I spend two hours on the phone with Nat and Sloane, starting off by saying, “Okay, explain this all to me like I’m a toddler.”
I get a story that makes my eyes cross.
Nat’s former fiancé, David, who went missing on the day of their wedding years ago and who everyone presumed was dead, was actually a Bratva accountant named Damon who embezzled money, turned on his bosses, and went into the witness protection program. With a new identity, he moved to Lake Tahoe, where he met Nat. Fast forward a bunch of years, he’s gone missing, and Nat is still in mourning.
Except then this hot stranger Kage moves in next door, and Nat’s dormant mourning ovaries jolt to life like reanimated zombies starving for brains.
Brains being a euphemism for the exceptionally hot dick Kage is packing.
But Kage, being cagey, hides the fact from Nat that he’s really the assassin sent to locate Damon and all the money he stole from the Bratva, then kill her.
I mean, it’s understandable he omitted that pesky detail, right?
It would be a deal breaker for most girls.
But Nat, also being cagey, figures out who Kage and her ex really are—wait, there’s another assassin in there somewhere who shows up to kill her because Kage failed to do it—and she heads off to Panama to find Damon, who was never really dead in the first place, just waiting for her to find him from a secret message he left in a painting. He skipped town on their wedding day because the FBI told him the Bratva had discovered where he’d been hiding.
Except by the time Nat finds him, he’s married to some other lady.
Who also doesn’t know his real name or that he was in the mafia.
Anyway, Kage and Nat get past all the thorny I-was-sent-to-kill-you business and move to New York together. Then, of course, Sloane has to go visit her bestie Nat in Manhattan, because the number of millionaires per capita is higher there than anywhere else in the US.
When I ask Sloane how she knew that, she says she looked it up.
Shocker.
So Kage sends a private jet for Sloane—I swear, these gangsters and their private jets—and Sloane heads to New York. Just as she steps out of the car at Nat and Kage’s building, however, Declan roars up with the Irish cavalry to kidnap her on orders from then-boss Diego who wanted information about Kage and a shootout that went down at some Mexican restaurant in Tahoe where both Irish and Russians were killed and Sloane was the cause.
Then Diego dies—supposedly but not really—and Declan becomes the new Mob boss.
I know. I could hardly follow it, either.
But I did follow the part where Declan got a lot more than he bargained for in a kidnappee, because within a few days, Sloane had his whole crew eating out of her manicured hands and him wrapped around her pinky finger.
There was a side story about some guy named Stavros and another jet, but I’d zoned out by then.
The bottom line being that Sloane fell in love with Declan, turned over a new leaf as a human being (I tried very hard not to snort when she said that), and wanted to mend fences with the little sister she’d never been that close to, partly because the little sister—wrongly—thought she’d once stolen her boyfriend.
By the end of all that, I’m exhausted.
We hang up with Nat—who, from the sound of it, is about to go do something violent to her man Kage for giving Mal intel about Declan—and I lie down on the floor.
To the ceiling, I say, “So to wrap it all up, the three of us are in love with a trio of powerful mobsters.”
Sloane says, “Who are all enemies. Yes.”
“Why would Mal and Kage be enemies?”
“Maybe enemies isn’t the right word, but those boys don’t like to share their toys.”
“So they don’t hate each other as much as they hate Declan.”
She lies down on the floor beside me and takes my hand. “Right. Though I don’t understand what Declan meant when he said he and Malek have a mutual friend now. I’ll have to ask him about it later.”
Whatever it means, I know she’ll get it out of him. The woman was born to dissolve a man’s independent will.
“Circling back. How did Spider know I was in Moscow from the beginning?”
“Kage told Declan in return for a marker.”
“Is that some kind of mobster slang I should know?”
“It’s a favor. A big one. That can be called in at any time, and Declan can’t refuse.”
“Yikes.”
“Exactly.”
I feel bad about that angry speech I made to Declan when I first came in, until I get confused again. “Wait, so Kage and Declan are enemies, but they work together?”
“Sometimes. Other times they try to kill each other.”
That makes me smile. “Sounds like sisters.”
“Ha.”
“What about Diego? Is he still in the hospital?”
“He went to live with his sister in New York. He still can’t remember a thing that happened. He’s working at a diner as a short-order cook.”
“Poor guy.”
“I dunno, I think he might be better off.”
“What makes you say that?”
“There probably aren’t too many people trying to kill short-order cooks.”
“Good point. And Kieran? I’ve been worrying about him.”
“He’s a tank, that guy. Three shots to the torso and he lived! Declan put him on leave for a while, but he’s back on the job.” She turns her head and smiles at me. “He’s almost as tough as you.”
“Yeah, we mouse deer with the tiny fang-like tusks are super badass.” When she makes a confused face, I say, “Forget it. Inside joke.”
