After that day, something changes between us.
We don’t talk about it, but it’s there, an electrical awareness that we’ve moved beyond whatever we were before into new, deeper territory.
We anticipate each other’s words. We finish each other’s sentences. Emotions are conveyed with nothing but a look. We spend the week between Christmas and New Year alone together in my house, talking, eating, watching old movies, and making love.
It’s paradise.
And like every paradise, it comes to an end.
When I wake up on the cold, snowy morning of January third, I’m in Kage’s arms in bed. He’s already awake, gazing at me with his signature dark intensity, but there’s something else in his eyes that makes my heartbeat flutter.
I whisper, “You’re leaving.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I close my eyes and snuggle closer to him, wanting this to last just a little longer. But all too soon, he’s climbing out of bed and getting dressed.
I sit up in bed and pull my knees up to my chest, watching him, my lungs tight. I know this is how it will always be and feel a pang of sadness so strong, it leaves me breathless. But when he turns back to me, I look down at the sheets to hide my eyes.
He doesn’t want to go, either. It’s just the way it is. Making him feel guilty won’t help either of us.
Standing at the edge of the bed, he pulls me to him. I wrap my arms around his waist and rest my head on his hard stomach as he caresses my hair.
“When do your classes start up again?”
“Next week.”
It’s a pity the school’s holiday break isn’t shorter, because without work to go back to, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with all my extra time now that he’ll be gone.
He cups my face in his hands and turns it up so I’m looking at him. His eyes are shadowed. His voice comes very soft. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Giving me something to live for.”
He leans over and kisses me softly on the lips. Without another word, he turns and walks out.
I sit on the bed where he left me, listening to his footsteps recede through the house. The front door opens and closes, and he’s gone.
Knowing a future of little heartbreaks like this one awaits me, I struggle not to let the tears fall. Then I take a deep breath and throw the covers off, stand and straighten my shoulders, and head to the shower to start my day.
There’s no use wallowing in misery. It serves no purpose and changes nothing in the end.
If anyone knows that well, it’s me.
I do all the laundry. I clean the house from top to bottom. I take a brisk walk around the block. By the time five o’clock rolls around, I’m feeling better, certain it won’t be long before Kage comes back and this sour little knot in my stomach can unwind.
When my cell rings, I’m in the kitchen, pouring myself a glass of wine. I grab the phone from where it’s charging on the countertop. When I see the number on the readout, I’m overjoyed.
“Sloane! You’re alive!”
She laughs. “Of course I’m alive, ding-a-ling. Just because we haven’t talked in ten days doesn’t mean I’m lying in a ditch somewhere.”
“How was I supposed to know that? You didn’t call me to wish me a happy New Year. Or Christmas.”
She laughs again. “Hello, kettle, meet the pot. You didn’t call me, either.”
Grinning, I say, “I was kinda busy.”
“Oh, really? Do tell. Has your vadge fallen out yet from all the pounding it’s been taking?”
“You first. How’s Stavros? Where are you now? Africa? Belize?”
I hear the smile in her voice when she answers. “Closer. Come to the front door.”
I whirl around and hustle through the house, throwing open the front door to find her standing on my porch with her phone to her ear, grinning at me.
Wearing a dazzling hot-pink ski outfit complete with white fur-lined boots and a matching furry white hat, she looks like she just returned from winning a gold medal in the Winter Olympics.
We throw our arms around each other and start laughing.
“I missed you!”
Still laughing, she pulls away. “I know. It’s terrible without me around. But I’m sure you must’ve been keeping yourself busy with your stud.” She glances behind me, looking into the house through the open door.
My face falls. “He left this morning.”
She says drily, “Not without marking his territory first, I see.”
Reaching up to touch the tender spot on my neck she’s looking at, I blush. “He, um, sometimes gets a little carried away.”
She beams at me. “Of course he does. You’re delish. Now crack open the wine, because we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Great minds think alike. I’ve already got the bottle open.”
