Wrong?! He’s the enemy! If I didn’t find the evidence to bring him down, he would trigger a gang war. All those innocent lives, lost….
I reached for his hand. As soon as my fingertips brushed him, I caught my breath. Every time he’d touched me ran through my head on fast-forward, each one searing hot in my chest before sinking down, heavy and fluttery, to my groin.
I gently lifted his hand and brought the ring to the laptop. As soon as metal touched metal, the laptop unlocked and I was looking at his email.
I carefully put his hand back down and got back into bed, throwing nervous glances at him the whole time. If he woke and saw me with his laptop there’d be no way to explain, no excuse I could come up with. Whatever his feelings for me, he’d kill me.
I hunkered there in the darkness for a half hour, sifting through his emails and….
Nothing. Not a damn thing about any big new deal, or paying someone a quarter of a million in cash. My shoulders slumped and I let a long, silent sigh.
Then the guilt hit me. Was I relieved? I thought of what Carrie had said, just before I went undercover. Had I forgotten who I was? My mission was to bring him down.
I searched harder, digging through archived mail, and finally found a hidden folder where everything between Konstantin and one anonymous person had been filtered. I knew straight away I’d found it. This was the man I’d met at the mall.
The conversation started a month ago. Konstantin told the man he had a job that needed doing. There were no details, just a link to a picture hosted on some website, and when I clicked on it the picture had long since been deleted.
The man said he’d take the job for $250,000. I can do it any week day. 1pm seems to be the best time. But it will need a particular tool - perhaps with your contacts, you could help me acquire it? Again, there was a link to a picture and again, it had been deleted. Dammit! But I had to give them credit, it was a clever system - even if their emails were intercepted, the really important stuff was still hidden.
Konstantin replied saying yes, he could get the “tool.” And that he’d send a woman to deliver the money. “It’ll be in a box wrapped in red gift wrap. Don’t discuss things with her, she’s just the courier.”
Thank God I hadn’t asked Konstantin about the money. I’d been right, he’d kept Christina strictly need-to-know.
The exchange ended with the date for the job being set as the 18th October, with Konstantin agreeing to send the “tool” the guy needed on the night of the 15th. I shut the laptop down, slipped out of bed and put it back where I’d found it, then got back between the covers.
And it was over. I’d done it! I’d got a lot more information on when this thing was happening, even if we still didn’t know what the job was. Carrie would be happy. And I’d gotten away with it: Konstantin hadn’t woken up. I knew I should be elated or at least relieved.
But all I felt was bad.
I stared at Konstantin’s back and thought of him living here in the mansion by himself, with the appearance of a relationship but no actual warmth or love. Making these plans alone, not trusting even Christina enough to share them with her. If I didn’t bring him down, he’d take over the entire city..., and when that day came, he’d have no one to share the victory with. It was heartbreaking. I’d never met anyone so utterly isolated. What the hell happened to him?
I fought the urge to reach out and touch him.
He’s evil. He’s the enemy.
So why did betraying him feel so wrong?
35
Hailey
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, life in the mansion became...normal.
The expensive dresses and even the fancy lingerie started to feel routine. I got faster at doing my hair and make-up, too. And I managed to solve the problem of Christina’s heels not fitting.
“Don’t you already have a pair just like that?” muttered Konstantin as I returned from a shopping trip and he saw the shoes I’d bought.
I gave a theatrical sigh. “Men always say that. They’re completely different!”
He grabbed my hand, pulled me close and gave me a long, deep kiss, one hand roving down my back to grab my ass. When he drew back, he stared at me, one big finger combing through my hair as his eyes searched mine. I thought I could see...a yearning. A wish that we had a real relationship, that we could banter like that all the time. And then he shook his head and stomped off downstairs to his study.