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“This conversation is over,” he growls into the phone in his distinctive, uniquely accented voice.
Like the man himself, the accent is a product of the two worlds that built him. The aristocratic British lilt to his tone comes from his years at Oxford University; but before that, Kir was shaped by the streets of Moscow, and branded and beaten in a gulag prison for his criminal connections. That’s the other facet ofthe man and the accent: rough, hardened, and distinctly, coldly Russian.
He ends the call and lowers the phone before he looks at me.
“You look like you’ve been through the wringer,” Kir says, his sharp eyes concerned. “Everything okay?”
I shrug, trying to shake off my earlier exchange with Mal. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
Kir studies me for a moment, steady and calm. “Come, join me,” he says, gesturing to the chair across the desk from him. “You’ve been hiding in your room too much lately.”
“Gee, I wonder why.”
He gives me a look. “I’m about ready to give the all-clear for you and Annika to go back out into the world. You know how it is, Freya. I need to make sure no one is specifically gunning for my family.”
My family.
I love that he unequivocally considers Anni and I as much family as he does Damian.
I take a seat, sinking into the plush leather chair. The weight of our relationship—the bond we’ve built over the years—settles around us, familiar and comforting. Kir has always been there for me, trusted me, believed in me when no one else did. In return, I’ve been fiercely loyal to him.
“You know me,” I shrug. “I don’t do well being cooped up.”
“I know,” he sighs. “And I’m sorry.”
“But notthatsorry.”
He smirks. “Your and Annika’s safety is my priority. You’ll find no apology from me in that regard.”
I sigh. “It’s just…before the shooting… I’d been going to see Damian a lot.”
“I know. Soon, I promise. Damian’s in good hands, Frey. He’s got one more surgery slated for next week, and they’re extremely optimistic that he’ll be in full recovery after that.” He clears his throat: that’s his tell for switching the subject. “I wanted to ask you how the deep dive into Iosef Andreyev is going.”
There it is: subject officially changed.
I allow us to switch courses to the strategy we’ll use to blackmail the Bratva-connected head of a company Kir has his eye on acquiring, and we discuss some of the details of my work on that so far.
But my mind keeps wandering to Mal, and our phone call, and the dark energy that clings to him like a second skin. No matter how hard I try to shake it off, the tension lingers, settling in my chest like a leaden weight.
Kir leans back in his chair, watching me thoughtfully. “You’ve got that look,” he says, his voice calm but probing. “The one you get when you’re ready to fight.”
I smile faintly, but there’s no humor in it. “Guess it runs in the family.”
Kir chuckles, raising his glass to me in a mock toast. “That it does.”
This is a running joke between Kir, Annika and me. Saying dumb shit like “Good hair runs in the family,” as if either of us isactuallyrelated to the man who basically adopted us, or each other for that matter.
“By the way,” I frown. “Did you ever find what you were looking for in the data dump from Orlov Financial Solutions?”
I’d been waiting on Kir to tell me what specifically he was looking for in the information I gleaned from that disconnected server, the night I first crossed Mal’s path. But the other day, he just asked me for the whole pile of it, and said he could look through it himself.
Kir shrugs. “Yes.”
“And?”
He lifts a brow while keeping his lips sealed, in a very not so subtle way.
“You do know it makes my job a little easier if I know who we’re going after ahead of time? Are you trying to find something on the Grigorov Bratva?”