We go inside. When we get to the kitchen, I grab another glass and the bottle from the counter, and we sit at the table. Mojo wanders in from the living room and throws himself at Sloane’s feet. Within seconds, he’s snoring.
Smiling down at him, she gently nudges him with her boot. “Still a ball of fire, I see.”
Pouring her wine, I chuckle. “I’ve been screaming to wake the dead for over a week straight, and it hasn’t budged him. You’d think he was brought up in a haunted house. No matter how much groaning and wall shaking goes on, this dog sleeps like a baby.”
Sloane lifts her glass to me. “Here’s to getting stuffed with premium sausage.”
“You’re such a hopeless romantic.”
We smile at each other and drink.
When we set our glasses down, Sloane says, “So. You’re in love.”
“Don’t make it sound like I’ve got cancer. And how do you know, anyway?”
“It’s written all over your face, Juliet. Mafia Romeo has sexed you on every horizontal surface in the house, and now you’re glowing with happiness.”
My face flushes with pleasure, remembering exactly how well I’ve been “sexed.” And not only on the horizontal surfaces.
“What about you? Are you in love with Stavros?”
She almost spits her mouthful of wine out through her nostrils. “Girl, seriously? Who do you think you’re talking to here? I was bored out of my mind after three days at sea with him. I’ve never met a man who worries so much. It was like living with my grandmother. Pacing and hand-wringing are his two favorite things. Thank god they had to go back to New York for the meeting, or I’d have jumped overboard.”
My heart skips a beat. “New York? Meeting?”
She’s surprised. “Kage didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I didn’t, either.”
“How do you know, then?”
“One of my ninja skills is eavesdropping. Plus, after a few days, Stavros’s crew forgot I was around. Or they assumed I was okay because I was with him. Either way, I got to overhear a lot of stuff I probably shouldn’t have.”
My heart starts to pound. I lean closer to her, gripping my wineglass so hard, I’m sure it will shatter. “Like what?”
“Like…there’s a war brewing.”
My stomach drops. “Oh god. War’s not good.”
“No, it’s definitely not. Apparently, there was a big meeting of the heads of all the families in Boston recently, and it didn’t end well. The Irish were pissed about what happened to their guys at La Cantina—”
“Back up. The Irish were there? This meeting wasn’t only with different families in the Russian mafia?”
“Apparently, all the families were there. The Armenians, the Italians, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Irish.” She shrugs. “Everybody.”
I can see it in my head, like a scene from a movie. A long table surrounded by dangerous-looking men wearing black overcoats and smoking cigars, everyone staring with suspicion at each other with narrowed eyes, weapons cocked under the table.
“Anyway, things got hairy, and the Irish pulled out their guns. From what I could overhear, it sounded pretty bloody.”
I slump into my chair, feeling sick. “Was this meeting Christmas Eve?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Because Kage showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night with a bullet wound.”
Sloane’s eyes widen. “Oh shit. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. I stitched him up.”
She blinks. “You did what, now?”
I wave a hand in the air dismissively. “It’s easier than it sounds. Back to the meeting. What else happened?”
“So apparently, the Russians have been top dogs on the East Coast for decades now. Even with their leader Maxim in prison for the past few years, they’ve got the most powerful operation. All the other families have made agreements with them to get their goods through the ports—”
“Goods?”
“Contraband. Drugs.” She pauses for a moment. “Cargo.”
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I understand what she means. “The Russians are trafficking people?”
She shakes her head. “That’s the Armenians and the Chinese. The Russians are mostly into weapons and drugs distribution.”
My voice comes out weak. “Oh. Great.”
“Anyway, the Irish blamed the Russians for the massacre at La Cantina. I guess no one has shot each other for years. It violated some kind of truce agreement. Plus, one of the Irish guys who was killed was a nephew of somebody important. So they wanted some kind of compensation. And their demands didn’t go over well. By the time that meeting ended, bodies littered the place.”
She takes another sip of her wine. “So now it’s war.”
“And this upcoming meeting in New York? Who organized that?”
