by SR Jones
She smiles and nods at someone, and then, slowly as if she knows, her gaze lifts beyond the few people immediately crowding her.
The moment our gazes collide, I feel a jolt like nothing I’ve experienced before. It’s better than any drug. Better than any sex I’ve ever had. It’s a pure, intense high.
Dasha’s eyes widen, her lips part, and she pales. She pales so much, I think she might faint.
We stare at one another, and someone is talking to her, but she doesn’t answer.
Her husband notices, frowning down at her, and he follows her gaze right to me.
Yeah that’s right. Look upon the face of the man who’s going to make you suffer, fucker.
I smile, a grim smile of warning, and I don’t know if it’s aimed at him or her.
Then I turn on my heel and push my way through the people and out to Konstantin and the crew by the bar.
Chapter Fifteen
Konstantin
We spend a few more days in Paris, and Damen and I spend time fine tuning some of the options we have if things deteriorate further with the Armenians. It’s also something of a welcome respite for us all from the war waiting for us. None of us admit it, but that’s how it feels.
I realize I should take Cassie out and show her the sights, and I do, some. But mostly? Mostly, we have sex. I fuck her and fuck her and fuck her. Desperately trying to get her out of my system.
It doesn’t work. She’s more addictive than heroin, and twice as adrenalin-provoking as cocaine. She’s tastier than the finest champagne, and headier than the opium I tried in Afghanistan.
My name is Konstantin, and I’m an addict.
How do I free myself of this crazed desire? How do I find the man I was before a dirty-blonde barista with green eyes and freckles fucked my life up? Do I even want to find him? I’ve always been confident. Never been one to question my decisions, but now? My head catalogues all the ways it could go wrong.
Every night I go to bed needing her. Every morning I awake itching to take her again.
I watch her, greedy to learn all about the way she moves and talks. I catalogue her expressions, a naturist who only studies one species: Cassie.
On our fourth morning, I get a call.
I’m sitting in the orangery, watching Cassie sip at her iced tea—the straw where my cock wants to be between those blow-job lips—when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
I’m reading the Financial Times, and I don’t answer it at first, but it persists, so I take it out. I don’t recognize the number.
“Da?”
“Konstantin?” The Yorkshire accent lets me know straightaway who it is.
Reece is sitting opposite me, and I click my fingers at him, getting his attention.
“Marcus, how nice to hear from you again,” I say.
Reece’s brows raise, and he leans in.
“I’ve got to be quick. I’ve convinced Aram of my burning hatred for you and Andrius, since Andrius shot me and all.”
I smile at that. Andrius did shoot him, Marcus told him to. Man’s got balls; I have to give him that much.
“Go on.”
“You need to let me hack you. The way Tigran and Popov did, but this time, you’ll have to give me an in. What Reece did is airtight, and I can’t find a way in, but you need to set up a dummy life for me to hack into.”
“Wait a minute,” I tell him. “I’m putting you on speaker; Reece is here.”
“Reece, can you create a fake online life for Konstantin here? It must look damn real. Konstantin, you’re going to have to front some big money into it because I’m going to rob you. To more than the tune of the couple of million Denis took from you. More along the lines of what Popov took from you.”
“I trust I’ll be getting it back,” I say drily.
“Actually, maybe not,” he answers.
I lean back in my chair and laugh. “Fuck you. You think I’m going to give you millions when I’ve already lost money? Why would I do that?”
“To keep you safe. To keep your son safe. To keep that woman you have with you safe. The one you cared enough about to kill Tigran for.”
“I can keep them safe,” I grind out.
“No, you can’t. Not long-term with Aram walking the earth. This way, we set him and his men up, and you can take them out. Problem solved.”
“I’m not understanding the part where, once the problem is solved as you say, I don’t get my money back.”
He laughs. “Oh, Konstantin. If you think the British state are going to give that money back to you, you’re more naïve than I would ever have presumed.”
