Chapter 13 #2
She came apart. One last time. Her pussy clamped down so hard I couldn't hold back anymore.
I buried myself deep and let go. My orgasm punched through me, whiting out my vision, every muscle in my body locking as I spilled inside her.
When the world came back, I was collapsed on top of her. Both of us shaking. Gasping for air.
When I could move again, I rolled off of her. She curled into me immediately and pressed her face against my chest. Her breathing was ragged. Her whole body trembling.
Her arms tightened around me.
And I knew—with absolute certainty—that I was going to save her.
Even if it meant destroying everything else.
***
The next few days were a countdown to execution.
After that first night, I didn't go back to my loft. Didn't even pretend to maintain the separation. I moved into her darkness where she was comfortable, and every night we fucked like it might be our last time.
Because it might be.
During the day, I worked the problem. Digging through Viktor's organization, looking for the real leak. Following soldiers on their routes. Watching who made phone calls at odd hours. Who seemed nervous. Who avoided eye contact.
And I found nothing.
Whoever was feeding information to the Feds was good. Professional.
Or maybe Viktor was wrong. Maybe there was no leak at all, just bad luck and paranoia.
But I didn't believe that. And neither did he.
On day three, I came to her apartment to find her at the kitchen table, a notebook open in front of her.
It was filled with Braille.
"What's this?" I asked.
She stilled. Her fingers hovering over the raised dots.
"My notes," she said carefully. "From the restaurant. The things I've heard."
I'd forgotten about her notes.
"Raven—"
"You said we have to find the real leak." She turned toward me. "So I've been going through everything I remember. Cataloging who said what, when. Looking for patterns. Inconsistencies."
"I can't believe you fucking wrote it down." My voice came out flat.
"In Braille. Viktor can't read it."
"But the Feds can. If they ever raid this place—"
"They won't. Why would they?" She stood and came to me. "This is me helping, Milo. I have months and months of conversations in my head. If someone's leaking, maybe I heard something that will point us to them."
She didn't understand. Couldn't see the trap she'd built for herself.
If Viktor found this notebook, it wouldn't matter that she wasn't feeding the Feds. The fact that she'd been recording it at all would be enough. Evidence that she'd been cataloging their operations. That the blind pianist had been a spy all along.
"Burn it," I said.
"What?"
"Burn the notebook. Tonight. Now." I grabbed her shoulders. "You can't have physical evidence, Raven. If Viktor finds this—"
"He won't—"
"You don't know that!" The words came out too loud. Too desperate. "You can't predict when he'll decide to search your apartment. When he'll send someone to toss this place while you're at work. And if they find this—" I shook her. "They'll kill you. And I won't be able to stop them."
Silence.
Then she pulled away from me. Walked to the table, grabbed the notebook and gave it to me.
"What now?" she asked quietly.
"Now we keep looking." I pulled her against me. "And we hope we find something before Viktor's deadline."
***
Day six.
One day left.
I'd torn Viktor's organization apart from the seams looking for the real leak, and I had nothing.
I'd tailed soldiers on their routes. Sat outside warehouses in the dark, watching who came and went and when.
Ran plate numbers through a contact who owed me for a cleanup I'd done pro bono.
Checked for burner phones, unusual patterns, nervous habits.
I'd watched every man in Viktor's crew, looking for the stain that didn't belong.
Nothing.
Not a single crack in the wall. Not one soldier making calls at odd hours. Not one too-casual deflection when Viktor brought up the intercepted shipments. Either the real leak was a ghost, or Viktor was fucking with me.
Or the leak was sitting in a dark apartment a few miles east of here, with a head full of Bratva secrets she'd been hoarding for two years.
I shoved that thought into the same locked box where I kept my father's voice and every other thing that I couldn't allow to breathe.
She wasn't the leak.
She wasn't.
Now I was standing in the service alcove at The Silver Table, watching Viktor through the kitchen window. He was on the phone. Whoever he was talking to, the conversation wasn't going well. His face was red and his free hand kept clenching and unclenching.
Then he hung up, and looked directly at me through the glass.
He smiled, and my blood went cold.
Stepping out of the kitchen, he joined me, lighting a cigarette.
"Milo." He exhaled smoke. "Tomorrow is day seven."
"I know."
"Have you found proof that she is clean?"
"No. But I've also found no proof that she isn't. She's not talking to anyone. No cops. No Feds. No journalists. I've been on her constantly—"
"I know you have." His smile widened. "That is part of the problem. You cannot be objective about woman you are fucking."
"Viktor—"
He held up a hand. The cigarette trailed smoke between his fingers like a burning fuse.
"One more day, Milo. That is what I gave you, and that is what you have." He took a slow drag. "Use it wisely. Because when the sun comes up the day after tomorrow, I will need an answer. And if you do not give me one..." He stepped closer. Lowered his voice. "I will find my own."
He didn't need to finish the sentence. I'd seen how Viktor found his own answers. Usually with pliers and a plastic tarp.
"And Milo?" He clapped a hand onto my shoulder hard enough to make the point. "If I find out you have been protecting her instead of investigating her, it won't just be the girl who disappears." He squeezed once. "You understand?"
"Yeah, Vik. I understand."
He studied my face for a long moment. Looking for the crack. The tell. The thing that would confirm what he already suspected.
I gave him the surfer-boy grin. Easy. Empty. The same mask I'd been wearing since I was old enough to understand that showing people what you really felt was the fastest way to get hurt.
He grunted and walked away.
I stood there with the lingering scent of his cigarette in my nose and a countdown running in my skull.
Twenty-four hours.
I had twenty-four hours to produce evidence that didn't exist to clear a woman who might actually be guilty of exactly what Viktor suspected—not feeding the Feds, but something almost as dangerous.
Hoarding their secrets. Cataloging their crimes.
Building a weapon she swore she'd never use but couldn't bring herself to put down.
And if I couldn't?
I looked up through the kitchen pass-through.
I could see the edge of the dining room from here.
The glow of candlelight on white linen. And beyond it, Raven at the piano.
Her head tilted, chin up, dark hair spilling over bare shoulders.
She was playing something I couldn't hear with all the clanging of pots and pans behind me, but I could see the way her body moved with it, swaying like a reed in a current.
She was playing for me. She always played for me now. Even when she didn't know if I was listening.
That thing that had been building since the night she'd pressed her fingers to my face in a dark alley tore through me with a violence that made my vision blur.
Tomorrow, Viktor would come for his answer. And when I couldn't give him one, he'd come for her. He'd give her to Konstantin. And he'd make me watch.
Unless I found another way to protect her.
I pulled out my phone and made a call to a contact I hadn't spoken to in five years. Someone who owed me. Someone who had connections I needed.
"It's Milo," I said when he answered. "I need to disappear."
The voice on the other end laughed. "Who did you piss off?"
"The Bratva."
Silence.
"Jesus, Milo. You know what they do to people who run?"
"Yeah." I watched Raven through the pass-through. Her hands lifted from the keys, suspended in the air the way they always were at the end of a piece. Holding the silence like it was sacred. "I know. But I'm doing it anyway. And I'll have someone with me."
There was a long pause. "Shi-it." He drew the word out with his southern accent. "This is all for a girl?" he asked with disbelief.
I hung up and started planning.
For the first time in my life, the work was going to lose.