Shane got back from L.A late last night, and this morning Liam told me he wanted to see me. So, once again, I find myself summoned to his office and I’m sitting before him like an errant teenager waiting to be yelled at.
“You seem to be settling in here well?” Shane arches one eyebrow at me.
The heat flushes over my cheeks as I recall him witnessing my encounter with his younger brothers the week before. I’m aware he knows about me and Conor too. His room is next to Conor’s and he must have heard us. “I am. Thank you.”
“You’re certainly a hit with my brothers?”
I blush further. Asshole! I sit up straighter in my chair. “Well, they’re nice guys.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “I’m not sure you know them at all, Hacker.”
“I think I know them well enough,” I reply. “Especially after you introduced me to the kind of work you really do.”
He stops laughing, and the change in him is instant. He glares at me, his green eyes burning into my skin. “They don’t know you though, do they, Jessica?”
I swallow hard as all the saliva in my mouth dries instantly. I glare back at him. That could just be a lucky guess. Lots of Jessica’s shorten their name to Jessie. But my heart starts to hammer in my chest.
Shit!
“Do you really think I would allow someone in my house? In my brother’s house and into their beds, without finding out who they really are?” he snarls.
“I told you who I am.”
He stands up abruptly, lunging forward and grabbing my throat with one of his large hands. He squeezes lightly and my breathing grows faster. But, I don’t move. “Tell me one more lie, and I will have my brothers carve you to pieces and dump you in the Hudson. So, start talking, Miss Romanov!” he spits my last name and I shudder at the sound on his lips. I haven’t heard that name for over ten years.
“How did you find out?” I croak. No-one else ever has. I learned from my father how to cover my tracks, and I am damn good at it.
He releases me from his grip and sits back in his seat. “What can I say? My guy is good. He told me to tell you he was impressed. It’s taken him four weeks to find out who you really are. It usually takes him two days.”
Despite the circumstances, I experience an unexpected sense of pride at that revelation. But it still doesn’t change the fact that my cover is blown, and Shane Ryan knows I’ve been lying to him and his brothers since the moment I met them.
“As you’ve already discovered, my real name is Jessica Romanov. And I don’t suppose I need to fill you in on my family history?”
“No,” he says with a shake of his head.
I sigh with relief at that. My family’s story is well documented, and I don’t particularly want to relive it right now.
“But, tell me, how did a sixteen-year-old girl escape the Wolf? Or haven’t you escaped him at all?”
I flinch at the mention of his name. The man I’ve been looking for since the night he slaughtered my parents and my twelve year old brothers in front of my eyes. The man who kidnapped me and held me captive for almost two years.
“Of course I escaped. I earned his trust. I spent every single minute of my seven hundred and eleven days with him, learning every single thing about him. I learned exactly what made him tick. His likes. His dislikes. The things that made him get that faraway, glazed look in his eyes. The quickest way to make him lose control.”
Shane says nothing, but his eyes remain fixed on mine.
“He never trusted me enough to allow any weapons in the house. He even refused me cutlery. I was only allowed plastic spoons to eat with. But I had a hairbrush with a wooden handle. I was mostly locked in my room, or his room, and that was much worse.” I shudder at the memories. “But I was permitted outside in the gardens for one hour every night. Just like in a real prison. Every single night I would sharpen the hairbrush on the edge of a stone step. Do you know how long it takes to sharpen a wooden stake to a perfect point using only a smooth rock?”
Shane shakes his head. “No.”
“Seven hundred and eleven days,” I say with a snort. “One night, he had summoned me to his bed, and while he was sleeping, I stabbed him in the throat. I’d figured out his security system. Once he was gone, it was easy enough to get out.”
“But you didn’t kill him?” Shane raises an eyebrow at me. “Because there is a rumor that he’s still out there somewhere?”
My blood starts to thunder around my body. “No. Somehow he survived. The day after I escaped, I panicked. I went back to burn down the house and destroy the evidence that I’d been there, but he was gone.”
“And he’s been in hiding ever since,” Shane adds.
“Yes. But one day, I will finish what I started.”
Shane narrows his eyes at me. “So, Nikolai Semenov didn’t find you by chance?”
“No. I set up the whole thing. He was high up in the Russian Mafia. I thought maybe he must have some information on whoever ordered the hit on my family. Or on the Wolf himself. I never knew why my parents left Russia. Whenever I asked, they would change the subject. What I did know was that we were always running from something. My father was the best at what he did. There was no code, no computer, no system that he couldn’t crack. Maybe they killed him because he knew something he shouldn’t? Or maybe because he refused to work for them? Whatever it was, eventually, he paid the ultimate price. The Wolf made both of us watch while he slit my brother’s throats and raped my mother before he did the same to her. Then he told my father that he wouldn’t kill me, but he would take me as a payment instead, and I would live the rest of my life in pain and suffering. But, from the bits of information he gave away to me while I was his prisoner, I guess he was supposed to kill me too because his employers were furious that he took me as a hostage instead. He said that no-one could ever find me. Everyone had to believe that I was dead. That’s why he kept me locked away, and it’s probably the only thing still keeping me alive.”