“Are you fucking shitting me now? That money is legit. My business here is legit.” I’m so fucking livid, I don’t watch what I say. It’s only when I see Reece shaking his head dramatically that I realize I’m admitting, openly, to a man with deep ties to British Intelligence, that some of my business isn’t legit.
“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise you’ll get it back. It’s a decision above my head. There’s some anger in Whitehall about the influence it’s felt you’ve had on certain ministers.”
Ha, that’s what this is about. Not my money, which is fucking legal here, but the British state not liking what I do with it. Can they do this? Then again, it’s probably not the state doing it, but some individuals who have been burned by me. How would I find out who?
“Look at it this way. What would you pay to have the Armenians removed from the equation forever? Gone. Not a problem, and not only that, but you get to take out the man who threatened you and yours yourself. It’s a bargain for a few million. Man like you? It’s fucking chump change, mate, and you know it.”
Reece sighs, but he gives me a shrug. He knows how these guys operate, and I can tell from his defeated expression this is going to cost me. The upside, though? It works out for me with Cassie. This way she can go home safe and sound, if she still insists that she wants to, and I can go cold turkey. I should want that too. I don’t think I do.
It will hurt, withdrawal always does, but it’s the only way, I try to tell myself. After all, I can’t be what she wants and needs, and she can’t settle for less. We’re stuck.
I might not be able to give her the hearts and flowers, but I can make her safe, whether she’s with me or not, and if that costs me a few more million, so be it.
“Okay.” I nod at Reece.
“What do you need?” Reece asks.
“Konstantin will set up three or four dummy accounts. Investments, the like. He’ll need to put about twenty million in it. I’m going to syphon off ten of it and hide it, to prove to Aram I know what the fuck I’m doing. In this fake life you’re creating, make the woman seem inconsequential. Use Tinder messages, dating sites, pervy fucking Whatsapp messages; whatever it takes. Make it look like Cassie is nothing. Yes, Aram and his men should be wiped out when we’re done with them, but you never know who might come and fill the vacancy.”
I rub my jaw as he speaks, a bone-deep weariness creeping over me.
“Once I’ve taken your money and done some other fuckery to convince Aram I can do what he needs, I’ll take your real security out again. I’m gonna feed him information that shows you’re laid back about things. Tigran is dead. You think Reece has done a bang-up job on your security, and you have a team of hired guns. You need to tell your hired guns to communicate with me as if they’ve come over to the dark side. We can set something up via Reece here where it looks like I’ve bribed them.” He pauses, which I’m sure is for dramatic effect. “They are going to be instrumental in this. I tell Aram that these men are now in my pocket. Show him the communications between us and tell him you’re in a load of shit because you’ve relaxed your guard.”
“Go on,” I say when he pauses.
“I’ll say that Andrius has left to see Allyov, and you’ve sent Bohdan back to Moscow. Alexei is also gone with Andrius. He thinks you’re alone at the house. Only the men I’ve bribed as your guards, and he will also believe I’ve hacked y
our security again. We come to hit you in the dead of night. I’ll get a message to you beforehand stating when and how many men he has. Then you take the fuckers out, with my help. Andrius is a damn good shot; I should know.” He laughs. “You have him on sniper duty up in that faux turret of yours; what’s with that, by the way?”
“Shut the fuck up, and hurry this along.”
“You get the plan. He’s turning up with a small army, but he thinks you’re unprepared. He’s going to be outnumbered and out skilled. His men are unfocused. They’ll be weak without him as their leader. Once the head is off this particular snake, it won’t grow a new one.”
I look to Reece. He nods, once. “Give me two hours,” I tell him.
I’m going to speak to Damen, Bohdan, and Andrius and then I’ll make a final decision, but I already know I’m going to go for it.
Later that day, we’re all packed and have four hours before the plane leaves. Maya comes up to me in the kitchen, where I’m making a coffee.
