I walk along the hallway towards the gym with my heart pounding in my chest. After I left Shane’s office, I headed to my room and packed my small backpack.
Always be prepared to run, Jessie! Another of my father’s lessons.
How will Conor, Mikey, and Liam react to the news that I’ve been lying to them? I don’t know why Conor hates the Russians, but Shane was keen to remind me of that fact. The sound of footsteps behind makes me spin around as I reach the door. Shane! I frown at him. “You making sure I tell them the truth?” I snipe.
He smirks at me before reaching in front of me and grabbing hold of the door handle. His hand brushes mine and I bristle at the touch of his skin as goosebumps prickle along my forearm.
“After you, Hacker,” he says as he opens the door wide.
I step inside. The thumping music loud in my ears now that we’re inside the soundproof room. Conor is spotting Mikey on the bench press, while Liam does pull-ups in front of the mirror. The three of them are shirtless. Their hard, muscular bodies covered in a thin film of sweat. My ovaries ache in response to the testosterone and pure sex confined in this room. The thumping bass of Snoop Dog’s Sweat pounds in my ears and the three of them move as though they are perfectly in tune with the music. I swallow as I try to focus on the reason I’ve come in here.
Suddenly, the music stops, and I realize Shane has turned it off. His brothers turn to us in surprise. “What’s up?” Liam asks as he lowers himself to the ground and wipes the sweat from his eyes with a nearby towel.
“Our little hacker has something she’d like to get off her chest,” Shane says as he sits on one of the nearby weight benches and stares at me.
Conor frowns and walks towards me. “What is it?”
I look at Shane and then back at his brothers before I take a deep breath. “My name is not Jessie Heaton. It’s Jessica Romanov,” I blurt out the words.
Conor frowns at me for a few seconds until he realizes why he knows that name. “No,” he shakes his head. “She’s dead.”
“Definitely not,” I say as I look down at myself. “I’m right here.”
“Who the fuck is Jessica Romanov?” Mikey asks.
I swallow hard and the tears spring to my eyes. I had assumed they would all know, and I wouldn’t have to explain. Closing my eyes, I’m preparing to tell them my story when Shane answers for me. I smile at him, grateful for his intervention.
“Jessica Romanov is the daughter of Peter Romanov. There were some rumors he was former KGB. Some he was the head of the Russian mob. But what is known, is that he was one of the best hackers in the world. Ten years ago, him, his wife and two sons were slaughtered in their home, and their sixteen-year-old daughter, Jessica, disappeared, presumed dead. The case was all over the news and there was a nationwide manhunt for Jessica, but she was never found. You two were only sixteen yourselves at the time, and you paid even less attention to the news back then than you do now. It’s well known, in our circles at least, that an assassin named the Wolf carried out the attacks. He is, or he was, the Bratva’s finest and most experienced hitman. The hit fitted his MO. But he disappeared afterwards. And as no-one had ever met him and lived to talk about it, he was impossible to find. Whoever paid him and ordered the hit, and why, has never been revealed.”
“Fuck!” Mikey hisses.
“And you’re her? The missing daughter?” Liam asks.
“Yes,” I nod.
“How did you disappear? Where have you been? Are you working for the Russians?” Conor scowls at me as he bombards me with questions.
“The Wolf was supposed to kill me too, but he kidnapped me instead. He kept me prisoner for nearly two years until I almost killed him and escaped. No, I am definitely not working for the Russians. But I want to find out who paid for the hit on my family and why, and I want to finish the Wolf for good.”
Liam walks over to me and wraps me in his arms. “Fuck, baby, you really are a warrior,” he says as he plants a kiss on my temple.
“You’re safe here with us, Red,” Mikey adds. “We’ll help you find who was responsible. Won’t we Conor?”
I look up at Conor who frowns at me. “I fucking hate the Russians,” he spits. “Present company excluded.”
“I hate them too,” I breathe. “Not the entire people, obviously. I hate the Bratva. But, I can find them on my own. I just need somewhere to lie low while I do. If you’ll still have me here?”
“Of course we will,” Conor nods as he walks over and kisses the top of my head, and then he straightens up. “I’m going for a shower,” he adds as his eyes glaze over and he and walks out of the gym.
An hour later, I have answered as many of Liam and Mikey’s questions as I can. They have asked me about my family, particularly interested in my twin brothers after I told them how much they remind me of them. Eventually, Shane intervened and told them to give me some space for a while. They dutifully obeyed him and have left me alone. Shane has left now too, and I should probably go to my room and have some quiet time to myself. Reliving the worst time of my life has left me mentally and emotionally exhausted. But I can’t stop picturing Conor’s face when he walked out of that gym.
