocent person with a dangerous secret would ask. And I couldn't tell which one she was anymore.
"You told me it was for yourself." My voice came out strangled. "That it was just insurance. Power. A loaded gun you'd never fire. That's what you said."
"Because that's what it is."
"Then why does Viktor think it's you?"
Her hand found my chest. I grabbed her wrist before she could settle it over my heart and held it between us.
"Milo." My name in her mouth, low and urgent. "I'm not feeding anything to the Feds. I told you. I don't have contacts. I've never spoken to law enforcement. The information stays in my head. That's it."
"Are you writing it down or recording it or something? Storing it somewhere?"
The pause was too long.
"I started to," she said finally. "Just recently, But it's just for me. To keep things straight. I don't—"
"Jesus Christ, Raven." I released her wrist. Stepped back. "You have physical evidence. Records of Bratva operations. And you didn't think to mention that?"
"Because I knew you'd react like this." Her chin lifted. Defiant even now. "You'd panic. You'd tell me to destroy it. And I—" Her jaw set. "It's mine, Milo."
The words were almost identical to what she'd said in the courtyard. Same speech. Same fire.
But now I heard it differently.
Not as trust. As a script.
"Viktor gave me a week." The words came out flat. Dead. "One week to prove you're not the leak. If I can't..." I grabbed her wrist again. Held it. "He'll kill you. And he'll make me watch."
She went pale in the yellow security light.
"Then we have a week," she said.
"To do what?"
"To find who's really talking." Her jaw set. "Because it's not me. And if Viktor's this paranoid, that means the real leak is still out there. Still feeding information. Which means—"
"Which means if we don't find them, you die anyway."
I searched her face. Looked for the lie. The tell. Some crack in her composure that would confirm what Viktor suspected or put my fears to rest.
All I found was fear. Real fear. The kind that thinned her lips and made her pulse hammer against my fingers where I held her wrist.
She was either innocent or the best liar I'd ever met.
And I'd met a lot of fucking liars.
Unable to stand the distance between us anymore, I pulled her against me and crushed my mouth to hers. She kissed me back hard, desperate, and I could taste her fear and defiance in equal measure.
When I pulled back, we were both shaking.
"Come home with me," I said.
"To your place?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because I need you to be somewhere safe. And because—" I pressed my forehead to hers. "Because I might only have a week left with you before Viktor kills us both, and I'm not wasting it."
Her breath hitched.
"Okay," she whispered.