Page 28 of The Last Inch Of Ice
“Wait here five minutes,” Callahan continues. “Go up to the third floor. Room nine. I’ll meet you there.”
“No.” Nazar’s voice is rough. Demanding. “We talk here.”
“Are you insane?” he hisses. “We’re already taking an enormous risk. You need to go upstairs. Now.”
“Are you going back to those men?”
The silence that follows is heavy, loaded with everything unsaid. Callahan’s jaw tightens. He knows exactly what Nazar is implying.
“Just a reminder—I don’t owe you explanations about anything,” he says at last, pushing back just enough to create space. “I don’t owe you shit.”
“Callahan—” Nazar’s hand lingers, fingers brushing Kai’s waist, reluctant to let go.
“Go to the room, Rykov. Or don’t. But don’t follow me again.”
He leaves before Nazar can respond, slipping back out into the crowd.
Nazar stands alone in the courtyard for several seconds, his chest heaving, his mind a complete mess. Then he moves toward the back of the building, toward the external staircase, toward room nine.
He’s going to regret this. He knows that with absolute certainty.
But he’s also past the point of caring.
8
Chapter 8 Nazar
Room 9 is small and sparse. A bed, a table, a single window overlooking the alley. Red light filters through the glass.
Kai is on his phone when Nazar enters.
He glances up, and there’s something almost gleeful in his expression—theatrical, desperate, and completely unhinged.
“Oh, perfect timing,” Kai says brightly. Too brightly. There’s a tremor underneath. “A major sports media outlet is on the line. I’m giving you the opportunity to turn me in. What do you say, Rykov? Do it. Make your move.”
“Hang up that phone right now,” Nazar says.
“Come on. You could finally be the hero. The righteous one who—”
Nazar knocks the phone out of his hand. It skids across the mattress and lands against the wall.
“I’m sick of your theatrical bullshit,” Nazar says flatly.
Kai’s laugh is sharp, brittle. “And I’m sick of your hypocrisy. You show up here without a mask, drag me into alleys, follow me—and now you want to act like you’re somehow better than me?”
“Did you come to this party to be with those men?”
The question hangs between them.
Kai’s face goes very still. “What do you think? Of course I let them fuck me. They always keep quiet about it afterward. Isn’t that your new theory? That I’m some kind of… what, exactly? A convenient hole?”
“Kai—”
“Don’t.” Kai moves toward the phone. “Don’t say my name like that.”
Nazar moves faster. He cuts off Kai’s path to the phone, and when Kai tries to dart around him, he catches him by the wrist. They end up on the bed—awkward, tangled, fighting over the phone like children.
Nazar pins him down. And… finally, he presses his lips to Kai’s neck.
