“She’s gone now, so I don’t care,” I lied.
“She’s gone, and you’re not going to look for her?”
“Why are you here,” I interrupted, needing to steer this conversation back to safer ground.
Niko smiled and relaxed back.“The job I asked you about. I want to move forward with it, and I need introductions.”
Fuck. This again. I shoved a hand through my hair and sighed.“It’s messy. I told Viktor as much. I don’t like it for the Chernov name.”
“But he does, so you don’t have a choice,” Nikolai pointed out.
“Because of this fucking business, the Romanians are causing trouble. They put one of my men in the hospital.”
Niko raised his glass, making the ice-cubes clink inside.“Glad to see you’re unscathed, brother. Like a cockroach to the end.” He cocked his head, focusing on the window. “What’s that noise? Oh, right, the sound of your little childhood crush escaping.Lori Wilsonis good at disappearing, isn’t she? Be a shame if she got away so quickly after you’ve looked for her for so long,” he said, leaving me in no doubt he knew far more than I wanted him to about Molly. “It’ll make it easier to marry Sofia De Sanctis if your little captive is gone. I’m doing you a favor.”
“It bothers you that I’m engaged to Sofia and not you, doesn’t it? Maybe if you were less of a loose cannon, it would have been you,” I sneered at him.
My every thought was fixed on Mallory. I couldn’t wait to get out and find her, but first, I had to get rid of Nikolai. It was unfortunate that he knew so much about her, but I’d have to deal with that issue when it came to it.
“Sofia De Sanctis will never be your wife, Kirill. We both know it. The only person who doesn’t is Viktor.”
“Or so you hope. Maybe if my captive runs too far and too fast, I’ll have to marry Sofia for the business after all,” I warned him.
His eyes flashed at me, warning of fire too terrible and violent to resist. I saw that line constantly in Niko. He walked it with a deadly calm that could explode into a sudden blaze at any moment. He was a dangerous man, but I’d yet to meet a Chernov who wasn’t.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Why don’t you do something useful before Viktor wonders why he bothered to bring you over here.”
I tossed the words at Nikolai as I strolled from the room. My body moved slowly, but my mind was racing. It wasn’t my security’s fault that my brother had disabled our backups. Nikolai was dangerous. Molly would never have gotten away on her own.
I pulled my phone out and checked the info I’d gotten so far. Mallory’s phone location showed she was somewhere in the middle of the Hudson, so my clever little cookie had tossed her phone the first chance she got. I’d expected as much. Molly was smart, and she’d been hiding for a long time. She was cunning too. She got that from her weasel-like father. Too bad for him that his number was up today. The tracker I’d had implanted under her skin showed a different location. My phone rang in my hand, and I ensured I was in the elevator before answering.
“She’s at her old apartment,” Max said quickly in my ear.
“I know.”
“What do you want to do?”
Relief and satisfaction soothed my anger at my brother. The plans I’d put in place remained effective. I had an advantage over Mallory. I knew her, therealher, not the bullshit fake identity stuff. No matter what happened, I knew there was one place she’d go. There was one person she’d never leave behind. The one arm I could twist that Molly would never risk.
Love made people weak, and Molly was no different. I left the building and got into the waiting car.
“Did you leave the phone there?”
“I did. I can’t believe she went there.” Max said incredulously. He’d grown up in the bratva, and the idea that anyone could be innocent like Mallory was foreign to him.
“She won’t stay long. Keep eyes on her at all times, but don’t engage. She’s mine to collect.”
26
MOLLY
Iwent to the apartment first and crept inside. I had a go bag in there with some cash and clothes. Without the bag, I had nothing to my name.
I sensed eyes on me as soon as I left the subway, not only from the disinterested ticket officer who had watched me jump the turnstile. It was like it had a week ago when invisible eyes seemed to follow me wherever I went. The surveillance camera feeds of my haunts lingered in my mind. It was him. There had been eyes on me, his eyes, waiting and watching.
Maybe I was being paranoid. Surely Kirill couldn’t have someone following me already? His brother had taken out his security. I had maybe half an hour before he came after me.
Hunting.