“You’ve only got a few hours left in Paris,” she says with a smile. “This house is beautiful, but don’t you think Cassie might like to see a bit more of the city?”
I bite back the desire to tell her to fuck off out of my business and instead ask, “Where would you recommend, oh wise one?”
“Oh, that’s easy. The Musee d’Orsay. It’s stunning, Konstantin.”
“I know,” I snap.
She smiles at me and doesn’t bite back. “Of course. Cassie might like it, though, don’t you think? Shall I take her?”
“You?”
“Yes,” she says innocently. “I think she should get to see something beautiful while she’s here. She’s been through a hell of a lot.”
“I’ll take her,” I state. If anyone gets to see Cassie’s face light up at the beauty that is the d’Orsay it will be me. Not Maya.
God, maybe I’m in this worse than I can grasp if I’m jealous of her friends now.
“Take who where?” Bohdan asks.
“Musee d’Orsay, with Cassie. And you need to come.”
“Why?”
“Need extra protection, despite the threat being low. You know me, Paranoid.”
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you,” Bohdan jokes, then turns serious. “Okay. Is there a back way in there? I don’t like you being in there without someone carrying.”
“There’s always a back way,” I say with a grin.
An hour later, I’m outside the Musee d’Orsay with Cassie. Bohdan and another armed man will be waiting in the main foyer inside when we go in, but they’re going to keep a discrete distance.
Before I agreed to this little trip, I did an assessment of the safety. The intel Damen had before we even agreed this trip was that the Armenians weren’t here in Paris, and that hasn’t changed. The museum is a busy place, and not the sort of place someone is going to want to do a gang hit. So far as safety goes, we should be good.
We pay and enter, and the moment we step into the magnificent building, Cassie stops, causing me to bump into her. She’s staring all around her, and her face, her face hits me so hard in the gut. She’s got a look of such ecstatic happiness on her beautiful features; it makes my heart lurch.
I’m never going to get to see this again if I let her go. Some other man will. Some other man will make her look this way in utter awe. As if to underscore the point, a man walks by and smiles at her. It’s a smile I recognize. One of male interest. It makes me fume. He’s handsome, urbane, cultured looking. All the things I’m not.
For a moment I envision a slide show of him and her together. I imagine him taking her to Italy, to Rome. To Florence. That man. That stranger, he’d get to do all those things with her because he would man the fuck up and not be scared of putting himself out there.
Shit.
I can’t fucking breathe. It’s like a panic attack or something. I want to show Cassie all these things, but I can’t. I’m letting her go.
The thought of her with some other man, living her life with him, has my heart racing.
I don’t want anyone else to get to have this.
You don’t just want her; you have feelings for her. Deep feelings. Great, dead Yulia is back, talking in my head again.
“This is incredible.” Cassie wanders over to various sculptures, me trailing behind her having some sort of mini-breakdown.
“I think this is the most awesome place I’ve ever been,” she says, turning fully to face me. There’s the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes, and I recognize these tears as good tears, and I put them there.
My chest swells. I did this. I made this beautiful, precious woman so happy she’s almost crying.
Shit, I’m in trouble. Big trouble. I want her, for real, for keeps.
How, though?
I’d have to change my whole life. It isn’t set up for domestic bliss.
She’d be in danger. Constant danger. Look what happened to Yulia. I can’t go through it again.
As I’m thinking, I realize she’s wandered farther down the huge space, and I move to catch up with her.
Everything happens so quickly from there on.
One moment, Cassie is staring at a sculpture with that same look of awe on her face. The next she’s gasping and bending over.
Is she sick?
Her hand grabs her stomach, to the side. Oh, God, she’s going to throw up. I’m moving toward her when I see the red seeping through her fingers.
What the fuck?
Someone roughly pushes past me, and Bohdan runs by me, after a man quickly walks away from Cassie. The man sees Bohdan and runs.
Oh no, no, no!