“Because everyone believes you’re already dead?” Shane says, almost to himself.
I look up at Shane and his face is impassive. He runs his hand across his jaw and frowns at me. “So, where do my brothers and I fit into your plan, Hacker?”
“You don’t. I had no idea who you were. I mean, I’d heard of you, obviously, but I had no business in your world. However, when you killed my only link to the Wolf, I needed time to regroup. And you were about to kill me, remember? I figured I could work for you for a few months while I figured out my next move.”
He narrows his eyes at me and the heat of his intense gaze penetrates every part of my body. “How do I know that this wasn’t all a part of your plan? You could be working for the Wolf right now? Or the Russians? How the hell can I trust anything that comes out of your mouth?”
“I know that I’ve done nothing to earn your trust, Shane. I get that you don’t think you can trust me now. But, I give you my word -”
“Your word means nothing to me. Once you have lied to me, everything you tell me is tainted by that. Even if you spoke the truth now, how would I know it?”
“You must understand why I lied, Shane?” the desperation creeps into my voice, and it annoys me.
“I do,” he sighs. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t trust you. You have lured my brothers into your bed, and you have just admitted to me that you escaped the Wolf by doing the same thing. You used your body as a weapon.”
I draw in a breath as my blood starts to thunder around my body and I clench my fists by my sides. “I did not lure the Wolf into my bed! He forced me into his. And yes, I used my body to get what I needed from him. But, as a sixteen-year-old girl held captive by a monster, I had little else at my disposal,” I snarl at him.
His face softens. “I know that. And I’m not judging you, Hacker. Simply stating a fact.”
“So, what now? You go back to your original plan and kill me?” I narrow my eyes at him, readying myself to launch across the desk if he says yes.
“No,” he frowns at me. “I wouldn’t hear the end of it if I take away my brothers’ new toy.”
The sting of his words is like a slap to my face and I blink back the tears. Because that is all a woman like me is to men like him. “Then let me go, Shane, and I can be out of here in five minutes and you never need to see me again. It will be like I was never here.”
He glares at me. “Let you go?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“And where would you go, Hacker?”
“I’ll figure it out. I’ve been surviving on my own for ten years. My father taught me everything he knew. I’ll get by.”
“Do you want to leave?”
I swallow as I try to figure out how to answer to that question. “No,” I finally admit.
He stares at me, his eyes searching my face. “Are you sharpening any wooden stakes in that bedroom of yours?”
I blink at him. Did Shane Ryan just attempt a joke? “No. Besides, I wouldn’t need to. You have a perfectly suitable set of titanium knives in the kitchen.”
A grin flickers across his face. “You can stay for now. As long as my brothers are okay with your deceit. Conor has a particular hatred of the Russians,” he flashes an eyebrow at me. “He might just kill you himself, anyway. But, I guess that’s the chance you’ll have to take.”
I ignore his attempt to rile me further. “So, I can stay?”
“For now. My brothers are much better behaved when you’re around. But, if you lie to me again…”
“I won’t,” I say before he can finish his sentence. “Aren’t you worried the Wolf will find me eventually? I don’t want to put any of you in danger.”
“Me and my brothers are always in danger. But, no,” he shakes his head. “I don’t fear the Wolf. He might have been one of the most feared assassins of his generation, but now he hides in the shadows, no doubt pining for the girl who almost killed him.”
I sit forward in my seat. “You know the Wolf? Do you know where he is?”
“No. I don’t have any answers for you. Like you said, he’s disappeared. I think you might have done your job when you put that stake in his neck. He might not be dead, but he isn’t alive either.”
“I won’t rest until the last breath leaves his body,” I spit out the words, surprised by how easily the hatred and venom I hold for him bubbles to the surface. I have kept it hidden for so long.
“I can understand that,” he says and for a second, it seems like we have a connection in something, although I can’t figure out what or why.
“Thank you for allowing me to stay, Shane,” I say, suddenly overcome with gratitude. He may act like a heartless bastard, but there must be one in there somewhere.
“Your brothers were twins too?” he asks.
“Yes,” I blink, the question taking me by surprise. “Identical.”
“Like Liam and Mikey?”
“Yes. And full of mischief like them too.” The tears spring to my eyes and I look down and quickly wipe them away.
“I’m sorry about your family, Hacker,” he says quietly.
“Thank you.” I look up at him again and my eyes lock with his. My pulse quickens, and something in him calls me, deep in my soul. My breathing becomes harder and faster and I wonder if he feels anything too. But he breaks eye contact, and the moment vanishes. I shake my head. Reliving the past has made me emotional and over-sensitive. Desperate for human connection, I’m seeing meaning in things where there is none.
Shane clears his throat. “You should go tell Conor and the twins who you really are. If they don’t kill you, I’ll see you at dinner,” he says as he stands up.
I stand too. “See you at dinner then,” I say with a smile and a confidence I don’t feel.
He nods and stuffs his hands in his suit pants as I walk out of his office.
