Page 18 of Twisted Cage

The sound of the foam crumbling draws our attention. Gun in hand, I keep her behind me and wait. When I glance over my shoulder and raise my fingers to my lip, she surprises me by pulling a knife from her bag.

Of course she has a knife.

Question is, does she know what to do with it or is it just one more thing that will get her hurt or worse?

The one thing I do know… she and I are going to have a talk about it.

With a shove and a final scrape, the door breaks free and Dmitri makes his way in and nods. “Boss.”

“What’s Nikolaj’s status?” Grigori stands outside the crypt, his back to us, no doubt keeping an eye out. Not that anyone would be down here. Restorations have kept the crypts closed to the public for two weeks or so now. The church above is closed to the public for one more night as they address a plumbing issue that may or may not have something to do with us tapping into the system. Not that it matters, Nikolaj compensates well for the inconvenience of the web of tunnels he's building that snake their way under the entire city.

“He lands in an hour. He’ll be here an hour or so after.”

“With reinforcements?”

“Oh yeah. The minute he found out she was here and not in Paris, he called in everybody.”

“Good.”

“There’s more.” His gaze darts over my shoulder to Nikoletta.

I glance back at her and damn that pride in her that has her shoulders pulled back, her chin jutting in the air, just daring me to shut her out.

“Whatever you have to say to me, you can say to her as well.”

He nods. “Vlad also left Paris. He touched down for a brief stop in Madrid. We don’t know where he was off to after that. At least not yet.”

“Do we have someone keeping an eye on the airports in the area?”

“Absolutely.”

He fills me in on the Moretti mess, how the authorities have already begun sweeping it under the rug. Moretti’s family and men know better, and they know who he was to meet that night so we won’t have a choice but to deal with their wrath in the future, but he reassures me there are no eyes on the church.

With the turn of events last night, I couldn’t leave Nikoletta so Dmitri and Grigori handled Silas and retrieved the money. I only hope they did it as painfully as I would have. I find little satisfaction in his death, only resentment it happened by their hands and not mine.

Joining Nikoletta, I let myself get closer than I have since we woke up tangled in one another under the heavy weight of how far we’d let things go the night before. When I reach for the knife, she flicks her wrist, flipping the handle in her hand until the blade is tucked along the edge of her forearm.

“So you do know how to use it?”

“I’m not a child anymore, Kostya.”

When I search her eyes, I see the challenge there, but also the quiet confidence. And love. So much love in those eyes for me. It’s so deep and fathomless I have to glance away.

“How would you like to see the place I first held you?” The words are out before I can consider how bad of an idea it is, and the hopeful look flashing in her eyes keeps me from taking it back.

Her lips part and the smile stabs me right in the fucking chest. Up on her tiptoes now, she moves in to kiss my cheek, but I turn my head so our mouths are right there, just a fraction of space between them.

I’m a fool to take this risk in front of Dmitri. He may be one of my men, but to take the chance of anyone knowing beyond the two of us will only result in weakness.

She settles her lips over the corner of my mouth and the gesture is so fucking intimate, but also innocent in a way that renders me speechless and unable to move.

I can only want.

My frayed control lies in tatters and I swear to all that’s holy, one gust from the Devil and I’ll be doing the things I can’t take back.

“Show me.”

The timing of those two words from her tempting lips with the thoughts burning through my mind take another swipe at my control, but I nod with every intention on fulfilling the offer.

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