18. Kat

18

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, suspicious.

"You'll see. In due time," Nik says cryptically, the corners of his mouth twisting in amusement.

"You can't just leave it at that."

He grins. "Watch me. As I was saying before you tried to sidetrack me—again—you may not have entered this agreement out of your own free will, but I hope we can manage to make the best of this situation for however long it lasts."

"Okay…" I say, unsure of where he is going with this and uncertain of where I want him to go with it.

"You might not have volunteered to work for me, but you are now working for me. And I take care of my people. So, as long as you and I are in this together, I want you to feel like this is your home. You're not my prisoner, Kat."

Is Nik kidding me? I scoff. This may be a gilded, limitless-AmEx-card-adorned cage, but it's still a cage. He had to kidnap me to have me in his home—quite literally. And now that I'm here, he won't let me leave, or interact with other men, for that matter.

"I understand you may disagree," he says, choosing to ignore my reaction. "But, for what it's worth, I really do hope you can make the best out of a bad situation. I know you don't like the restrictions I put in place?—"

"To put it mildly," I say, interjecting.

"But I believe you'll see that I'll compensate you fairly for my strict demands. On top of that, I want you to know that you're more than welcome to invite A.J. or any of your friends over at any time. Also, obviously, you're free to come and go as you please. As long as you give me proper notice, of course."

"Of course," I say sardonically.

Nik sighs.

"I don't mean to be overbearing, but the man we're up against is dangerous. I won't have you or anyone else under my protection harmed by him. I understand I might come across as a controlling jerk, but I'll do what I must—always. Especially when it comes to keeping my people safe."

His earnest concern for my safety makes me uncomfortable. It's a very novel and unfamiliar notion. I'm not used to people looking out for me. I'm the one who takes care of others. Hence my current predicament, of course.

"Right. So you've told me," I say. "But I'm not convinced you aren't just getting off on making me do whatever you damn well please."

Humor sparkles in his gorgeous eyes. "Maybe a little."

I smile. "That's what I thought."

Nik returns my smile before turning his attention back to the screen. I do the same—or at least, I act like I do. Deep inside, my mind is racing, trying to make sense of the avalanche of conflicting emotions rushing through me.

On one hand, Nikolai's still the enemy. The Russian's the huge, insurmountable obstacle between me and a mafia-boss-free future—everything I've been working on for the past few months. And he's still an overbearing, controlling bastard when it suits him to be.

Yet, I'm floored—and maybe even a little disarmed—by his concern for my welfare and safety. Not to mention, the man attempted to provide me with a bit of freedom. His offer to give me back some control over my life caught me completely off guard.

Of course, Nik's rules about how I get to exert that little shred of control are ridiculous. But as bossy as he may be, at least he isn't ordering me around just for the sake of it. Well, not entirely. Nik believes he's protecting me. The idea is absurd, but it's not just an arbitrary whim on his part.

On top of all of it, his generosity shocked me. Nik is rich enough to hang out with the likes of Bezos and Gates, so it's not like he will miss the money or the Mercedes-Benz. Still, the man has enough dirt on me that compensating me financially for my services isn't necessary. The stronzo never did.

I don't know what to make of Nik. It doesn't make things any easier that I'm still insanely attracted to him. Nonetheless, all the reasons why he and I shouldn't be romantically or sexually involved are still valid. Regardless of whether we are friendly or not, I must wrap up this job of his as soon as possible—for my own sake, for my own heart's sake, too. A man as controlling as him is the last thing I want—or need—in my life.

"That's Maxim." Nik points at the screen as a dark-haired man enters the frame—his friend who was murdered that night. At last, I can put a face to the name, and it's a very handsome one. Maxim's brown hair falls in waves over his forehead, his eyes flashing blue as he faces the security camera. Even through the low-resolution surveillance footage, his high cheekbones and strong jawline are hard to miss.

As discreetly as possible, I glance at the man next to me. He is clenching his jaw, eyes glued to the screen.

