26. Alina
26
Alina
“I need to tell you something,” I whisper as I lie wrapped in Damian’s arms. He believed in me, fought his brother for me. I want to tell him what I know. “I didn’t tell you in the beginning because I was saving it as my trump card. I thought I could use it to save Markus or to buy him more time or something.”
“Your trump card?” he asks, and I feel his lips against the top of my head.
It would be easier to tell him like this, wrapped in his arms, not having to see the disappointment and betrayal in his eyes. But I’m not a coward. So I sit up and look down at him. He’s lying on his back, one arm under his head, the sheets down around his hips, his perfect, chiseled torso bare.
“Keep looking at me like that and the only words coming out of your mouth will be my name and ‘please’,” he says.
I shake my head and rest my hand on his chest. I feel the steady beat of his heart.
“I should have said something sooner. At first, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t trust you. I didn’t tell you because information is power, and this information was the only power I had. When Leo was questioning me, I didn’t tell him because he would have thought I kept it secret because I was a spy. But I need to tell you now…”
His dark eyes study me, his expression unreadable.
I wet my lips. “Enzo never talked to me about work. But I overheard one-sided conversations more than once. He spoke to the Ivanovs. He did jobs for them. One night when we were at La Vecchia, Mikhail Ivanov was there. I didn’t know who he was. Enzo didn’t introduce me. But I saw a picture in the paper and I figured it out. They talked for a long time. Mikhail gave him an envelope that I’m pretty sure was stuffed with cash.”
Damian’s quiet for a long moment. My heart pounds. I feel sick.
Then he says, “Bianchi works for the Ivanovs.”
It isn’t a question, but I answer anyway. “I think so, yeah.”
Damian runs his fingers through my hair, staring at the strands as they slide off his palm. Then he raises his gaze to mine. “You didn’t tell me because you thought it was information you could trade at a later date. Maybe save your brother’s ass. Or save your own.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I was saving it for the right time.”
He nods. “I would have done the same. It was a good strategy. So why tell me now?”
“Because it’s information you need to find the man who killed your father. I don’t know if it was Enzo, but even if it wasn’t, he’s involved somehow. It’s information you need and I want you to have it.”
He smiles, a flash of white teeth against tan skin and dark three-day stubble. I don’t think a more beautiful man has ever existed.
“Thank you,” he says, and pulls me down into the cradle of his arms, holding me against his heart.
I hear the stateroom door close when Damian slips out. He thought I was asleep. I wasn’t. I watched him as he pulled on worn jeans and a t-shirt. I watched him as he took Leo’s knife from the table and left the room.
I pull on shorts and a tank top and follow.
He heads for the swim deck. The blond gunman I shot is there, wrists and ankles bound, then looped together and pulled behind his back. Hog-tied. He’s lying on his side in a pool of his own blood. His face is bruised and battered. Three of Leo’s men guard him, guns drawn.
I stand on the deck above, watching as Damian kicks the blond gunman over onto his back. The guy groans as the movement jerks his injured shoulder.
I’m the one who put that hole in him. I should feel terrible. I don’t.
Damian hunkers down beside him, grabs his hair and jerks the guy’s head back. He stares at him a moment then releases him, glances over his shoulder and asks, “He tell you anything?”
Whoever he’s speaking to is out of my line of sight.
“He and the others are mercenaries.” It’s Leo’s voice. “Hired by Nicole. He was kind enough to share the names of his associates. I have reached out to our people and confirmed his claim. They are known mercenaries.” Leonardo limps into view. He’s wearing the clothes he had on earlier, rumpled and creased and still a little damp. His right pant leg has been cut off mid-thigh, his leg wrapped in a white bandage. He lifts his hands and laces his fingers together behind his neck, then arches in a stretch. His knuckles are red and bloody.
“What’s his association with the Ivanovs?” Damian asks.
“There isn’t one. Nicole hired him and his associates to kill me. Revenge for her father.”
“Did you kill her father?” Damian asks. “She said it was a bomb. Never known you to kill from a distance when you can do it up close and personal.”
I shiver, remembering how up close and personal Leo was with me just this morning.
“I didn’t kill her father. I’ve never planted a bomb in my life,” Leo says. “But I’m going to find out who did. And I’m going to find out why they want her to believe it was me.”
“Is he of any further use?” Damian asks with a gesture at the bound mercenary.
“No,” Leo says.
Damian nods, grabs the man by the hair, yanks his head back and slits his throat using the knife he took from the stateroom. Blood spurts out, soaking the man’s clothes and the deck beneath him. The wound at his throat gapes.
I press my hand to my mouth and stumble back a step.
Straightening, Damian turns and looks right at me, his expression set in stone, his eyes dark and fathomless.
This is who I am. This is what I am.
He knew I wasn’t sleeping. He knew I would follow him. And he knew all along I was standing here, watching. He wanted me to see this, to see him , no rose-colored glasses, no fairy-tale misconceptions. I told him the truth. This is his way of doing the same.
I wrap my arms around myself and watch as he shoves the corpse into the waves.
