Page 75 of Ruthless Love

Fingerprints and retinal scans done, I enter, heading straight to Mav before going face-to-face with Dimitri for the last time.

Her office is sparse, with nothing giving away anything about her hobbies or interests, personal life, or history. Mav is a ghost who comes and goes with the wind, never making herself too comfortable or connected. Which is why I’m surprised when a small puppy bounces up to me, sniffing my shoes, though the tiny dog isn’t much bigger than one of them.

Picking up the pup, I discover it’s a she, and her sweet little face is too adorable for words. “Hey there,” I say, cuddling her close to my nose as she licks and whimpers in my hold.

“Don’t eat her,” Mav’s sultry voice booms.

I turn around as Mav wheels herself into the room, with plenty of space for a chair that’s easily electronically propelled, though she handles the wheels herself. Maybe to work out. Or maybe for the control in the angular space. I speculate, but I don’t ask.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I tell her, setting the lovable little ball of fur in her mom’s lap.

“So, is it Mr. Byrne? Or Mr. Banks?”

“Funny.” Getting down to business, I ask, “He’s had no visitors?”

“You’ll be the first.”

Good. “Food and water?”

“Just enough to make him cranky.”

“And Paco?” I ask, letting the open-ended question linger.

In typical Mav form, she shrugs with a ridiculously suggestive smile that means the only way I’ll know more is on my own.

I huff with feigned dissatisfaction. I’ve never been one to want the answers to the test, and she knows better than anyone I’ll enjoy putting the pieces of a cryptic puzzle together myself.

Comfortable there, I walk around her desk, but ask an unspoken question with a single glance.

“Top right drawer,” she says.

I open it, smiling wide at a few full-sized Snickers bars. I grab one and wave it at her with a popped brow of appreciation. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

The halls glow with the fluorescence of some of the cheapest fucking lights on the market that manage to bring out every imperfection in the paint of the cinderblock walls. Down two halls and to the right, I know the solid door houses the man I hate.

But I turn to the other one instead. After two brisk knocks, I enter.

Alexei is dressed down in what has to be custom-made sweats for his size. He’s reading something. In Russian, I ask what it is.

“English, please,” he says, struggling with his words but speaking clearly. “I need more practice.”

I meet his request with a genuine smile. “Of course. And that?”

“My new job,” he tells me, his smile filled with pride.

No doubt he’ll be used here and there for a few special jobs like me. But with his background in mathematics and electronics engineering, his new alias has him as an online professor under a new name that no one has bothered sharing with me. But if our paths are destined to cross again, they will.

He looks up, a certain amount of hope and even happiness beaming from his expression. It’s hard to imagine the hell he lived before this. “Thank you, Austin.”

His words humble me, and I only nod. “Well,” I say, moving on to the business at hand. “Give me ten minutes.”

His eyes narrow, and a faraway look takes over his expression as it darkens. He blinks his agreement, and I leave.

Across the hall, I suck in a breath, determined to do what I have to. Ready, I open the door and step inside.

Dimitri’s weary expression perks up when he sees me, as if the competitor in him has a chance. With his shackles in place limiting his mobility, I let him cling to that hope for half a second, letting my disappointed gaze wash over his rumpled shirt and tuxedo pants ripe with sweat.

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