Page 56 of Emerald

We both know I’m going to let her inside. Making her stand in the driveway with her hands in the air is pretty pointless.

“Come on,” I say, with a jerk of my head. “Andrei can bring in your . . . plumber’s van.”

“Thanks,” she says to Andrei. “Careful with the shift—it likes to stick in second.”

Andrei looks over at me, bemused. I just roll my eyes.

I stride off toward the house, Sloane tripping after me in her too-large boots. They make a ridiculous clomping sound as they stick in the muddy yard.

“So,” she says. “How did your revenge go?”

“Actually,” I say, wheeling around on her, “it went perfectly.”

“Good!” she says, smiling up at me.

It’s so fucking infuriating.

She sneaks into my house, tries to kill me, and then right when I’m starting to like her, she runs away. Then when I’ve decided to let her go, she’s back again.

It’s like she’s determined to do the opposite of what I want at all times.

Which is infuriating, enraging . . .

But I must admit, at least not boring.

The last thing in the world I expected tonight was for Sloane to roll up in a plumber’s van.

And now I’m extremely curious to hear what she’s been up to.

We bump into Dominik coming through the front door. He stares from Sloane back to me again. And then, annoyingly, he starts grinning too.

“Hello!” Sloane says, putting out her hand. “You’re the brother, right?”

“That’s right,” Dom says, shaking her hand and looking over at me. “And you are . . . Ivan’s girlfriend? Or escaped prisoner? I always get the two confused.”

“Hmm,” Sloane says, also looking at me. “Unclear.”

Jesus. I’m already regretting letting her inside.

“Did you eat yet?” Dom asks her.

“I could eat more,” Sloane says.

“That’s always my answer, too,” Dom says.

I follow them into the dining hall, where Dominik gets us three plates of stroganoff, crusty black bread, and three pints of beer.

Sloane tears into her food, not seeming to care how dirty her hands are at the moment.

Dom watches her devouring the food with an expression of delight on his face. I’m not sure what he’s enjoying more: Sloane herself, or how much her presence has the potential to infuriate and embarrass me.

In between massive bites of food, Sloane is giving Dom a recap of her afternoon, and me as well. She’s telling it all as if it were just an amusing adventure, but hearing that an incendiary grenade went off in her kitchen, that she would have been flash-fried if the bathtub hadn’t already filled, makes me sick with rage at whoever dared throw that bomb through her window.

I know it must be Remizov, but why? Because Sloane failed to kill me? Or because he knows that she and I have developed . . . whatever it is that’s happening between us.

If it’s the latter, then that puts a cold spike of fear into my chest.

Because Remizov has already shown how willing he is to capture and kill someone to put the screws into me.

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