“Why didn’t you let him help you get away?” Yan grips my chin and tilts my face back to his. “Why didn’t you let him shoot me?”
“I already had feelings for you,” I admit with a tremulous exhale. “I swear I didn’t mean to betray your trust. All I could think about was the gun in Gergo’s hand and how distracted you were, how easy a target in that moment.” Holding his gaze, I bite the inside of my cheek. “Do you hate me?”
“No,” he replies softly. “I can never hate you. No matter what.”
“How did you know it was a setup?”
He releases me. “Kiss.”
“Anton found him?”
“Yes.” He scoffs. “We found out a lot more than what we bargained for.”
“Such as?”
“That Gergo had a meeting with Dimitrov the day before the mission and told him about our plan.”
Hurt slices through my heart. “Why would he do that to me? What can justify that kind of betrayal? Money?”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
He’s stalling. “If you’re trying to spare me, you’re wasting your time. I can handle the truth.”
His gaze is doubtful. But it’s the sympathy that scares me.
“Yan? What’s going on?”
He takes my hand again in the gentle way people do when they’re about to share bad news. “Gergo paid the men who beat you.” He gives a moment for the information to sink in. “He staged the assault.”
“What?” I jerk my fingers from his. “That’s not true.”
“You didn’t want to quit the military and freelance with him. He found a convincing way of changing your mind.”
I start shaking. “He’s my friend.”
“He pretended to save you,” Yan carries on relentlessly, “knowing you’d pledge not only your loyalty but also your life to him.”
“But why?” I ask raggedly. “Whatever could he gain from making me leave the team?”
“Why do men do the cruel things they do?”
“Money?”
“He got kickbacks from the jobs he referred to you.”
I don’t want to admit it, but my mind is already racing toward the logical conclusions. My reason is already embracing the truth, even if my heart is having a hard time. “Gergo knew I had feelings for you. I told him as much that day in the boutique. He was worried I’d tell you the truth.”
“Namely, that he was the one who framed us as terrorists.”
“And because I was falling for you, I became a liability.”
Yan’s mouth tightens. “He thought setting us up against Dimitrov would kill two birds with one stone, getting rid of both you and my team.”
More insights hit me. “He killed my attackers. He killed them to make sure they couldn’t talk when your hired team went after them.”
Yan nods. “Kiss knew about Gergo’s scheme. He confessed everything before Anton killed him.”
Tangled emotions sprout from my trampled trust and broken heart. It’s the anger I hold on to. The disappointment is too hurtful, too powerful. If I let it, it will destroy me.
When I speak again, my voice is level, my feelings pushed under the surface. “Is he dead?”
“Not yet. But I’ll find him. I promise you.”
A knock falls on the door. Before either of us can reply, it opens to Ilya peering around the frame. A huge grin stretches his cheeks. “There you are,” he says as if he’s been looking for me for years.
His genuine happiness at seeing me wipes away the ugliness that has infiltrated my heart. The devastating truth almost seems inconsequential as he bustles into the room and extends his arms to take me into a hug. God knows, I can do with one of his bear hugs right now.
Yan catches him before he can put his arms around me. “Careful. She’s still hurting.” For once, jealousy isn’t his motivation. There’s no animosity in Yan’s comportment when Ilya presses a kiss on my forehead instead.
“You deserve a spanking,” Ilya declares solemnly, crossing his bulging arms.
“Delivered by me,” Yan clarifies quickly. His eyes say, and only me.
“You had us worried to death,” Ilya says.
I look him over. “Are you all right?”
“Not a scratch,” he says proudly. “The question is, how are you holding up?”
It’s impossible not to smile. “It seems Lena did a good job.”
“If you need anything,” Ilya says, “you only have to ask. Anything at all.”
“She’s sorted,” Yan says a tad forcefully.
Inwardly, my smile grows even broader. I guess Ilya shouldn’t push Yan’s newfound tolerance too far.
Ilya turns to Yan. “I came to tell you I just got a call from our connection. All’s handled. They’ve cleaned up. The shootout was staged as the last bloody battle of the drug war. They’ve identified the man who shot Mina.”
“Who was that creep?” I ask.
“Stjepan Filipović, Dimitrov’s second-in-command. Rumor has it, they’d been clashing horns over territory and money for the last couple of years. Filipović wanted bigger cuts and a say in how the business was managed. His connection to Dimitrov could never be proven until his corpse happened to be found in the same room as Dimitrov’s. The feds got a search warrant for his house and questioned his staff. One of them talked in exchange for immunity.” Ilya looks between us. “Guess what? He was plotting against Dimitrov, turning their drug suppliers against him with bribes. The idea was to force Dimitrov’s early retirement with a bullet in his brain. The meeting at the Hotel Paris came as a golden opportunity. It was Filipović’s chance to get rid of Dimitrov. Three of the five guards had been bought. The minute we were dead, they were to kill Dimitrov and the remaining two guards. The informant didn’t say anything about the painting being fake; he only knew Filipović wanted to blame the killings on a deal gone wrong. Mina was a bonus. Filipović was hoping to cash in on the five mill on her head.”
“What?” I gasp.
Yan smacks Ilya upside the head. “She doesn’t know about that part yet.”
“Oh.” Ilya offers me an apologetic
