Page 95 of Devious Truth

“I’m going to be picked up.” She pulls out her phone and starts tapping.

“Did you just order a ride share?” I reach for her phone, but she pulls it out of my grasp.

“No. I’m letting Nicolle know she can come get me now.”

“No, she can’t,” I throw my own napkin onto my plate. “We are going to discuss the new security for you, Megan, and Vee. You’ll just have to wait to go out.”

“I already told you; I’m not going to have an entourage of men with guns following me around everywhere.”

“Our conversation may have to wait,” Alexander cuts in, looking up from his phone. “There’s been another fire.”

It’s past ten before Ivan comes home. After they were alerted to one of their warehouses burning, they bounded from the dining room as though their own chair were engulfed in flames.

I’m sitting up in Ivan’s bed scrolling through my phone when the bedroom door softly opens and he steps inside. The immediate stench of smoke fills the room.

“You’re back. It’s late.” I slide off the bed, leaving my phone behind.

His hair is tousled, as though his thick fingers have been raking through it all day. He moves to the closet, the smoke smell trailing behind him.

“What happened?” I ask, leaning back against the bottom post of the bed while he’s in the closet.

“Our warehouse on the river is gone.” He reappears in the doorway in a pair of black boxer briefs.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to seeing him like this. He’s all raw dominance and sex, and all he’s done is stand in front of me in his underwear.

“Was anyone hurt?”

He nods. “We lost two men.”

I sink back onto the edge of the bed. “Did they…did they have families?”

He frowns. “One has a girlfriend, the other just arrived here from Russia last month—as far as we know he had no family here or back there.”

“That man’s girlfriend. She’s going to need help, someone to help her?—”

“Vee.” He’s in front of me in a moment, capturing me in his arms and holding me tightly against him. “We’ll take care of it.”

“She’s going to be so––” I can’t even say it. “It’s hard when you hear it; it gets worse when you finally know it.”

He squeezes me tighter. “We’ll make sure she’s okay.”

The chaos in my mind quiets, and I lean into him. I can’t remember a time in my life that my soul was this easily soothed.

Ivan hugs me, and it’s like the whole world goes still. All the craziness out there stays away from me, from us.

We’re untouchable.

“You need a shower,” I say on a sigh.

His chest rumbles with a small laugh. “Yes, we do.”

He lifts me in his arms and carries me to the ensuite.

“Ivan!” I playfully wiggle, but in truth I don’t want him to let me go.

He puts me down, the tiles chilly beneath my bare feet. “Take that shirt off.”

I look down at his white undershirt I found to wear. “This one? I kinda like it on.”

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