by Zaires, Anna
He hops from the desk. “What do you need?”
“A ring. The biggest ruby you can find. And the three of us need suits.”
He gapes at me. “Seriously? What the fuck, Yan?”
“Get a cake,” I continue. “Something white and fancy. And Mina will need a dress. Size zero. While you’re at it, get me a priest, too.”
“No fucking kidding,” Anton says laughingly. “Congratulations, man.”
“Damn, Yan.” Ilya bumps shoulders with me and slaps my back. “Congrats, bro. You’re fucking getting married. I can’t believe it.”
Neither can I. Who would’ve thought? Until a few weeks ago, I’d never have believed a woman half my size would bring me to my knees.
“Aren’t you worried Peter will find out about this?” Anton asks. “It’s one thing to keep her, another to marry her.”
I give him a hard look. “Sokolov doesn’t want me for an enemy, and if he does, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
“When’s the big event?” Ilya asks with a ten-megawatt smile, clearly eager to return to a less stressful topic.
“Today.”
Anton looks at me as if I’ve lost my marbles. “What?”
The dark cloud always hovering at the back of my mind threatens to cast a shadow over our happiness, but I shove it away. I’m not going to wallow in sorrow or negativity and waste the precious time I have with Mina.
“There’s something you should know,” I start carefully.
From my drawn expression, they must be sensing what’s to follow isn’t good. Their faces turn serious, all signs of joviality wiped away.
“Mina…” No matter that I’ve made peace with the diagnosis, it doesn’t make it easier to say. “She’s got cancer. Leukemia.”
“Shit.” Anton’s olive-toned face goes pale. “Man, I’m sorry.”
“Fuck.” Ilya drags a hand over his shaven head, looking shell-shocked.
“I don’t want you to feel sorry for her,” I say in a stern voice. “The last thing she needs is pity.”
Anton takes a deep breath. “Yeah, sure.”
“She’s going to fight.” I say it more for my own benefit than theirs.
Ilya grips my shoulder. “I’m here for you, for both of you.”
I nod. “Good to know. Get to work. I want to go check on Mina, see if she’s awake.”
“Great idea.” Ilya all but pushes me to the door. “Your place is with her. Go. We’ve got this covered.”
Stopping in the doorway, I look back at my team, the men who’ve always had my back. “Thanks.”
They know I’m not only saying thank-you for dealing with shit so I can be with my woman. I’m grateful that they’re here for me, for us. I need them as much for this as for a job, if not more.
Anton nods.
Ilya says, “Don’t mention it.”
When I get back to the room, Hanna is visiting with Mina, her wrinkled cheeks streaked with tears.
“She just told me,” Hanna says, not bothering to wipe away the drops running nonstop down her jaw and chin. Considerately, even at a time like this, she addresses me in Russian.
Mina pats her grandmother’s shaking hand. “I didn’t want to worry you. I knew you’d try to persuade me to go for the treatment.”
“Thanks for convincing her,” Hanna says to me.
I hand her a tissue from the nightstand. “Mina is a fighter. We’ll get through this.”
“Yes,” Hanna agrees readily. “You have to believe it, Mina darling.”
She’s struggling to lift her hand, so I take the tissue from her and carefully wipe her eyes. “In fact, Mina and I have some happy news to share, too.”
She looks between us. “You’re getting married?”
“Today.” I give her an apologetic smile. “I know it seems sudden—”
“No, no,” Hanna says. “You’re doing the right thing. You shouldn’t waste a minute. Not a second.”
“I want you to be a part of the day,” Mina says.
And doing it here allows that. I catch Mina’s gaze to measure how much she’s told Hanna. A small shake of her head tells me Hanna doesn’t know about the rest, about Mina’s job or that a threat bigger than a disease hangs over her head.
“You must have lots to discuss,” Hanna says. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“I’ll take you back to your room,” I offer.
After making Hanna comfortable in the sun on her balcony, I come back downstairs to tell Mina about our plan.