Shit. This is an attack. On me, but to get to me, they went through Cassie. How did Damen get this so wrong?
I race to Cassie. She’s on the floor, and I skid to my knees beside her. Around me people are shouting, and a woman is screaming. I can’t focus on anything but Cassie’s pale, shocked face.
Oh, Christ no. Please no.
I bend over her and move her hand. In her side is a stab wound. I force myself to focus, pushing the panic away.
I inspect the wound. It’s not too deep, but where it is in her side, there’s a good chance it might have caught something vital. I examine it, the depth, the angle. Please God, don’t let it have hit her kidney, I pray.
I know I’ve been a fucking sinner, but I swear, I swear I’ll reform. Please God, don’t do this to me again. I should have realized before now what she meant to me; please don’t take anyone else from me.
She’s bleeding a lot, though, and she’s in shock, so maybe the big guy upstairs washed his hands of me a long time ago.
I turn to the people all gawping around me. “Call a fucking ambulance,” I shout.
They stare at me in stunned confusion, and I realize I spoke in Russian. “Ambulance,” I say in English. “Appeler une ambulance,” I shout, hoping I have it right.
A man puts his hand on my shoulder. “One is coming. I’ve called.”
Bohdan comes back to me, sweating and out of breath. “Fucker got away,” he says in Russian as he bends down next to me. “Our other man is looking for him, but I think he’s long gone. How is she doing?”
“She’s going to live.” If I say it, maybe I can will it. “You have to call the house, warn them. No way was this random.”
“You ought to leave, boss. I’ll stay with her. You’re a target right now.”
“Are you fucking crazy? I’m not leaving her. Call Reece. Tell him I need his help. I need some sway if the authorities here start to give me shit. He needs to get ahold of Marcus. I can’t end up stuck in some police cell for hours instead of where I need to be, with Cassie. Damen can put Reece through to Marcus; he’s got all the details. Get everyone at the house here and in England on high alert. You stay with us, okay?”
“Yes, boss.” He steps a few feet away and makes the calls.
“You’re going to be okay,” I tell Cassie.
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She’s breathing in shallow breaths, and I put my hand on her cheek to comfort her. “Baby, take slow breaths for me, okay?”
Her gaze meets mine, but it’s vacant, not all there. Shit, she’s not good.
“It hurts so much,” she says.
“I know, baby.”
My heart hurts, and it hurts way more than I ever expected it could. It hurts more than losing Yulia, and it terrifies me because if I lose Cassie, I don’t think I’ll come back from it. I won’t come back from it.
I was devastated when I lost Yulia, but almost straightaway I thought of vengeance. Now? I don’t care. I don’t care about vengeance, or any of that shit. I need Cassie to live, and if she doesn’t, all I see is a black hole.
I’ve fucked up. I’ve fucked up so bad, and I need to make it right.
I love her.
It hits me so hard it’s like a truck colliding with me.
Why does it sometimes take us almost losing something to make us understand how much they mean to us? Cassie is the most important thing in my life other than Michael. She and that boy are all that matter, and it took this happening for me to realize.
Except it didn’t, did it? I realized before, when I saw the look of wonder on her face. Talk about timing.
Footsteps behind me have me turning around. Two women and a man are running toward us, carrying those bags emergency responders use. Thank God.
One of the women speaks to me in French, and I can speak basic French, but this is rapid fire, and I struggle to take in what she’s saying.
“She’s asking what happened,” the man who called them translates for me.
“Someone stabbed her,” I say.
Then behind her I see the police. They better not think I’m going with them right now when Cassie is in this state. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from her.
I’ve been here once before, only days ago, but then I knew she’d be okay; now is a whole different story.
As the paramedics work on her, I stare at the woman I love and pray my realization hasn’t come too late for the both of us.
Chapter Sixteen
Cassie
My left side is nothing but burning pain. It’s as if someone has lit a fire in me.
