Page 154 of Filthy Lies

“This doesn’t fix anything,” she whispers as she steps closer, erasing the space between us until I can feel the heat emanating from her body.

Our lips meet in a hesitant kiss. It’s light and teasing and over far too soon. I have to restrain myself from throwing her over my shoulder like a caveman as she separates.

Instead, I stand still as a statue and watch her saunter away down the hall. I’m preparing myself for another long, lonely night—until, at the last second, she turns and looks back.

“Coming?”

Yes,moya zhena. Yes, I am.

What follows isn’t what our fucking has always been. It’s far too tentative for that. Each touch is a question—Are you still mine?Each response is an incomplete answer—I don’t know, but I want to be.

Her body opens for me with familiar ease, but her eyes remain guarded. When I push inside her, she gasps my name, then clamps down on her bottom lip like she doesn’t want to say it. I move slowly, savoring each sensation, memorizing the way she feels beneath me in case this is the last time.

When it’s done and we’re both spent, we lie staring upwards with inches of carefully maintained space between us.

“Arkady might not make it,” I whisper into the shadows.

Her hand finds mine in the tangled sheets. “And if he doesn’t?”

“Then I break my promise to you.” I turn to face her, though I can barely make out her features in the dimness. “I hunt my father down and I kill him, FBI deal be damned.”

She sighs and breathes for a while. “If it comes to that,” she says finally, “I won’t try to stop you.”

Her fingers tighten around mine, and for the first time since Arkady took that bullet, I feel something other than rage.

“But you won’t help me, either,” I say, testing the boundaries of this fragile truce.

“Won’t I?” Her voice holds a darkness that matches my own. “You don’t know what I’m capable of anymore, Vince. I’m not the woman you married.”

57

ROWAN

The morning after our tentative truce, while Vince goes back to the hospital to sit vigil at Arkady’s bedside, I slip out of the compound with nothing but my phone and a backpack. The guards let me pass with minimal questions. They’ve learned that questioning the boss’s wife too thoroughly is a career-limiting move.

Besides, where would I go? My daughter is inside. My heart, despite my best efforts to protect it, remains with a man who breaks everything he touches.

The café I’ve chosen sits in a forgotten corner of Brooklyn—far enough from our usual haunts to avoid Vince’s surveillance, close enough to escape quickly if needed.

I arrive twenty minutes early, selecting a table with clear sightlines to all exits. Another habit I’ve picked up from my husband. You can take the girl out of the Bratva, but you can’t take the Bratva out of the girl.

Anastasia arrives first, elegant as always despite the early hour. She slides into the seat across from me without ordering.

“This is dangerous,” she says in lieu of greeting. “Vince would lose his mind if he knew we were meeting. I’m supposed to be in hiding and you’re supposed to be locked away in the highest room of the tallest tower.”

“Vince is about to lose his mind anyway,” I reply, stirring my untouched coffee. “His father just tried to have him killed. Used his best friend as the weapon, then shot that same friend when the plan failed. The FBI is squeezing him for information. And I’m done watching from the sidelines while everything falls apart.”

Anastasia’s eyes bug out. “Well, shit.”

Daniil joins us a minute later, his eyes scanning the room anxiously before settling on me. “You look like shit, Rowan.”

“Thanks. You’re a poet.”

“I mean you look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“Sleep is a luxury I can’t afford right now.” I lean forward, dropping my voice. “I need your help. Both of you.”

Anastasia’s perfectly manicured fingers tap against the table. “What kind of help?”

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