Page 42 of Devious Madness

“My name and my birthday?” I laugh. “You probably looked at my driver’s license when I was sleeping.”

He chuckles.

“You’re twenty-three years old, turning twenty-four this thanksgiving. Your mother lives with her fifth husband in Brazil, but you don’t speak to her very often. Your father is on his third marriage to a woman named Barb who sells cemetery plots and lives in Florida, but you don’t talk to him. Ever.”

My jaw drops as he continues.

“You’ve lived with Megan Reed for the last three years. You are allergic to strawberries and penicillin. Hate fish, but love shrimp. You have a sensitive spot just behind your left ear that makes you giggle when it’s bit, and another spot just inside?—”

“Okay! Okay!” I stop him before he starts to list all of the things he’s found out about me in the last twelve hours while we were supposed to be sleeping at the cabin. “You’ve made your point. How the hell do you know all of that?”

He lifts a shoulder like it’s not that big of a deal. “When you know where to look it’s not hard.”

Before I can question him further, the music cuts out and a call comes through the dash. The name Sasha flashes just before he takes the call.

“I have it,” Rurik says. “There was a small problem. He didn’t make it.”

Sasha says something in Russian I don’t understand, but it makes Rurik grin, so I suppose it’s not more trouble.

The conversation goes on for several minutes, and since Sasha keeps it in Russian, I have no idea what’s going on. But when Rurik finally ends the call, there’s a dark cloud hanging over his expression.

“Is something wrong?” I swallow. “Was that guy like some big mafia guy? Are you in trouble now because?—”

“Mira.” He puts a hand on my knee, squeezing. “I told you, he was no one worth grieving over.”

“Someone might not think that.”

“He wasn’t married. Had no children. He was a piece of shit who deserved a much worse death than I gave him.” He looks over at me again, and I can see he’s telling the truth.

Every one of my exes lied, and about the dumbest things. Some were small lies, like when Erik swore he didn’t eat the last of the Oreos even though I found the empty package sitting next to him while he played video games. Others werea little bigger, like when Travis swore he wasn’t sleeping with the blond bartender even though her panties were stuffed beneath his pillow.

I’ve become quite the human lie detector, and there are no falsehoods detected in Rurik’s eyes.

“Okay, then what’s wrong? I may not understand Russian, but I understand tone, and your tone got really hard there at the end. So did Sasha’s.”

His nostrils flare with his heavy sigh.

“Calloway is still looking for you. There’s been an unmarked car outside your apartment building several times in the last week. Seems he’s really wants to talk to you.”

“I’ve already told him I don’t know anything.” Which is a complete lie, but ratting out the mobster who killed Nico and would easily do the same to me carries much graver consequences.

“He’s just looking at Marco for the death of your boyfriend?” Disdain drips from his words, but I can’t tell if it’s because he’s talking about Marco or referring to Nico.

“I don’t know.” Another lie. Detective Calloway kept me in that interrogation room for two hours. He was very clear what he wanted from me.

“Mira. I can’t fix this if you’re not honest with me.” Rurik’s voice lowers. “No more lies. Why is he so intent on talking to you?”

Rurik killed a man to keep me safe less than twenty-four hours ago, if I can’t trust him, I’m not sure there’s a single man on the planet who can be trusted.

And yet, I hesitate.

This could just be my normal reaction to any man who pays me the right sort of attention. I get a little butterfly sputtering in my insides at the right smile, right tone of voice, and my heart is off to the races in love.

Not this time.

This time, I have to think with my head. Leave whatever fanciful notions I’ve carried about love to the fairytales, because that’s all it is.

Fiction.

---