Then I’m depressed. Abruptly, completely depressed, and longing for Mal with such a fierce ache, I can hardly draw a breath.
I whisper, “He let me go. He let me go.”
“It sounds like he was trying to protect you.”
“I know he was, but what an asshole!”
“You don’t think he’s an asshole.”
“Yes, I really do!”
She quirks her lips and looks at me sideways. “Remember how in Twilight when Edward left Bella to protect her even though it killed him to do it, and you thought that was the most romantic thing you’d ever heard?”
“No!”
“Shut up. Yes, you do.”
“I hated that movie!”
“Yeah, but you loved all the books. And you loooved Edward, Mr. Broody Telepathic Vampire who would sacrifice anything for his dumb-as-rocks human girlfriend, including his own life.”
I think of Mal’s self-sacrificing tendencies and his love of bitey sex, and have to admit she might have a point. “So you’re saying I’m the dumb-as-rocks human girlfriend in this scenario.”
“No, I’m saying you don’t really think Mal’s an asshole. You think he’s the bees knees.”
“Who says that? What are you, eighty?”
Breezing past that, she muses, “You know what’s funny? Nobody ever mentions that Edward was like a hundred years old and Bella was only seventeen. Talk about perving on a baby.”
I grimace at the image of my dear Edward Cullen as a child molester. “Thanks for ruining my favorite book series for me.”
“Ha! I knew you loved Twilight!”
I grumble, “Whatever. And he didn’t leave Bella until New Moon.”
We lie there in companionable silence for a long time, until I sit up and scrub my hands over my face. “God, this is a fucked-up situation.”
Sloane props herself up on her elbows and gazes at me thoughtfully. “We might be looking at this the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, between you, me, and Nat, we have the three most powerful men in the US and Russia totally pussy whipped.”
I say drily, “Always the incurable romantic.”
“I mean, think what we could accomplish!”
I see the mad glint in her eye and know she’s planning something. Like overthrowing all the governments of the world and becoming Supreme Ruler of Earth.
I can already see her throne, a massive structure made of all the spirits of men’s souls that she’s crushed.
“First things first. I need to get back to Russia.”
“There might be a little hiccup with that.”
Sloane and I turn at the sound of Declan’s voice. He stands in the doorway, gazing down at us with his hand on the doorknob and an inscrutable expression on his face.
I say, “Such as?”
“Malek has put the word out. Anyone who assists you in attempting to return to him dies.”
Shocked, I shout, “What?”
“Apparently, he knows you well.”
I leap to my feet and stare at him, vibrating with anger. “Apparently, he doesn’t! Because I’ll swim there if I have to!”
He says gently, “Maybe it’s for the best, lass. You’d never be safe with him now, not with what he’s doing.”
“You mean the way Sloane isn’t safe with you, but she’s still here? You mean the way Nat’s not safe with Kage, but they’re still together?”
He gazes at me for a beat with a million unspoken words spiraling behind his eyes. “Not exactly.”
When he doesn’t continue, I say, “I’ll throat punch you, gangster.”
“Honey, just tell us what’s going on,” says Sloane, standing.
He looks back and forth between us, then looks heavenward and sighs.
“Stop praying and spit it out!”
“There’s this group called the Thirteen,” he starts, but gets interrupted by Sloane, who says, “Group? Like a band?”
Declan mutters, “I told him that name was shite.” Then, louder: “They’re not a band.”
He goes on to describe the plot of a James Bond movie. Bad guys disguised as good guys, good guys disguised as bad guys, international espionage, corrupt governments, I don’t even know what else because I stop listening halfway through.
Sloane says, “Are you in this group?”
“We help each other out from time to time, but I’m not a member.”
“What about Kazimir?”
He looks offended. “No!”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, I’m just asking.”
I say loudly, “Everybody shut up. I have an important question.”
Sloane and Declan look at me.
“Whoever else is in this stupid international spy-band-whatever group, do any of them have girlfriends or wives?”
Declan says instantly, “Of course.”
He realizes his mistake when I glare at him. Then he raises his hands like he’s in a holdup. “I don’t make the rules, lass.”
“You know what? This is bullshit. Get Mal on the phone.”
“You say that like you think I have his number.”
“Whoever you know that he knows, this mutual friend, call that guy and get his number!”
He’s beginning to look like he’s regretting this entire conversation. “He’s not the bloody telephone directory.”
“I have your boyfriend’s number.”
We all turn. Behind Declan in the hallway stands Spider, staring at me from under lowered brows.
“You want it?” He crooks a finger then turns around and walks away without another word.
After he’s out of earshot, Sloane says uneasily, “Why do I get the feeling there’s going to be a price attached?”
I mutter, “Blackmail’s popular for a reason,” then follow Spider out the door.
