Page 135 of Kept in the Dark
He nods solemnly, kisses me again, and I sigh in relief. An emotional weight is lifted with his forgiveness. I lean against him again, content to let him lazily stroke my back. For once, I’m not worried about being too heavy or about reciprocating the calming gesture.
“I should never have let you go.”
“It doesn’t matter now. I’m done running. I’m done making up reasons that my life can’t start. I’ve been looking for home all this time, and I assumed it was a place.”
He quirks a brow.
“Turns out it’s a person.You’rehome, Dimitri.”
His eyes are shining. The grip on my hips tightens, and I swear I feel a stirring of the semi-soft cock inside me.
“I wantyou.I want everything with you. Man, monster, partner… everything. I love you, Dimitri,” I say, nearly sighing in relief when it feels more right than I could have hoped.
“Ya tebya lyublyu,”he replies softly. “I love you, my Nicole.”
This time, his kiss is gentle. His movements are slow and deliberate as he lowers me onto my back and makesloveto me for the first time. Each movement of his hips against mine is a purposeful promise of more to come and a reminder of declarations that don’t need any more words tonight. When I reach down to finish myself so we can come together, he cups his hand around mine, letting me drive but still needing to be part of it in his own way.
43
Dimitri
Fun Dimitri
I rub the healing skin of my chest tattoo to stop it from itching. Fresh tally marks for saving Nicole have now taken the place of the three oldest lines. Every time she sees it, she smiles, which far outweighs any temporary irritation.
“So, what the fuck are we gonna do about Felix?” James asks, placing a glass of vodka in front of me and taking a swig of his beer. He sits in the chair in the corner, leaning back and crossing his long legs at the ankle, accidentally jostling the table with his foot, shaking Wesley’s champagne.
“Oi,” Wesley complains, snatching up the top-heavy glass before it can fall over. Very little spills in a house of men with such quick reflexes.
“Sorry,” James replies instantly.
“First, we must find him,” I point out.
James was angry for days, inconsolable to anyone but Eleanor, and barely released her from his sight. Though I wanted very much to treat Nicole the same, I had to let her go long enough to submit herself and her story to the police. Wesley is keeping a close eye on the investigation, and Nicole is a person of interest, but between finding Kyle dead in a pool of his own blood full of cocaine, a sexually assaulted dead prostitute, and the bodies in the elevator, they are leaning towards organized crime. If it goes to court, she will not be testifying, but we will have access to all the information we need to track down everyone who remains of the Volkevich clan.
It terrifies me every time she must leave to go down to the station, but Wesley watches from hacked cameras inside, and I watch from the shadows of nearby buildings. She also wears twice as many trackers as Eleanor.
“At least now I have a photo to use,” Wesley says, sipping his drink. “That’s one step closer to finding him. He can’t hide forever.”
I nod thoughtfully, taking another deep sip from my vodka. It burns the back of my mouth, but slides smoothly down the throat just as good alcohol should. I think of my woman, off with Eleanor somewhere in this house. Then I steal a look at both of my teammates, mybrothers, and consider my life in a way I never have before—with hope and direction. Disregarding the future was purely self-preservation, to ignore what I believed would be an inevitable violent death. But Nicole… mymed… she is the catalyst for a new kind of thinking, though I am uncertain exactly how to transition from a hitman who lives day to day and expects to be killed in the line of the job, to someone who has a reason to keep himself alive.
I study the glass in my hands as I announce, “I am old for a hitman.”
James chokes on a sip of his beer. “Oh? And how old is that, exactly?”
“Fuck off. Suffice it to say, most hitmen do not make it to my age. Particularly the ones who are on the ground, as I am.”
“Yeah, and?” Wesley asks, sending a meaningful look at James as he places his glass on the table. It makes a faint, high-pitched tinkling noise.
“I am saying that we will finish this business with the VolkevichBratva, we will track down Felix so I may have my revenge, and then… I do not know what the future will hold. Perhaps Nicole will be content to live here for a time, but… I do not know what happens next.”
A baby. The word echoes in my head and chest, making my heart race. It inspires fear and hope in equal measure. All I know is that once there is a child, everything will be different. To take risks for myself is one thing,but when there is another person, born of my blood… that is no longer an acceptable recourse.
James claps me on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out.”
In the silence that follows, the sloshing liquid in James’s bottle is the loudest sound. He exchanges a look I cannot decipher with Wesley. After a moment of trading more incomprehensible looks back and forth, he asks, “But until that happens, we can count on you, right, Big D?”
I incline my head. These are concerns for another time, far from now. “Of course. I enjoy this work, and both of you require me to keep you in a line. You will not be rid of me so easily.”
