When I first met Roman Marakov, I hadn’t known what to expect, but going in and meeting this guy—he was in a whole other league. There’d been extraneous factors with the first meeting, so I was using this one as the official introduction. He wasn’t like Raize.

No one was like Raize.

Roman Marakov was a thinker. That’s what I meant.

He was the type of guy who not only played chess, won at chess, he was the guy who invented the board. That’s who Raize’s boss was and after the first three minutes, he started talking about Raize and I knew this guy also knew he was lucky to have who he had working for him. The admiration and respect wasn’t to be faked.

That helped affirm my decision.

We were shaking hands and I released his, just going to lay out my cards. “I have a problem with killing. And Brook—Ashley was trafficked. I have a problem with that, too.”

His eyes flared and the corner of his mouth twitched. “So I’m told.”

“Is that a problem?”

More deep amusement shone from him, but he kept a clear face. Nothing was twitching now. “It’ll be good to have someone like you in the room. I didn’t choose this life, but I’m going forth the best I can.”

“I did.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Hmm?”

“I chose this life.” Twice now. “Just so you know.”

There was a switch in his gaze, something deeper, darker shone there, but he only nodded. “I see.”

Well, I didn’t.

I had no clue why I wanted him to know that, but I did and he knew he did and now I felt an awkwardness between us, but it was also one that I wanted to be there. And again, I had no clue what was going on.

But he only grinned faintly before extending a hand toward the bar in his office. “I’m glad that everything is settling for Ashley, but I’m also glad that you’ve decided to stay on with us. Should we celebrate?”

I inclined my head, and as he made me a drink, he asked, “So, Ash. I have to ask, should I have killed Marco Estrada instead of deciding to enter into a business relationship with him? What’s that magical gut of yours saying?”

“You want to do what?!”

As part of our agreement to ‘join Roman’ we needed to disappear. One might think we’d go to Hawaii or Turks and Caicos… Nope. We went back to West Virginia, and since it came out that Roman somehow had sunk claws into a certain brother-in-law that was also a local parole officer, Jake brought Tracey around to meet us all.

He was now exclaiming his disbelief not at me choosing to work for Roman Marakov, but that I was asking Tracey to color my hair blonde once again.

Tracey was lovely, by the way.

She had eighties’ hair, with bangs that looked like they had an IV hooked up to an Aquanet bottle, and she was even wearing a tie-dyed shirt. The jeans skirt was modern, looking frayed and very trendy and showing a good amount of her ass, but judging by Tracey’s makeup, I was thinking it was just how she liked it.

That, and her attitude.

She waltzed into our house as if it was hers and we needed to get out of the way for her to properly make it her own. She had a meatloaf in the oven within twenty minutes.

No joke. Twenty minutes.

Meatloaf.

I loved her immediately.

She told Cavers to ‘take a load off’ and myself to sit and eat. She felt I needed to pack on some pounds, or twenty. Her words. Abram was next and without batting an eye, not mentioning one bit how he was a solid two-fifty of straight muscle, she told him he could do a spa treatment on his pores. She also complimented his tremendously long and beautiful eyelashes, sighing with envy, and I had to admit that I understood. His lashes were something to die for. When she started for Raize, the words faltered in her throat and she just threw him a smile and mentioned, “Aren’t you the hottie patottie one, huh?” And then she turned back to me. “Jake mentioned you were a blonde, and unless my eyesight is going a good forty years early, I’m guessing that was a color job?”

I laughed. “I was a blonde when I was little, but yes. It was a color job.”

Her hands settled over my shoulder. “I’m a hairstylist, babe. I’m literally your godsend arriving to you. All that said, you want a new dye job or not? You got some frayed ends that need to be trimmed, too. What do you think?”

I put her right to bringing back my blonde, and once we were done, I gazed into the mirror and felt like I’d come home again.

It was an odd, but a settling feeling at the same time.

Tags: Tijan Crime
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