Page 116 of Vow Of Fire

31

A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

Dante

Evelyn had been living at my apartment for nearly a week now, and each day I felt myself thaw a little more. It was like she’d turned a light on inside me, and it was slowly growing brighter, slowly overpowering the dark.

Don’t get me wrong, I was still a grumpy asshole, but I felt like it might have eased some of the rage I usually carried about with me like a constant companion. Suddenly the nights didn’t seem so dark, and the days didn’t stretch out aimlessly.

I liked coming home. Enjoyed sitting down to a home-cooked meal—not that I couldn’t cook, but she was better at it than me. I loved the sight of her padding around my suite barefoot, seeing her clothes in the laundry basket, smelling her scent on my pillow.

The best part, though, and the part I would never admit to any of my siblings, was that falling into bed with her, even when we weren’t having mind-blowing sex, stilled something in me. I’d never slept better. Never woken up more refreshed.

Hell, I was beginning to think she was good for me.

Nico would say I had it bad, and he’d be right.

We might be playing at being a happy couple, but I knew it was a farce. Make-believe. A short-term arrangement until we’d achieved our goal, and then she’d go back to her place—her life—and I’d be alone again.

The thought bothered me more than I cared to admit.

I poured her a glass of wine as she set dinner on the table. I even knew what vintage she preferred.

I sighed internally. Fucking bad, man.

Still, I had a plan. A three-pronged plan of attack. And I was nothing if not stubborn.

One: banish the thought of any other man from her head. Two: make sure everybody knew who she was dating, and whose protection she was under. Three: drip-feed information to Malakov through Orlov and any other means possible.

The first I thought I’d achieved, judging by the way she gave herself to me every night with increasing abandon. I loved seeing her let loose. Seeing the smile on her face. The laughter in her eyes.

Last night she’d even instigated our lovemaking, grabbing me by the shirt and pulling me into the bedroom. I smiled at the memory, then caught myself, and replaced it with my normal, neutral expression.

The second was happening organically. Word from the gala had spread, and Valentina had even called to say there’d been a piece in the society pages on Tuesday about the unlikely coupling. Orlov and Alexei would have relayed the information back to Malakov, and I was pretty sure the cartel had taken it under advisement.

So far there’d been no new threats on Evelyn’s life. Her apartment door was still intact after I’d had it fixed, and my men reported no suspicious activity outside the gallery. They still shadowed her everywhere she went, and I had my driver take her anywhere she wanted to go.

That left the third, which was going better than expected.

Only yesterday, Nico had picked up some activity on Malakov’s burner phone, from Orlov’s cell number. The call had lasted forty-seven minutes. That was a serious discussion, and I was betting it was about the Colombians.

At work, Evelyn had seen to it that Malakov had missed out on two pieces he’d expressed an interest in, with rumors that the sale had gone to an anonymous client of Ricardo Sánchez.

Then, Chloe, Evelyn’s assistant, had arranged for an air-tight, temperature-controlled container to be shipped to Bogotá, with legitimate documentation and a shipping manifest.

The assumption would be that it was the high-value artwork heading to the cartel, when in fact, it was two useless pieces she’d picked up at an art fair several years ago.

Yep, things were moving in the right direction.

“My mother has called a sit-down tomorrow evening at her place,” I said as she took a seat next to me at the dining table. Instead of sitting at opposite ends, Evelyn had set our places next to each other, with me at the head and her beside me. It was less formal, and I was getting used to the natural flow of conversation.

I’d never had a woman other than Izzy stay with me long-term before, and as Evelyn put it, I was terrible at small talk. I didn’t disagree. But I was getting better at it. With her, anyway.

She glanced at me. “Am I invited?”

“Valentina would insist on it.”

Her lips quirked.