Redemption

Chapter Twenty-Nine

RAVEN

It’sThursday night and my shift is over. I haven’t slept well the last few nights. Lots of nightmares and lying awake staring up at the ceiling. I wake up with my shoulders tense and sore, as if I’ve been lifting weights in my sleep.

I sent Konstantin one final message yesterday afternoon before my shift. I was dying to rant at him about how hurt I was by his silence and to tell him to go to hell for treating me so dismissively, but I realized that Cindy is right. I’m crazy about him so I owe it to myself to give him a bit more time. If there was even a tiny hope that I could see him again, I’ll take it. After agonizing about it for nearly an hour I came up with a message that was pretty upbeat, I thought.

You’re probably very busy. Maybe message or call me when you’re back in town? x

Of course,there was no reply.

After my shift I walk through the casino’s massive entrance doors, dragging my feet. Sometime about ten tonight I picked up a tension headache and my head is throbbing like adrum.

Thinking about splurging on a taxi tonight I look to the left where they are parked and to my shock I see Konstantin is waiting forme.

He’s leaning against the Mercedes he used when he came to pick me up for the weekend. Our eyes lock and I freeze. Stock still, we stare at each other. He’s dressed more casually tonight in a button up shirt tucked into a pair of dark trousers. He’s had a haircut too, which kind of hurts me, because it makes him even more unapproachable and foreign.

I inhale sharply when he straightens and starts striding towardsme.

God, the man knows how to walk! Less than a foot away he stops. Instantly, I breathe in his cologne and it makes me almost swoon. I try not to show how excited I am to see him. Instead I call on the anger and hurt that I felt over the last few days when he couldn’t even be bothered to pick up the phone to call or text me. I let how small and unwanted that made me feel simmer in mygut.

Plus, he took the time to get a haircut! Bastard! The time I spent worrying and crying. Just thinking of the tears I shed pisses me off so much I want to slap him right there on the street.

His face is as impenetrable as a brick wall. I know there are feelings back there somewhere. I’ve seen them, but, right now, he’s giving me nothing. We could be strangers for all the emotion he shows.

“You don’t look well,” he says, his hand reaching up to myface.

I jerk away from his touch. “Concerned, are you? Why didn’t you answer my messages? What the hell are you doing here?” I ask through gritted teeth. The air between us throbs with resentment and anger.

“Will you come to my apartment?” heasks.

My cheeks ignite, my entire face flushes. “Are you serious?” Igasp.

He has the gall tonod.

So much for pretending none of this bothered me. “We haven’t even spoken in days. You could have been dead for all I knew and yet, here you are wanting me to jump right back into bed with you? What do you think I am? A whore?” I seethe.

His head jerks back. “It’s not for that. I need to talk to you. I had to go away … to make a few decisions.”

My hands find their way to my hips. “So, it wasn’t a businesstrip?”

“Not quite,” he concedes.

“Youlied?”

His posture becomes suddenly tense, giving me the impression of something coiled and ready to attack. His eyes are different too, wary and uneasy.

“I will tell you why I left, but it cannot be here. It must be in private.”

The tension in his voice and body penetrates my defenses. I recognize the urgency in his gaze. My anger disappears and adrenalin and instinct rush through my body. All my senses kick into high alert. He doesn’t want to bed me. He’s afraid. Something is about to happen. Something terrible.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice a frightened whisper.

“Get in the car and I will explain everything.”

I don’t budge. “Why should I trustyou?”

“Please, Raven. This is important. I’m not going to hurtyou.”

“You alreadyhave.”

“I know. I couldn’t help it, but you have to hear meout.”

I watch him for a few seconds, my eyes moving over his face, the intense expression and the desire for me that still emanates from hiseyes.

I point an index finger at him. “If this turns out to just be about sex, I’m never speaking to you again. Gotit?”

He nods once, his body rigid, as if he’s holding his real thoughts in check. I’m used to the electricity between us, but this is more than that. This is serious. Me thinking it is about sex is wishful thinking.

Silently we walk to the car. He opens the front passenger door and I climb in. When he gets in, he does not look at me, but pulls away from the casino.

“Tell me what this is all about,” Iask.

He shakes his head. “Not yet. I need to look into your eyes when I tell you this. I need you to understand exactly what you need todo.”

That chills me. I sit back, wringing my hands in my lap until they hurt. Not another word is spoken, and the atmosphere is so heavy it feels like the air before a tropical thunderstorm. It is obvious he’s going to tell me something I’m not going to like. There’s no other explanation for his silence or his sudden appearance outside of the casino. I will finally know exactly what he wants fromme.

We pull into the apartment building’s parking garage and walk together to the lift. I watch his reflection in the lift doors. He looks so distant. So unapproachable I cannot imagine this is the same man who has been inside my body. Once inside his apartment, he directs me to the leather couch and sits next to me. No drinks tonight. No sexually charged glances. I sit up a little straighter and prepare myself to hear the bad news. For bad news it definitelyis.

He doesn’t waste time trying to assure or soothe me, just jumps right into it. “The night when I found you in the alley, you wanted to know why I was at the party, right?”

Inod.

“I followed you there.”

I scoot back on the couch further away from him. This isn’t a huge surprise, of course, but it still hurts to know he lied. I swallow hard and pretend I’m not hurt, because clearly we haven’t come to the worstpart.

“Why?” Iask.

His jaw tightens. “I was hiredto.”

My jaw drops. “What? Bywho?”

He looks away from me and I mentally prepare myself for it to get even worse than I imagined.

“It doesn’t matter by who. The less you know the safer you will be. Suffice to say he is a very powerful and brutal man. I have worked for him on a couple of occasions in the past. He hires me because he knows I always get the job done. I’m the best in the business, and I work for him because he pays my price.”

My head is so blank the words almost don’t make sense. What is he talking about?

His eyes burn into mine for a few seconds before he continues. “My assignment was to make contact with you and find out what youknew.”

I frown, my eyebrows scrunching together. “What I knew? I don’t understand. You must have me mixed up with someone else. I’m just a lowly croupier in a casino. I don’t know anything that could help a man who is as powerful and brutal as you say heis.”

“The man who hired me is the Don of one of the most powerful Russian mafia families in England.”

I inhale sharply.

“The killer you saw outside of the casino six months ago is hisson.”

I recoil from Konstantin in horror, and stare at him in shock. He grasps my hands and I try to tug them free, but he only strengthens his grip, pinning me in place.

“Let go of me,” I whisper. “I want to leave. I’ll … I’ll take the bushome.”

“It’s not so simple. You are no longer safe, Raven. There is a price on your headnow.”

Fear courses through my veins and I start struggling with all my might.

“Will you just stay still, Raven?”

His voice. This is my lover. The fight goes out of me. “Who are you?” Igasp.

“I’m a professional assassin, Raven. I was hired to find and eliminateyou.”