The guy immediately starts shaking his head. “You need to leave the building.”
I take it as good news. Nikolai definitely lives here, or he would’ve looked confused.
I draw myself up and fold my arms across my chest. “I’m not leaving the building until I see Nikolai.”
The guy comes from behind the desk.
Oh fuck. He’s throwing me out.
I drop to the floor and sit cross-legged like I’m some peaceful protester from the sixties. “Call Nikolai. Tell him Chelle is here, and I’m not leaving until I talk to him.”
The guy strides over and towers over me, his brows down like he’s pissed. “Get out of building,” he bites out, his accent thick.
“I need to see Nikolai. Please call him.”
He reaches down and grabs my upper arms.
I refuse to unfold my legs, making my weight dead weight. Still, he’s strong. He deadlifts me from the floor and shakes me to make my legs uncross.
When I still refuse, he shakes his head and starts hauling me toward the door.
“Wait!” I cry out when I realize once I’m out that door I’ll have no way back in. “Please. I’ll do anything. It’s life or death. I need to see Nikolai.” I reach out and wrap my legs around his waist like a koala bear, so he won’t be able to deposit me outside when he gets there.
“Please. Please. Please just call him,” I beg. “Pozhaluysta.” Unable to keep it in, my voice breaks and tears spill from my eyes.
I always hated girls who cried to get their way, but I see an instant change in the guy.
He stops walking. Indecision scrawls across his face.
“Please, please, please. Please call Nikolai for me. I need to talk to him.”
“Put feet down,” he grumbles.
“Will you call him?”
“Wait here.”
I release the strangulating hold my legs have on his waist—thank you, spin class, for my leg strength—and let him put me on my feet.
When he walks back to the front desk, I follow. He frowns at me as he picks up a cell phone and dials. He speaks into it in Russian, rapidly and with exasperation. Then he goes silent.
“Is he coming?” I ask.
He shakes his head and holds up a finger.
My heart pounds against my breastbone.
It seems like forever that the two of us stand there in silence while he waits for an answer, then he replies into the phone and puts it back in his pocket.
“Nikolai will come.”
Nikolai
I ride the elevator to the ground floor with a semi.
When Maykl called up to tell me there was a small, hysterical young woman downstairs demanding to see me, I knew it was Chelle even before I flicked over to the security feed and rewound to watch.
She’s still adorably fierce. Throwing around all hundred pounds of her body to get her way.
I know she’s either here about the ring or something bad has happened to Zane. Probably both. Zane could’ve been busted for stealing it, and she’s hoping to get charges dropped by turning it in.
When I exit the elevator, Maykl is still patting her down for weapons, which for some reason annoys me. I want his hands off her. She already climbed him like a tree when he tried to take her out of the building.
“Nikolai,” she calls the moment she sees me, launching out of Maykl’s grasp and running for me.
Maykl gives me a nod to let me know she’s unarmed.
She reaches me and makes contact, her palms spreading over my ribs as she looks up at me. My breath leaves my chest when I realize her cheeks are wet. “Nikolai,” she says, again, sounding breathless. “The ring Zane gave you, do you still have it?” Before I have a chance to answer, she rushes on. “It belongs to a client at work. I wasn’t even supposed to have it, but I couldn’t get the safe open, and I was the last one there. I didn’t want to leave it in case the cleaning people found it or something, so I took it home. I didn’t realize Zane—the fucker—had taken it until this afternoon, and I have to get it back. I mean, I have to get it back. I don’t want to lose my job or go to jail or anything like that.” Her golden eyes swim with tears. “Please tell me you still have it.”
My body is feverish from having her up against me and the need to make those tears stop makes me itchy.
“I still have it.”
“Okay.” She takes her first breath since she threw herself at me. “Okay. I know Zane owes you a ton of money, and we’re going to pay it off, but please, please, please,” —she fists my shirt and tugs on it— “I am begging you, Nikolai. Please can I have it back?”
I allow a slow smile to curve my lips. “I like it when you beg, Chelle.”