He stares down at the blood-stained deck for a second, shakes his head and looks at Leo. “Bastard stained the fucking teak,” he says. “We’re going to have to replace it.”
I turn and go back to the stateroom. Damian doesn’t join me. Not then and not later.
When we dock, it’s Luca who comes to get me, who brings me to shore, who accompanies me in the helicopter. It’s Luca who stares out the window while I cry, the horror and confusion of the day overwhelming me. Luca who finally takes my hand in his and holds it until we land at Harrah’s. Luca who drives me back to the condo.
Luca who gives me a phone. Not the ancient phone Damian took from me. A new one with the same number and my contacts transferred. Not that I have many of those.
There’s a number on it that I didn’t have before. Damian’s.
“Leo will be coming by to speak with you tomorrow,” Luca says. “Get some rest.” Then he places a key card on the kitchen island. The key card for the elevator.
I unpack after he leaves, tossing the pink dress in the trash. I never want to see it again, never mind wear it.
After a shower, I crawl into bed. Leo will be coming to speak with me tomorrow… Alone? I have no clue. Just like I have no clue what he plans to say. Will Damian be with him? Do I want him to be?
He showed me who he is, who he really is. I knew it all along, but seeing it, seeing him kill a bound man and push the body into the waves…
Why do I miss him? Why do I wish he was here with me right now? Why do I crave his presence, the sound of his voice, the feel of his arms around me?
Because he is exactly what I thought him to be the very first time I saw him: a demon-angel. A monster. A man who loves his family. A killer. A man capable of both good and evil. A man I’m falling in love with. What does that say about me?
Wrapping my arms around myself, I fight the tears that prick my lids.
I feel so confused. So alone.
I stare at my phone. Then I call Markus. It goes to voicemail.
Guess I really didn’t expect anything else.
Leo arrives at the condo the following morning. He knocks. I didn’t expect that.
“May I come in?” he asks when I answer the door. I didn’t expect that either.
His lip is split, his jaw bruised. I glance at his hands. The knuckles are red and raw. Remnants of his fight with Damian yesterday. Or maybe remnants of his interrogation of the mercenary.
“Sure. Come on in.” I pull the door wide and step to the side so he can walk past me. I peer into the foyer. There’s no one else there. Not Luca, not Joe, not Vito.
Not Damian.
I swallow and close the door, then turn to face Leo, oddly unafraid. I’ve realized that what I told Damian yesterday is true. If Leonardo Russo wanted me dead, I’d be dead. He just wanted to scare the shit out of me. Which he did, very efficiently. But he’s here today for a different reason. I just don’t know what it is, yet.
“You, um, want coffee?” I ask.
“Coffee?” His brows rise.
I shrug. “I’m a little uncertain of the etiquette here. You know, how one is supposed to act when one is visited by a man who recently had his hand wrapped around one’s throat, strangling one.”
“Ah.” He gestures toward the sectional. “Shall we?”
I perch on the edge as he settles back comfortably, one arm stretched along the back of the sofa, legs spread.
“I owe you an apology,” he says. One more thing I did not expect.
“Go ahead,” I say.
He tips his head looking confused.
“Go ahead and apologize,” I say. “You said you owe me an apology but you actually didn’t offer one.”
One side of his mouth curves a little. “I apologize,” he says.
“For what?” I ask. “I prefer specifics. Is it just a general ‘sorry for being an asshole’ or a specific ‘sorry for almost murdering you’ or does it include ‘sorry for accusing you of being a spy.’” When he says nothing for a long moment, I say, “Have you actually ever apologized to anyone before?”
“Not recently.” He picks an imaginary bit of lint off his sleeve.
“Just dive in,” I suggest. “It’ll hurt less.”
He ignores that and says. “What do you want?”
“Want? I don’t understand.”
“I wronged you on several levels. I owe you for that. You shot a man to save my brother. I owe you for that. You dove into the ocean to try to save me. I owe you for that. You provided my brother with valuable information about Bianchi. I owe you for that. I am not in the habit of owing anything to anyone. So what do you want?”
I don’t even need to think about it. “Forgive my brother’s debt.”
Leo studies me for a moment. “That’s all? Forgive a million dollar debt?”
I can’t tell if he finds the request acceptable or outlandish. So I say nothing. I just wait for him to speak again.
“You want nothing for yourself?” he asks, his dark eyes locked on mine as he leans forward so his elbows rest on his splayed knees.
Why do I feel like this is a trap?
“I want you to forgive my brother’s debt.” I pause. “And the interest.”
He laughs, his whole face relaxing, making him look younger, less terrifying. “Smart girl.”
“So that’s it? No more debt?”
He nods and rises. “Done. No more debt.” Then he walks toward the door, leaving me sitting on the couch with my heart pounding and my palms damp.
“Wait,” I say. He glances back at me, his expression unreadable. “What about Damian?”
“What about him?”
Markus’s debt is forgiven. What does that mean for me? Am I still Damian’s prisoner? I don’t know what to say, how to ask.
Maybe I imagine it, but for a second, I think Leo’s expression softens just a little.
“I suggest you ask him,” he says, then walks through the door, closing it firmly behind him.