“You know Nagy better than anyone,” I say when I’ve relayed what Anton, Ilya, and I discussed. “Do you think he’ll fall for it?”
She reflects for a moment. “I’m a loose end. If he believes I ratted on him in exchange for immunity, he’ll want revenge. He’ll come for me, no matter where I am or how high the stakes are. But he’s not a fool. He’ll watch the safe house, at least via surveillance if not personally, to make sure I’m really there.”
“I thought about that. We’ll have to make it appear like you’re not leaving the house. We must make him believe you’re scared with us out of the picture and you all alone. We could stage a conversation with our connection on a phone Nagy can tap.”
“If I’m not to leave the house and he can’t visually confirm my presence for himself, we’ll have to plant convincing evidence that I’m there.”
“We’ll send a nurse once a day. He’ll believe she’s treating your wound. Pizza and grocery deliveries. Medical supplies. Anton and Ilya will be waiting there, so there will be signs of life.”
“He’ll probably find a way to check the delivery invoices.”
“You can make the lists, all the things you’d normally buy.”
She smiles at me. “I think it could work.”
I kiss the top of her head. “I don’t want you to worry about anything other than getting well. I’ll handle the rest.”
Her pretty blue gaze is open and trusting. “I know.”
For the first time since I took her, she’s giving me her full trust outside the bedroom. She’s looking at me like I’ve always wanted her to—like she’s no longer keeping anything from me, not her feelings, not her fears, not her secrets. And it’s a stunning thing, to have a woman’s intimate trust, to own her respect.
To be the man she trusts with her heart.
I’ll never let her down. I’ll protect her heart and her truths. I’ll give her a safe place to be herself, a place where she’ll never have to doubt her desirability or value. She already had my devotion and admiration, and now I’ll also give her the freedom I promised. The freedom to be herself.
Above all, I’ll always love her. Unconditionally. With everything I’ve got.
“I was going to set you free, you know,” I say, caressing her hair. “After the job.” I want her to understand my distance on that morning. I don’t want her to ever doubt my love.
She smiles. “You have.”
Yes, I have. “The tracker,” I say reluctantly. “We can have it removed.”
“It doesn’t matter. It no longer serves the same purpose.”
I hide a relieved exhale. The possessive, overprotective part of me is glad I’ll still be able to trace her. In our business, that can only be a plus. Leaning in, I kiss her lips. “I’m going to see Adami about this afternoon. Anything in particular you’d like? I’ve organized a priest and a cake. What have I forgotten?”
Her smile turns broader. “Looks like you have it covered.”
“Okay then.” Cupping her head, I sneak in another kiss, this time lingering to part her lips with my tongue. Fuck, she tastes good. All honey and cream. My cock grows hard. I want her so much I ache, but it’s way too soon.
I force myself to pull away. Her bow-shaped lips are a pretty cherry pink from my kiss. Soon. Soon I’ll kiss every inch of her body. As soon as she’s able to walk.
Though the way things are now, I’ll have a hard time walking.
With a last look at her sitting
so small and delicate in the white hospital bed, I close the door behind me and return to the basement to tell Anton we need to arrange a nurse and credible deliveries with authentic invoices. He’s bent over his computer, sending an encrypted message to our connection. Ilya has left to take care of the wedding shopping.
I grin to myself, thinking about that. Ilya hates shopping. And for all the grief he’s given me over Mina, it serves him right. Then I grimace. He doesn’t have the best taste. For all I know, he’s at one of those cheap places, renting seventies-style suits with frilly shirts. I shudder at the thought.
Leaving Anton to deal with the logistics, I go in search of Adami to inform her of our wedding plans. It’s her clinic, after all. On the way to her office, I spot a nurse coming in from outside. She catches my attention because she’s unusually tall, almost my height. Her blond hair is twisted into a neat bun and her makeup is done tastefully. Her white pants and tunic are tighter than the other nurses’, deliberately showing off her curves. My mind immediately jumps to Ilya. She’s exactly his type, the type we both used to go for before I found Mina.