“Your man.” Her smile is soft. “It was supposed to be sooner, but he said it had to wait.”
I close my eyes and press a hand over my throbbing heart.
Kage held off a war-planning meeting so he could spend the holidays with me.
Sloane huffs out a disgusted breath. “I know. It’s sickeningly romantic. Anyway, that’s all I know. Let’s get drunk.”
I jolt from my chair and start to pace in front of the table.
Pouring herself another glass of wine, Sloane eyes me. “You look exactly like Stavros right now.”
“How can you be so calm? They’re going to war!”
“I feel for you, babe, because of Kage and all, but it’s over between me and Stavros.”
I pull up short and stare at her. “What happened?”
She peers at me over the rim of her wineglass. “Did you miss the part where I said he bored me to tears? I broke it off. Being with a man twenty-four hours a day is exhausting.”
She shrugs again, takes another sip. “Tell me more about what happened when the police showed up here. Get me all caught up to date.”
I take a moment to admire her poise.
In less than two weeks, she’s been involved in a public shooting, seen four men die, flown to Rome, sailed the Mediterranean, eavesdropped on a bunch of murderous gangsters to get information, and broken up with her billionaire boyfriend, all without a chip in her manicure or the smallest scratch in her aplomb.
She’s so cool, James Dean would be jealous.
I sit back down and start at the beginning, since we last saw each other. When I’m done, she shakes her head.
“So Chris is still holding a torch for you. That’s a problem.”
“I don’t think he’s holding a torch.”
“Pfft. His torch is so big, he could light the whole town on fire with it.”
“Whatever the case, Kage said he’d take care of it, so…”
“So we should expect to see Chris’s obituary in the newspaper soon.”
“No! I told Kage not to hurt him!”
She shakes her head as if she’s deeply disappointed in me. “If I had my own personal assassin, I’d give him a list of people to kill as long as my arm.”
Assassin.
I’m taken aback by that word. The memory of Chris yelling at me that Kage’s nickname is Reaper surfaces, as does the image of that red-eyed, hooded skeleton with a scythe.
Hands trembling, I down my glass of wine. It’s impossible for me to reconcile the Kage I know—passionate, tender, full of heat and heart—to the man who runs the Russian mafia.
Runs it in his boss’s absence, anyway.
Sloane notices the look on my face. “Babe, you just went white.”
“I’m still trying to adjust to my new normal.”
“Love’s a bitch, which is why I’ll never have anything to do with it.”
“Life has a funny way of making you eat your words, girlfriend.”
She shakes her head, smiling. “There’s not a man on this planet who could make me fall in love with him. Trust me, I’ve got a lot of experience in that department.”
“Oh, I know. I also know your match is out there somewhere. You just haven’t met him yet. But when you do, I’ll be the first to rub it in your face.”
She laughs at me, clearly disbelieving. Digging into her pocket for her cell, she says, “Good luck with that. In the meantime, let me show you this pic of the hottie I met on the way over here.”
She shows me her phone. The screen displays a picture of a grinning, tanned blond guy who looks exactly like a young Brad Pitt, sitting in what appears to be the back seat of a sedan.
“On the way over? What did you do, flag him down on the side of the road?”
“Uber rideshare. He’s taking me to dinner tomorrow night.”
I chuckle, partly in admiration and partly in disbelief. “You don’t even let the bodies get cold before you move on to the next one.”
She turns the camera back so she can see the screen and smiles at it. “I’ve got a number in my head I want to hit so I can write about it in my autobiography. It’ll be a bestseller. People love to live vicariously through books.”
“What does this one do for a living?”
“Who cares? Did you see those dimples? I’d like to jump into those babies and drown.”
“Sloane?”
“Yeah?”
“I want to be you when I grow up.”
She smiles and sends me a wink. “Get in line.”
Just then, Mojo lifts his head from Sloane’s foot and looks toward the dark window over my kitchen sink.
His ears prick.
All the fur on his scruff stands on end.
He lets out a low, rumbling growl and bares his teeth.
