I caught a whiff of coffee again, and my stomach lurched. “Sorry—excuse me a minute.”
I launched myself out of bed on the other side and scrambled for the bathroom. I shut the door firmly, turned on the tap, and fell to my knees beside the toilet. As always, the morning session was nothing but bile. Still, my retching echoed around the tiled room, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Olga hearing it beyond the door.
Fuck. How the hell was I going to hide this? Why was I even bothering?
Oh, right. I couldn’t take Kirill finding out about it. Not yet. It was my secret, just for me. Just for a little longer. I didn’t want to see his satisfaction at his plans working out. I couldn’t take it. I’d knife him in his sleep, especially if we were in the same room.
After a long while, half an hour or more, I dared to open the door. Olga was gone, and in place of the coffee was a cup of peppermint tea. I stared at it, resigned.
Olga knew, and now it was only a matter of time until Kirill did.
* * *
“Morning, sleepyhead,”Max called from the kitchen as I dallied in the doorway.
I didn’t want to see Olga again and meet her knowing eyes. However, I was starving, and the desperate need to put food in my empty belly had driven me out of my room.
“She’s not here. She said she had to get things from the grocery store,” Max reassured me, somehow sensing my reluctance to see the brisk housekeeper.
I stepped into the kitchen and took in the familiar sight of my former bodyguard sitting at the kitchen island, some Cyrillic paper in his hand and a cup of black tea at his elbow. He was as dashing as ever with his dark blond good looks and the rakish scar across his eyebrow that made him look vaguely piratical.
I couldn’t get used to the sight of him. His grin transported me to a time before I’d discovered everything I was building with Kirill was based on lies.
“You’re looking well,” I said, perching on the chair opposite him.
“You mean, for a dead man, right?” he joked but almost immediately sobered. “I’m sorry about that day. It’s my fault Nikolai got in here. I failed you and Kirill.”
“Sure, it’s your fault that a demented psycho shot and killed four people in cold blood and nearly killed you, too. He has no blame in the situation.” I gave Max a scornful look. “Please, don’t, Max. Keep the blame where it belongs.”
“Is that what you’re doing? How come the boss is in the doghouse?”
I let out a short laugh. “If you don’t know that, I guess you’re not as close to Kirill as you think.”
“If you’re talking about the tracker, you should know . . . I have one, too,” he said, turning his hand to show the smooth back and tiny lump next to his thumb.
I blinked at him, shocked. “Are you kidding?”
“No. Both Ivan and I have one. Pyotr too.”
“Don’t tell me Kirill has one,” I said quietly.
“No, he doesn’t. Too many people want him dead to allow that kind of data to be available anywhere. But his inner circle? The people he cares about? They do. That includes you too, Mallory.”
“Don’t tell me I should be flattered,” I snorted.
“No, I won’t tell you how to feel about it, but I do know what it means to Kirill. He’d kill to keep you safe and die for it, too.”
I shoved away the emotions those words stirred in me. Nope. I wasn’t softening toward Satan himself. Not today. “Whatever. It sounds to me like a control freak finally had enough money and influence to chip his friends like pets so he’d know where they were all the time. It’s next-level insane.”
“Yet, if Nikolai hadn’t removed it, we would have found you in hours instead of days.”
“Yes, and I’d never have had the chance to know the truth about Kirill.”
“What truth?” Max sounded baffled.
His tone made me angry. It was as if he thought I shouldn’t have any objection to what I’d discovered like they weren’t complete deal breakers.
I held up my hand, ready to tick off things. “Let’s start with my father being dead. How’s that for one?”