My stomach plummets. My hands start to shake. For a long, awful moment, silence reigns. I stare at Kage, so dangerous and beautiful, and my heart breaks all over again.
I love him.
And I hate myself for loving him, this man who makes my body burn and tells the sweetest lies.
“How did you find me?” I say quietly, a tremor in my voice.
Kage keeps his deadly gaze on David when he answers. “There’s nowhere on earth you could hide from me.”
David says, “You were always good at finding people, Kazimir. I suppose you still have contacts inside the Federal Aviation Administration who you can bribe to give you access to flight logs and passenger lists?”
He sounds shaken to his core, but trying to be brave. Kage ignores that and growls, “I should kill you for what you’ve put her through.”
I whisper, “Kage, no. Don’t hurt him. Please.”
When he glances at me, his gaze softens. “I won’t, baby. I promise. But only because you don’t want me to.”
He looks back at David, and all the softness turns to ice. “For the record, we had no idea you’d gone to Tahoe until last year. We didn’t have a man inside the bureau until then. So either your WITSEC contact was lying about us closing in five years ago or you are. My money’s on you. You always were full of shit.”
I want to turn to see David’s expression, but I can’t. My gaze is glued to Kage’s face, while my befuddled brain runs on a hamster wheel, spinning wildly with questions.
If he’s not going to kill David, why did he follow me here?
Why is he still calling me “baby” when he knows I know his game?
And why would he risk his own life just to sleep with me?
He must’ve known his boss wouldn’t tolerate disobedience. He’d have known his head would be jammed on a spike if that asshole Maxim discovered he didn’t kill me right away, but instead played around for months without getting any information from me about David…
Or maybe that phone call from Maxim was all part of an elaborate plan to scare me into desperate action? They hadn’t gotten anything from me yet, so they staged a big dramatic confrontation that would definitely make me talk if I knew anything?
But then why would Kage have shot Viktor? Was that part of the plan, too?
I don’t know. I don’t know! Gah!
He’s still a liar, no matter what. He never told me he knew David. He knew David was in the mafia, married, stole money, ran away and went into hiding, and all the rest. He knew all of that while he fucked me senseless.
But was that really lying or was it something else?
Something like…keeping secrets.
Which I 100% agreed to.
Oh god.
Startling me out of my thought blizzard, David says, “You’ll want the money. I can return all of what I took from Max—”
“I don’t want your fucking money, Damon.”
David’s gulp is audible. “What do you want, then?”
Kage looks at me again, and now his eyes are burning. Two burning dark coals of love.
“My girl.”
We’re silent again. I feel David staring at my back, but I can’t turn to look at him. I’m falling too deep into Kage’s eyes.
Finally, David says, “If Max knows you disobeyed him and you don’t return the money—”
“I’m dead. I know.” Kage’s tone indicates he gives zero fucks.
“You’re both dead.”
“He won’t touch her. I’m dealing with it.”
I whisper, “Unless…”
At the same time, David and Kage repeat, “Unless?”
I moisten my lips, trembling all over. “We go into hiding.”
Kage’s eyes flare with heat. He lowers the gun to his side and says softly, “We?”
I close my eyes and draw a breath, gathering my strength. Then I open my eyes again and look at him. “Don’t think I forgive you. I don’t. I just need a new place to live. I can’t sleep in that house anymore, knowing Viktor’s ghost is lurking around.”
His voice full of love, Kage says, “You liar.”
“Right back at ya, gangster.”
From somewhere else in the house, a woman’s voice calls out, “Honey? Where are you? I’m home!”
I’m stunned for a second, then I turn and look at David’s face. It has, somehow, turned even whiter than before. He’s the color of copier paper.
Behind him, an attractive brunette rounds the corner into the room. She’s young and curvy, smiling widely, but the smile wipes clean off her face when she spots the three of us standing there, and Kage holding a gun.
She freezes. Looks back and forth between us with wide eyes.
“Nikki?” she says, her voice high and tight. “What’s going on?”
Alarmed, she raises a hand to her throat. The huge diamond on her left ring finger sparkles so brightly it’s almost blinding.
Still waiting for me, my ass. God, men are so disappointing.
Looking at David, I say quietly, “How long did you really wait for me to find you?”
He swallows. Moistens his lips. Shifts his weight from foot to foot. “A year.”
Kage says drily, “Now do you want me to shoot him?”
I wait for the pain to hit, but it never comes. I feel nothing.
After all this time, I don’t care anymore.
Kage walks around the sofa and picks up my travel bag from the floor, slinging it over his shoulder. He shoves his gun into the waistband of his jeans. “Come on, baby. Time to go.”
Then he stands there waiting, holding out a hand.
I walk over to him and take it.
Before we go, I turn back to David and say, “By the way, Damon, your kids don’t look Sicilian. I saw pictures. They look exactly like you.”
As we’re walking out, I hear David’s new wife say loudly, “Who’s Damon? What kids?”
If she’s lucky, it won’t take her more than five years of her life to find out the truth about the man she’s calling Nikki.
I hope she gets half of that one hundred million.
I’m sure she deserves it.
