Page 6 of Cruel Kiss

"Who wants me?" I ask.

"Someone who knew my father."

"Knew him how?"

He looks at his hands for a moment. They're huge, those hands, and freshly tainted with another man's life. But they just look like the same Ronan hands they always have been. They can be so, so soft; I've experienced it myself.

"He's the man who taught my father how to hurt people," Ronan answers at last. "Then my father improved on his methods."

"Are you going to be purposefully vague forever," I snap, "or are there some actual relevant details forthcoming?"

"His name is Lev," he goes on. "He was my father's lieutenant, back before I was born and all through my childhood. My father—Igor—ran the Bratva, and Lev was his right hand. His enforcer. He did the things Igor didn't want to dirty his own hands on." He rubs his thumb across his knuckles, slow, like there's some dirt on his own hands he wouldn't mind getting rid of. "When I was a boy, Lev was always in the house. He was there for all the worst moments. You remember when I told you about how my father treated my mother—well, Lev was as good as an accomplice. He'd watch my mother sweep up broken glass on her hands andknees and he never once got up to help her. He'd just sit there and drink his tea—the teashebrewed for him—and watch."

I do remember that story in all its vivid, gory detail. In my mind, I can almost hear the crash and crackle of that glass that Ronan's father hurled just inches shy of his mom's head. And then the shrinking violet act she performed in self-defense in all the years that followed, so that she presented less and less of a target for him to strike, until finally, there was nothing left of her at all.

"When my father died," Ronan says, "I took over. And I did things differently. I got rid of the old ways. Some of them, anyway. Lev didn't like that.You're soft. You're dishonoring his legacy.He's been out at the edges of things for years, telling anyone who'll listen that I've gone weak. Buying drinks for old men who miss the way things used to be."

"Doesn't seem like he's 'out at the edges of things' anymore," I remark. "Seems like he's smack dab in the fucking middle."

"Yes, it certainly does seem like that," Ronan agrees. "I don't think it's a coincidence that Pyotr disappeared and Lev reappeared in the same short spell."

My nose wrinkles. "Who's Pyotr?"

"My money man. Former money man, I should say. The one who knew where everything is hidden. He wanted to retire, so against my better judgment, I let him go live out his golden years overseas. But it seems that somebody took him out of a flat in Istanbul a few hours ago. On the same night that somebody came to your house with a roll of zip ties." He looks up at me, his eyes hooded with concern. "I don't believe in that many coincidences, Calista. I think Lev's making his move. I think hetook Pyotr for the money, and I think he wanted you for the leverage."

"Leverage," I repeat. "How am I leverage?"

"You built a machine that can trace every dollar I've ever moved. And you're—" He stops before he finishes that thought.

But I have no intention of letting him off the hook that easily.

"Say it," I challenge. "Don't shy away now."

"You're the thing I care about," he murmurs. "Anybody who's been watching me for the last few weeks knows that. I wasn't subtle. I took you to a gala. I danced with you under the biggest light in the room. I put you in front of every important person I know and I told them you built something extraordinary. I wanted the whole city to see you." He shakes his head, and for the first time, there's something like anger in it. But it's turned inward, aimed at himself, not at me. "I painted a target on you. Because I was happy and I was a fool and I forgot, for a few weeks, exactly what I am and exactly what that means for anyone who stands next to me."

I stand there and I take it in, all of it, the way I take in everything. Piece by piece. The shape of it forming.

"So let me recap. There's a man out there," I say slowly, "who taught your father how to hurt people, and he doesn't like that you decided not to continue the family legacy. So now, he wants to hurt you, and the method he chose to do so was to come into my house in the middle of the night while my children were sleeping, and tie me up, and put me in the back of a van."

"That more or less sums it up, yes."

I nod. I keep nodding. I don't know how to stop, but for some reason, it feels good, like the more I nod, the more things all settle into place at last.

"I want you to hear something," I say. "But I want to make crystal clear that you understand me when I do. Are you listening?"

Ronan swallows. "I'm listening."

"I have spent my entire adult life," I say, "making myself smaller so that men could feel bigger. Todd told me what to weigh. Todd told me what to wear. Todd told me I was crazy for months on end while he cheated on me behind my back with my best friend. I found out and I did what I had to do before it was too late, and I was so, so sure that that would be the end of it. But it wasn't, was it, Ronan?"

He keeps his face aimed downward and doesn't speak. He knows it's a rhetorical question.

"Because then,” I continue, "I met you. You came on so strong, Ronan. So smooth and irresistible. The mirrors taken and the debts paid, the lawsuits fended off. Ronan Akov with a big S on his chest. My hero. My superman. My children's idol. But you weren't a good guy, were you? Not truly. You were good onyourterms. But it was always your call, all of it, every last little bit. What I got to have, to see, to know, to feel—you picked it all." I'm crying again, but I don't wipe the tears; I let them run down my face, free and unchecked. "You are the second man in a row who looked at my life and decided it was yours to manage as you saw fit. And now, there's a bloodstain on my stairsbecause of it."

"Calista—"

"No. Absolutely not. I'm not finished."

He closes his mouth.