I go to his bedroom and knock quietly.
“Come in,” he shouts.
Opening the door, I step inside to see him lying on his bed in his boxer shorts with a book in his hand.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Can we talk?”
“What about?” he frowns at me.
“About what I told you earlier?” I say as I walk over to the bed and sit beside him.
He puts the book down beside him and holds out his hand to me. When I take it, he pulls me down to lie next to him and wraps one of his huge arms around me. “You can tell me when you’re ready, Angel,” he says softly.
I place my hand on his stomach, my fingers flexing over his hard abs. “My parents came to the US when my mom was pregnant with me. I never knew what my father did in Russia – whether he worked for the KGB or the Bratva, but I do know that he spent the rest of his life running from it. He thought he could build a better life for us here in the States. But he was always on the move. Always looking over his shoulder. We never settled anywhere for long. I never went to school, or made friends like regular kids did.”
Conor runs his warm hand over my arm, and I press myself closer against him. “But we always had a really happy home. My mom home schooled us and made sure we always had everything we needed. She was an incredible woman,” I say as I recall her beautiful face and her soft hands. “She always made wherever we were feel like home. And my dad, well, he was the smartest man I’ve ever known. He taught me so much. All about computers and how to cover your tracks. He taught me how to fight too. He used to tell me that one day our pasts would catch up with us and that I would need to be strong. I always got the sense there was something he wasn’t telling me, but I never got the chance to find out.”
“You have no idea who ordered the hit on them?” Conor asks as he brushes my hair from my face in that way that makes me feel completely cherished.
“I’ve figured out plenty of people that it wasn’t, and I suppose that’s a start. I also suspect that there is a lot more to it than my father simply refusing to work for them or a fear that he would reveal their secrets.”
“Hmm?” Conor pulls me tighter to him. “What happened to your family is almost like an urban legend. And the Wolf disappearing with the daughter, well, you,” he says quietly. “You must have been terrified.”
“I was. I’ve buried it all so deep that I wonder now if my memories are reliable anymore. And I promise I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Conor. I’ll never lie to you again. But can we stop talking about me for a while?” I press my cheek against his chest.
“Of course, Angel.”
We lie in comfortable silence for a few minutes and then Conor draws in a shaky breath. “You’ve never asked why we killed Nikolai Semenov and his men?”
“No. I figured you’d tell me if you wanted me to know?” I whisper.
“The Christmas, before last, they kidnapped me and kept me chained in the basement of that house where we found you, for four weeks.”
My head snaps up and I look at him. Bile surges from my stomach, burning the back of my throat as I think about this man I’ve come to care for so much being at the mercy of Nikolai Semenov. Because I’m aware of exactly what kind of man Nikolai was, and what he did to his enemies. “What? Four weeks? Why did they take you?”
“They figured me and my brothers had something to do with some deal they had that went south. It was another family, but Shane is the head, so Semenov held him responsible. And he took me as payback.”
“Did they hurt you?” I ask, the tremor in my voice clearly audible.
“What do you think, Angel?” he breathes, and I feel kind of dumb for asking such an obvious question. “But mostly it was psychological torture. Sleep deprivation. Hardly any food or water. No contact with anyone. No light, and no idea of time or space.”
“Is that why you don’t like the dark?”
“Yup. Or small spaces. Or Russians,” he laughs softly. “Present company excluded,” he adds.
“You do know that Leo Tolstoy is Russian, don’t you?” I nod towards the tattered copy of Anna Karenina beside him.
“Yes,” he says with a dramatic sigh, making me laugh too.
“How did you get out?”
“My brothers found me. Shane had to pay Semenov off so as not to cause an all-out war. Then we bided our time until we could exact our revenge cleanly and walk away with no repercussions.”
“You knew they would come for you, though?” I say as the sob catches in my throat.
“Yeah. I had no doubt about it. It was what kept me going.”
“That must have been some comfort to know they were looking for you.”
He places his hand under my chin and tilts my head up so I can look into his soft brown eyes. “I’m sorry you never had that, Jessie.”
“Well, I’m glad that you did,” I smile at him.
He wraps both arms around me and pulls me tighter to him. “You have it too now,” he says quietly as he strokes my hair. “I will always come looking for you, Angel, and I would burn the whole world down to find you.”
I don’t reply because I’m scared I might tell him how much he means to me. Instead, I lie there in his arms. “Will you read me some Tolstoy?”
He picks up the book with one hand and opens it where he left off. I listen to the soft, velvety tones of his voice, and it soothes every nerve and every frayed edge in my body.