Automatically, I nod in greeting when she nears, and offer a stiff smile. She doesn’t shy away or blush like the other nurses here do when they see me.
“Smoke break,” she says in a husky voice, giving me a conspiratorial wink and an answering smile.
I check her nametag. Mariska Molnár. She seems friendly enough. I’ll mention her to Ilya. Maybe he’d like to take her out on a date.
For some reason, that smile sticks with me, even when I round the corner and enter Adami’s office. The way Mariska Molnár looked at me bothers me. She wasn’t flirting. Her manner was rather haughty, like I’m beneath her. Perhaps it’s not such a good idea to play matchmaker.
Adami looks up from her desk. “Can I help you, Yan?”
That smile. It’s familiar, like I’ve seen it before. There’s something else too, something I can’t put a finger on that doesn’t sit right with me. Then I stop dead. She said she’d sneaked in from a smoke break, but there wasn’t a hint of cigarette smoke on her.
Fuck!
Spinning on my heel, I sprint down the hallway. There’s no time to stop and take out my phone to dial Anton. I run for my life.
For Mina’s life.
As I round the corner, I slip on the shiny floor, barely managing to right myself. Yanking the gun from the back of my waistband, I point the barrel in front of me as I race toward our room. From the end of the hallway, I call at the top of my voice, “Mina!”
The door to our room is closed. My senses sharpen. Fear is a monster breathing down my neck as I close the distance.
A loud crash sounds, like metal hitting tiles.
No!
I increase my pace, my lungs burning with the exertion. Two nurses, alarmed by my cry, come running but stop when they see the gun.
“Stay down! Keep the hallway clear.”
My mind is a frenzy of madness when I finally reach the door and grip the handle.
Locked.
I don’t hesitate. I jump back, charge, and kick it down.
What I see isn’t what I expected. The nightstand is overturned, the nurse lying next to it. Mina stands over her, clutching a gun in one hand and her injured side with the other. A red blotch is growing on the hospital gown under Mina’s fingers.
“Mina!”
Gun aimed, I rush into the room. Mina doesn’t look at me, all her attention on the woman on the floor. I follow her gaze. The nurse is writhing like a snake, a hypodermic needle sticking from her neck.
On closer look, I see I was right. It’s a good disguise. Brilliant. But that smile gave him away. It’s the same smile he had on his face that day at the station when he looked at Mina and me before averting his eyes. The same arrogant smile I recognized in his photograph.
Nagy seems helpless, harmless, but still. I keep my gun trained on him. “What the fuck happened?”
“Poison,” Mina says, not taking her eyes off Nagy.
I fix my attention on the needle in his neck. “What poison?”
“Strychnine.”
I’m battling to digest the information. “Where did you get it?” I should’ve left a weapon with her, for fuck’s sake. An oversight I’m not going to forgive myself for.
“Adami.”
“You knew he’d come looking for you here,” I say as the knowledge sinks in.
“I didn’t know, but I wanted to be prepared.”
Nagy gurgles, his eyes rolling back in his head. I know what strychnine does. It acts on the nerves that control muscle contraction, mainly those in the spinal cord. It causes agonizing muscle spasms and affects breathing. Death follows from cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, or brain damage.
I touch the hand in which Mina is gripping the gun to pull her attention to me. “Do you want to finish him off?”
Her voice is calm. “No.”
I respect that. Nagy convulses. He curls into a ball, snaps straight, and curls up again. His fingers twitch. His body goes still. Finally, his eyes turn dull.
“It’s over.” I reach for the gun in her hand. “His?”
“Yes.”
I put the gun aside and slip mine back into my waistband. “How did you manage to take it off him?”
“I pretended to be asleep. He was going to smother me with a pillow. I stabbed him in the neck with the syringe before he could see it coming. We wrestled. He reached for the gun in his thigh holster, but the poison took effect before he could get a good grip. The gun fell when he stumbled and knocked over the nightstand. That gave me enough time to get out of bed and grab it.”
