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“They mentioned Yuri.” The instant she says his name, her body coils, and her fingers gnarl. “I don’t know what happened, but I broke. I finally broke and told them I did it. It was a confession right there on tape. They had me.”
After eight years, she finally admits the truth. I thought I’d feel a rush of vindication, but all that’s churning inside me is an overwhelming need for her to come clean about everything.
“And this is where the blackmail comes in?”
“Ethan, that’s the agent, he said he couldn’t ignore my confession, or what had been covered up, but he could give me leniency if I gave him my father.”
I can’t take my eyes off her damn hands. “That’s all? You didn’t say anything about me.”
“No,” she says, propping her chin on her knee and weaving her index fingers together. “Why would I say anything about you? I didn’t even know you were here until two days ago.”
She’s lying.
I want to grab those fingers and break them one by one.
“Stop talking to the Feds, Ava.”
She rears back like I’ve slapped her. “I can’t! What if somehow my father finds out—”
“Sergei was the one who put the hit out on you.”
You wanted to know.
There it is in all its fucked-up glory.
All the color drains from her face. “Why…why would he do that?”
“Why does your family do anything? To save your own asses.” I know I’m taking this truth thing to an extreme, but let’s be honest, she deserves it. Although, she’s looking kind of gray, so I take it down a notch. “He knows you’re talking.”
“Who told him?”
“You did. Never get in a strange car right outside your apartment, Ava. You always add in three or four stops. It’s common sense.”
“I thought you said by definition the Cavalieri Della Morte didn’t exist. How did my father know to contact you?”
Huh. Good question. Something I’d ask Arthur if I weren’t having this conversation with a dead woman.
“Maybe he has a little black book of contract killers.”
I expect her to flip out on me, but she’s eerily calm. “If I don’t give the Feds something on my father, this is going to blow up in our faces. They’re going to come after me.”
I don’t want to admit it, but what she’s saying makes a lot of sense. Still, after what I saw in those texts, I’m not willing to risk it. “This is not up for discussion.”
“Niko, I have to go to the club,” she says, slightly panicked. “My father lives and breathes that place. If I’m going to find something on him, it’ll be there. Trust me on this.”
“Trust isn’t given, pchelka. It’s earned, and you have a long way to go and a lot of secrets to spill. You’re still holding something back. Come clean, and I’ll think about it.”
I don’t tell her I already know what that something is.
Her golden eyes blaze like the hellcat I accused her of being earlier. “Do you really think I’m that stupid?” Frustrated, she stretches out her legs and slides down the mattress, rolling away from me to face the wall. I watch the pale skin on her back expand as she slowly inhales and then sighs it out. “Look, we both have to take a leap of faith, Niko. If not, kill me right here.”
I should, but I don’t. Instead, I let her scoot her naked ass against my dick, and sometime during the night an unseen force drapes my arm across her chest. In the early hours of the morning, that same force buries my face in her thick, mangled hair.
When I wake up, I realize I don’t have to take a leap of faith.
I’ve already been pushed off the cliff.