"How long had you two been friends?" I ask, unsure what to say but feeling the need to break the silence between us.

"Pretty much my entire life," he says with a sigh, picking up the remote to skip the footage forward. "Here it is."

Nik pauses the video, and the frame is frozen as the surveillance camera focuses on a tall-looking man. He is lean, seemingly in his early sixties. His salt-and-pepper gray hair is cropped short, and he is dressed in a dark suit with a dark shirt underneath.

"Who's that?" I ask.

"That's Patrick McGuire. That's the man we're up against," Nik replies.

Gasping, I turn to face him on the couch. "Patrick McGuire is the leader of the Irish mafia." For some reason, I feel the need to say that to Nik, the leader of the Russian bratva, because I just can't believe my luck. Of course there is a third mafia boss involved in my life. Naturally.

"I'm aware of that."

"You didn't mention I'd be helping you take down the head of the Irish mob."

"I didn't think it mattered. You weren't in a position to refuse me, regardless of who we were up against. Besides, considering my line of work—which you were fully aware of before you agreed to my terms—you can't honestly tell me that it's a huge surprise that our enemy is the leader of a rival family."

Nik presses play on the remote, and I turn a little in my seat so I can watch the video footage and stare him down at the same time. It doesn't seem to faze him at all.

There's no point in wasting my energy being frustrated that Nik has kept McGuire's identity a secret. He is not going to change his mind. I'll just have to use it as extra motivation to wrap up this job as fast as possible.

This film study will take a while, so I might as well get comfortable. I prop my feet on the coffee table before us, following Nik's lead. With a sigh, I lean back, searching for a comfortable place to rest my neck and head. I end up bumping the bruise on my temple against the couch. I inhale sharply, wincing a little—the spot is still very tender.

Nik's sharp eyes and ears catch the subtle signs of my discomfort. "What's the matter?" he asks, turning to face me and pausing the footage again.

Frustrated, I sigh. If he's going to pause the video every couple of minutes for one reason or another, we will never finish watching it.

"It's nothing," I say, reaching for the remote in his hand. "Just something your man Boris and his buddy gave me to remember them by."

Nik's expression shifts. Still in possession of the remote, he stretches his hand towards my head. I recoil immediately.

"Let me see it," he orders me with a dark look in his eyes.

"I don't think so," I say, still futilely trying to wrangle the remote from him. The sooner we finish watching this, the sooner we can get started, and the sooner I'll be free.

"What are you doing?" he asks exasperatedly.

"You're hogging the remote. I'm trying to take it from you so I can watch the surveillance feeds without you pausing it every thirty seconds. Also, I'm so not in the mood for your color commentary, by the way."

"You're not getting the remote. My home, my remote."

"Seriously? Are you that much of a control freak? Did you never learn to share your toys with the other kids?"

Nik sighs. He closes his eyes before rubbing a hand over his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'll tell you what—because I'm a reasonable man, I'll make you a deal. Let me look at your head, and I'll hand you the remote." He shoves the remote into his back pocket.

I study him with care. I'm fast and capable of stripping the clicker from him, but that would entail tackling him and fondling his ass. God only knows what would happen then. At this point, I'd have to be an idiot to trust my questionable self-restraint to prevail over my lust for him.

"Fine," I say through gritted teeth. "But be careful. It's still tender." I turn so he is facing the side of my head where the two brutes struck me, pushing my hair away from the bruised area.

Nik scoots closer to me. His brow furrows as his fingers brush against my scalp. His touch is light and gentle, but the bump is so sensitive I wince again.

"Forgive me," he says, a remorseful expression flashing over his face. I nod in response. He feels around the bruised area a bit more. "My men did this to you."

"Yep. Boris's buddy struck me when I put up a fight," I say, even though I'm not sure if he was asking a question or just stating a fact.

"I'm sorry, Kat. He'll be punished for hurting you."