“You’re bleeding.” I lift up her gown. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.”
I unwrap her bandage with unsteady fingers and inspect the wound underneath. “It’s not nothing. You tore a few stitches. Come here.” Pulling her small body to me, I hold her tight, feeling her warmth, her fragility, her aliveness. I still haven’t recovered from nearly losing her at the Hotel Paris, and now this. If Nagy had succeeded… I tighten my hold on her, refusing to think of that possibility, pushing the knowledge of her illness deep inside. “I should’ve given you a gun,” I say, my voice strained as I pull back to meet her gaze. “That was a fucking stupid mistake.”
“I slept with the syringe under my pillow, just in case.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
Yes. To her, it wouldn’t seem important. It’s simple insurance, something people like us take for granted. I take a breath and remind myself that she’s like me. Tough. Capable. Merciless, when she needs to be. Still, my heart feels like it’s about to explode each time I picture her in danger. “I want to know these things in the future,” I say, my tone hard. I search her eyes. “Even the mundane things you think don’t matter.”
“Okay,” she says easily, still calm as fuck, but the tremors I’m starting to feel in her body tell a different story.
“It’s over,” I murmur, cupping her delicate jaw. “He can’t hurt you anymore.” Recalling her wound, I force myself to let her go. “We better let Adami look at those stitches. I’ll call for cleanup.”
“Who are you going to call?’
“Our government connection will be happy to know he’s rid of Nagy.”
“He must still be upset about the war that played out in the hotel.”
“He got not only Dimitrov, but also Filipović. He’s happy enough.”
I’m about to go get Adami, but Mina steps up, wraps her arms around my waist, and buries her face in my chest. “I want to get away from all of this. Just for a while.”
Folding my arms around her, I gently stroke her hair. “How does Mozambique sound? The weather is warm year-round, and one can buy an island for next to nothing.”
“That sounds good,” she whispers.
“What about a Robinson Crusoe style house? On pillars on the water.”
; “Sounds like paradise.”
“I’ll get you a nurse, and one for Hanna, too. I already checked with the researcher running the clinical trial. We’ll be able to do your treatment at home, as long as we check in at his lab in Europe once a month. I’m having everything prepared as we speak.”
“You planned it in advance,” she accuses, lifting her head to gaze up at me.
“Not adding on a lab that’s practically a small clinic. On stilts.” I smile down at her. “That part only happened yesterday.”
“Sun, sea, Hanna, you, and me. Yes, that sounds infinitely good.”
I kiss her lips. “Let’s clean this up, shall we?”
I want to wipe everything clean. I may not be able to take away what she’s suffered, but I’m going to damn well make it better.
* * *
“Oh, come on,” Ilya says, trying not to look guilty. “Admit it. I did a good job.”
Anton, Ilya, and I are standing in their room, wearing the shirts, ties, and suits my brother bought. The fit isn’t bad. Neither is the style. But when I look down at my borrowed Crocs—white, no less, with a black fucking suit—I want to slap Ilya on the head.
“It would’ve been almost all right if you hadn’t forgotten the shoes.” At least he and Anton get to wear their boots.
“You didn’t say anything about shoes,” Ilya complains.
Anton tries hard to smother his laughter. “It’s not so bad.”
“Yeah.” I adjust my shirt cuffs with a yank. “Right.”
“The cake is a winner.” Anton gives up and erupts in a fit of snort-laughter.
“Hey.” Ilya places a hand on his heart, his face pulled into an expression of indignation. “Yan said something white and fancy. That’s fancy and white, right?”
I glare at the cake, which is a marzipan square decorated with big-eyed bunnies climbing all over the sides. The fucking Lapin Cretin and his whole Raving Rabbids family.
“It’s white,” Ilya says defensively. “It’s all the bakery had in white.”
“If we pull off the rabbits,” Anton says, “it might not be so bad.”
A knock falls on the door. Adami pops her head around the frame. “It’s time.”
