Page 58 of Cruel Longing

He closed the glass door behind him.

“What information do you have for me?” I asked.

He folded his hands in front of his waist. “I think you should slow down with Luka Novikov. I need to vet him before you go any farther.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

His expression didn’t waiver. Neither did his tone. “You don’t know what he did the five years he was in France. You don’t know who he was in business with. I want to do a full background history on his time there. A complete assessment.”

I leaned against my desk. “Ciro, that’s crazy. I trust Luka. You can trust him too. I know neither of you is a fan of the other, but you don’t need to look for things to dig up on him. He and I actually had a conversation about you. I told him about the kidnapping. I think it might help things between you two.” It was an event I rarely mentioned to him. “He understands more now. I’m hoping maybe you will too.”

His face muscles didn’t move. “I don’t trust him. You shouldn’t either. At least not until we know everything he was up to in France.”

It wasn’t a conversation I was interested in having with Ciro, or anyone else. Ciro had access to a view of my personal life no one else did, but that didn’t give him the right to interject. Our arrangement worked because he stayed silent. He seemed to want to make a change that I wasn’t sure I could allow.

“What he was up to? That’s absurd. He was busy running his family’s vineyards. He wasn’t allowed to come back to New Orleans. You know that.”

“I could have started the investigation, but I thought you should know I plan on telling you what I find.”

I shook my head. “Even if I order you not to?”

“My job always has been to keep you safe. I’m following those instructions.”

I huffed. He was stubborn. He had a single focus. I paid for the focus to be on keeping me alive.

“I don’t want to know.” He wouldn’t put a dent in my trust of Luka.

“You say that now, but you don’t know what I’m going to find. You’ll change your mind.”

I cut a stare at him meant to injure. “I know I can’t stop you from digging into his past, but I don’t want to see the file. I need you to know that. Leave me out of it.” I peered at him. “Tell me something. Why now? What are you trying to do?”

“Are you asking for my opinion about bringing him back into your life?” I didn’t like his tone. The constant insinuation that where Luka was concerned, I couldn’t make a good decision.

“No. I’m not.”

He nodded, but I had left enough room for him to start sifting through Luka’s life in France. It was a sliver that he would use to create an entire canyon of distrust.

I felt the anger bubbling. This was a horrible time, but I still needed to talk to him about the tracker. I took a deep breath.

“I do need you to do something for me.”

“Anything,” he answered.

“I don’t want the tracking implant any longer.” I pushed my hair out of the way. “I want you to take it out.”

“It’s vital to my security plan. It’s how I keep track of where you are at all times.” He withdrew a small screen from his jacket that could have easily been mistaken for a phone. He turned it around to demonstrate. “See?”

The light blinked green on a grid of the city. I quickly realized the blinking light was me. My stomach turned. Until last night, it had made me feel safe, but the more I thought about how my father had used it all those years made me disgusted. I wanted it out.

“You’re going to need a new security plan.” I looked at Ciro. “I have first-hand accounts that the companies that produce the software for this device have been hacked. They aren’t fail-safe. I’m not willing to put my trust in something like that. I think it served its purpose, don’t you?”

“It’s because of Luka Novikov.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s because my father came up with archaic ways to control me. I don’t want this.”

“Your father only wanted to keep you safe.”

My eyes blazed. “He’s been dead four years. I want the thing cut out. Now.”

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