Page 104 of 10 Days to Ruin

“Oh, the curse of being highly intelligent and extremely good-looking,” he sighs. He gazes longingly into the distance. “And as if that’s not enough of a burden to bear, I’ve also got this giant, swinging?—”

He falls over laughing when I elbow him in the ribs.

But when he straightens up, his smile recedes. “I do mean it, though, in a way. Far be it from me to tell you to quit making money. You’re good at it, and it keeps me swimming in caviar and Corvettes. But… there’s more. There’s other things.”

“Is there?” I ask. I know what he’s going to say, but I let him say it anyway.

“Love.”

I squint at him blankly, waiting for a punchline. But Feliks just looks right back at me with a calm, level tranquility in his face.

“Love,” I repeat.

“Love,” he repeats.

“Love.”

“Love, Sasha. The reason we’re here at all.”

“I’m here because my father fooled my mother into thinking he was quasi-human for long enough to knock her up. You’re here because your mother dumped you in my lap when she got sick of looking at your ugly mug all the time. ‘Love’ had nothing to do with either case.”

His mouth quirks up in a half-smile. The other half, though, remains downturned in contemplation. “You keep getting things twisted. I know you were joking when you said I was perceptive, but… Shit, man, sometimes I really do feel like you are failing to see what’s right in front of your face. So things get forced on us. So circumstances sometimes dictate the cards we get to play. Does that mean you punt on the whole game and go cry about it?”

“Who’s cry?—”

“You are, in your own way. You cry with blood. You cry with spreadsheets. It’s a little depraved and disturbing, if we’re being honest, but hey, far be it from me to criticize another man’s coping mechanisms. I’m just saying that I seeyou,Sasha Ozerov. I see what’s in front of you. And I want you to see what I’m seeing.” He slumps back against the bench. “That’s it. Lecture over. I’m out of poetry for the night.”

I brood as his words echo in caverns in my head that haven’t seen light for a long time.

Love.He’s wrong. He has to be. It’s not that. It can’t be.

But after the endless day I’ve had, I’m not going to find the flaws in his argument right now. I want to shower off this sweat and blood and go the fuck to sleep. Let tomorrow’s Sasha take up the sword ofLoveand all its many ridiculous implications.

Before I go, though, I do what’s become a ritual for six days and running.

“Check her detail.”

Feliks lofts an eyebrow. “And by ‘hers,’ you mean…?”

“If you make me spell it out, I’m going to punch you in the face again.”

“You barely even got meoncetonight,” he grumbles, but he fishes his phone out of his pocket and starts to do as I asked.

I look over his shoulder as he cues up the security footage being broadcast from the body cams attached to the men I have stationed outside Ariel’s apartment.

Six feeds flicker to life, one for each of the Bratva soldiers guarding the block. I know the feeds by heart now. Every angle, fire hydrant, and bush lining the sidewalk in front of her building. Five of the feeds are empty.

But in the sixth…

Stands Ariel.

And she’s not alone.

33

ARIEL

TWO HOURS EARLIER

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