I shake and shudder around him, feeling the release all the way to my toes. “Adrian, oh God,” I chant.
He slowly lowers my hips back to the bed and nuzzles against my neck. “You don’t have to call me God,” he murmurs, laughter making his normally rough voice rich and velvety.
“You’re the only one who makes me come like that.”
“All right, I am a God, then,” he jokes, rolling us to our sides. He strokes my hair back from my face, and we breathe together in silence.
“You should eat a little before you fall asleep,” he says when my eyes drift closed. He eases out of me and gets up. “I’ll call room service.”
The sound of his deep voice on the phone falls like a lullaby all around me. A blanket I wrap myself in as I drift into dreamland.
Adrian
Kat doesn’t stay awake to eat, which bothers the part of me that desperately needs to see to her well-being. I want to baby the crap out of this girl. Pamper her until she forgets every last horrible thing I subjected her to.
I wait until room service comes, then I eat and take the laptop into the living room and shut the door to the bedroom.
It’s midnight in Chicago, but I send a text to Ravil anyway. Are you up?
A moment later, the laptop rings with a video call from Dima. When the video comes into focus, I see Ravil, Maxim and Dima calling from Ravil’s office.
“Adrian,” Ravil says immediately. “I don’t like when you dodge my calls.”
“I’m sorry, pakhan. I fucked up.”
He raises his brows at that admission. “What happened?”
Assuming he already knows everything about my plan from Dima, I start from what went down on the ship up until I blew it up.
“Where are you now?” Maxim asks. He’s half-dressed in an unbuttoned shirt. Ravil probably roused him from his marital bed for the call.
“At the Radisson Blu Astrid in Antwerp.”
He tips his head. “Interesting choice. You still have the girl, then.”
“Kateryna,” I say. She’s no longer the girl. She’s not Poval’s daughter. She’s my Kit-Kat. The lovely, wild, strong-fragile young woman I’m in love with. The one I have to let go.
“Yes. She’s sleeping.”
“Well, what are your thoughts, Adrian? I’m guessing you texted for a reason.” Ravil is completely polite, but I know I’m still in the doghouse, rightfully so.
I don’t answer. My mind has looped around and around. I’m out of plans and ideas. I just know my way didn’t work. It’s time to adjust.
“I’m…ready to abort.”
Ravil lifts a cool brow.
Maxim smirks and leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “I knew that as soon as you said Radisson Blu Astrid.”
I shrug. “Perhaps this is police matter.”
“A police matter,” Ravil corrects me. “That tactic might have worked better if you hadn’t blown up the freighter.”
“But you said you took photos of the log books?” Dima asks. “Send them to me. I might be able to trace them to his bank accounts.” Dima flashes a grin. “I found them all. Oh, and the five mill appeared in her bank account. Did I tell you that? I can move it to one of our holding accounts.”
My heart pounds. I could keep his money. That alone would be punishment enough for a man like Poval. Then again, it would give him a reason to come after me, and Kateryna knows everything. My name. Where I live. If she tells him, he’ll come after the Chicago Bratva, and while Ravil can hold his own, I’m not going to put him into war.
“Hold off on that, please. Until I’ve figured out my next move.”
Dima nods.
“A man like Poval probably would find a way out of prosecution, but it’s worth a shot,” Maxim says. “We’ve got our boy at the FBI. He could contact Interpol.” Maxim scrubs a hand across his face. “Are you going to deliver him to Interpol, though?”
“Yes.” I’d considered this. “I could get him here.”
Or do I let the guy just walk free? I no longer care what’s just or even about the justice Nadia deserves. I’m thinking about Kat.
What it would be like to have her only parent locked up.
Then again, it’s not like he’s really there for her anyway. She’s been on her own, essentially, for years. It’s no wonder she’s uncentered. Off her axis.
I remember my absurd fantasy about taking her home with me and building her a pottery studio, and my chest tightens painfully. In an alternate reality, I would live that life in a heartbeat.
He’ll still be alive. He’ll probably get off. And she’ll have the five million dollars he transferred to her bank account. Which is good because his accounts might get frozen by proceedings. She would be all right.
I nod. “I will get him here.”
“I’ll contact Alex,” Ravil says. The FBI agent who once wanted Ravil dead is now beholden to him. “No guarantees, though.”