Page 97 of Mile High Ruin

“Where, Anton?”

“In the lining of a bag.”

Anton goes quiet again.

I already know I’m not going to like what he says next.

“It was Sloane’s.”

15

SLOANE

I know something is wrong before he says a word.

Vadim doesn’t move for several seconds after Anton speaks through the phone. He simply stands there beside the bed with the towel still wrapped low around his hips, one hand holding the phone against his ear while every trace of irritation drains from his face.

Something colder takes its place.

I have seen him angry. I saw him beat Hale until two men had to drag him back. I saw the way he looked across the tarmac while bullets were still being fired at us, blood running through his shirt, every line of his body sharpened by violence.

This is different. This is controlled. Whatever Anton has just told him does not make Vadim explode. It shuts something down.

His eyes move toward me once.

That’s the part that unsettles me.

There’s no softness in them anymore. No heat. No trace of the man who had his mouth between my legs five minutes ago.

He turns away. “What else?” he asks.

I can’t hear Anton’s answer.

Vadim listens without interrupting, his shoulders completely still.

Then he says, “Inform me first if there’s any further development.”

The call ends. I wait for him to turn around.

He doesn’t.

“Vadim?”

Nothing.

He picks up his trousers from the floor, then seems to change his mind and leaves them where they are. He walks out of the bedroom still wearing only the towel.

I sit there for several seconds, the sheet gathered around my chest. The silence he leaves behind feels heavier than the room did when he was in it.

I look toward the open doorway. “What the hell?”

No answer.

I stay where I am at first. I tell myself he has gone to make another call. That whatever Anton said has nothing to do with me. That Vadim is simply doing whatever dangerous-billionaire-criminal thing occupies the rest of his life when he’s not ruining mine.

Then another minute passes.

And another.