Page 60 of Twisted Fate

The relief I feel is startling. It washes over me like a wave, and I have to struggle to keep it out of my voice when I answer. It takes everything in me to keep my tone even and cool when I answer. “Whatever you need. I’ll hold off until you give the word.”

“Good girl.” The pride in his voice is evident—I’m his obedient assassin, a weapon to wield how he chooses. But the endearment makes my stomach turn.

What am I going to do?

I hear the sound of footsteps in the bedroom, and my chest tightens. “I have to go,” I say quickly. “Konstantin will be out here in a minute.”

The phone goes dead. There’s no goodbye, no words of caution. Just Kane’s voice one moment, and silence the next.

I lower the phone just as Konstantin steps outside. His brow furrows as he looks at me. “Were you on the phone?”

“A friend called,” I lie quickly, and something in my chest tightens. “She wanted to know how the honeymoon was going.”

Konstantin’s eyes darken. He strides toward me, and for a moment, I feel a shiver of fear ripple down my spine. I can’t tell if he bought my lie or not.

He reaches out, his finger tracing the edge of my chin as he tips up my face toward his. “What did you tell her?” he murmurs, and I give a soft laugh.

“That I haven’t been able to get out of bed with you long enough to even send her a text.” My hand tightens around my phone a fraction. I don’t know what I’ll do if he asks to see. But surely he won’t. Surely he won’t want to seem that possessive.

Instead, his eyes gleam with heat. “Good answer,” he murmurs, and his other arm slides around my waist, pulling me against him.

When his mouth touches mine, for just a moment, I forget everything else.

—

Later,lying in bed, our skin streaked with sweat, Konstantin looks over at me. “I was thinking,” he begins slowly, shifting so that he’s lying on his side, facing me. “When we go back home tomorrow night, we should go to my penthouse.”

I frown, turning to face him. “Instead of your father’s mansion?”

He nods. I can see him watching me for my reaction. “I didn’t know you had a penthouse.” It’s another lie, and I feel that same cramp in my chest. Of course I know—I know almost everything about him… the details that can go into a dossier, anyway. But he seems to believe me.

“It’s my space.” He reaches out, brushing a piece of hair away from my face that’s clinging to my forehead, damp with sweat. “The place I can go to… get away from everything. My father’s mansion is his. It’s a place for business. The penthouse is mine alone.”

A place for business.It’s very clear, hearing that, why we stayed there before. I was business, then. Now?

Now, it sounds like I’m becoming something else to him. My throat tightens, and I blink rapidly. Konstantin’s face softens, and I can tell that he’s reading it as the reaction of a wife who is finally getting what she wanted from her husband.

He’s seeing what he wants to see. And it’s never been more convenient for me than at this moment.

I think of the relief that I felt earlier, when Kane told me to hold off on killing Konstantin. A small part of me, a part that shouldn’t exist, is hoping that Kane will find something that makes him think Konstantin doesn’t need to be killed at all. Something that will change his mind.

But I know, realistically, that isn’t going to happen. What’s going to happen is that I’m going to spend more time withKonstantin. I’m going to go home with him, to his penthouse in Miami. I’m going to spend day after day waiting for Kane to call again, to tell me that it’s time to finish the mission.

And when he does, I’ll have to pull the trigger, or drive in the knife. I’ll have to kill a man who has made me feel things I’ve never felt before.

Who could possibly make me feel more, if I let him.

I crowd that thought out, leaning in to kiss Konstantin again. His lips part against mine, his tongue sweeping into my mouth. I arch against him, moving closer, and I can feel my heart beating hard behind my ribs.

“I would love that,” I whisper softly. “Being away from your father, in a place that’s yours—just the two of us…”

My pulse beats faster as he deepens the kiss. This complicates everything. Not just my proximity to him—but how I’m going to pull this off. He’ll have better security at the penthouse. The entire point of this honeymoon was to get him far from home so that it would be easier for me to kill him and escape.

If I were to get caught, I have no doubt that Kane would disavow me. He wouldn’t throw himself under the bus for me. I’ve always known that, and I’ve never resented him for it.

I let Konstantin spill me onto my back, let him kiss me into a fog that pushes every other thought away. That’s a problem for later. I’m not putting off the assassination any longer—Kane has told me to wait. All I’m doing now, I tell myself as I wrap my legs around Konstantin’s hips and lose myself in the feeling of his muscled body against mine, is following orders.

Sticking to the mission.

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