Nik's sharp tone takes me aback. He can be so charming and flirty sometimes that it's easy to forget that, by all accounts, Nikolai Stefanovich is a vicious man.

Wordlessly, he stands up.

"Where are you going?" I ask.

"I'll be right back. I'll get you some ice and aspirin and make a call to have someone look at that bump."

"Do you mean like a doctor?"

Nik looks at me funny as if my question is preposterous. "Yeah, a doctor, Kat. Head injuries are no joke. You could have a concussion or something worse."

I scoff. Men are such babies…

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm fine. It's just a bruise. By tomorrow, I won't even feel it. Just sit down so we can finish watching this thing."

"I don't think so, Kat. I'll be right back."

I have no choice but to watch impassively as he leaves the room. True to his word, he's back in a moment, carrying an ice pack and a glass of water.

After handing me the drink, Nik reaches behind his back to pull something from his back pocket—a bottle of aspirin.

"Go on," he says, placing the ice pack on my head.

I play along, shooting him a displeased look. It goes without saying that I don't want my head to hurt or anything, but that doesn't mean I appreciate his high-handed bossiness.

"Thank you," I say before drinking the water he brought me.

Nik nods. "The doctor will be over this afternoon."

I roll my eyes, sighing. "Nik?—"

With an outstretched hand, he stops my protests and plops back on the couch beside me. "Save your energy for a battle you can win, Kat. You will see a doctor today, and that's the end of it."

Exasperated, I glare at him for a second. Nik is completely unfazed by my reaction, as he gently holds the ice pack to my head. It's cold, wet, and uncomfortable, and it soon becomes more than I can take. Before he has a chance to react, I grab it from his hand, intending to toss it across the room.

I'm not dumb enough to telegraph my movements before making them, but somehow, Nik divines my intentions. He calmly stops me, moving my hand away.

He sighs. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Take this wet thing off of my hair. Now. And give me the remote while you're at it," I snap.

"Just a little more, Kat." While pressing the ice pack against my temple, Nik reaches behind his back to pull the remote out of his pants pocket. He offers it to me. I snatch it away before he changes his mind.

I press play, and the screen comes to life, still focused on Patrick McGuire. The man's face wrinkles as he heartily laughs at something said by one of the men surrounding him.

"Do you know any of the guys talking to him?" I ask Nik, who isn't even watching the video anymore. He's staring at me instead—it's unnerving.

Nik glances at the screen before shifting his focus to me. "Most of them. They're McGuire's soldiers. The one to his right is his enforcer, Connor Daniels."

"What makes you think that Patrick McGuire is behind your friend's death?"

Nik doesn't respond right away. He remains silent for so long that I assume my question will go unanswered. After a long stretch of silence, however, he sighs. "It's a long story. McGuire hated Maxim."

Curious, I wait for him to continue, but he leaves it at that. "That's it? Come on, you have to tell me more than that."

"It's enough for you to know that I have no doubts Patrick McGuire is behind Maxim's murder."

This time, I'm the one who pauses the video. I slap away his hand, still annoyingly holding the ice pack, and I turn to face him. "Ok, that's not going to work for me. At all."

Nik raises his eyebrows before dropping the ice pack on the coffee table. He sighs. "Kat?—"

"No, it's your turn to listen, Nik. You can't just keep me in the dark and expect me to follow you blindly. If you truly believe I can help you take down the man who killed your friend, then you have to tell me everything you know. Otherwise, you won't be setting us up for success."

"It's not as simple as you think, Kat. There's a lot you're better off not knowing. You might claim you want to know everything I know, but you don't. Not really. And I don't blame you. You didn't seem too eager to get involved in my business when you learned who I am. And you weren't pleased when you discovered McGuire is our target. So, you can't expect me to believe you really want to know everything. The less you know, the better. Trust me."

"But that's the thing, Nik. It's a little too late for that now. I'm already involved. Do I wish I wasn't? You bet. But I am. So I might as well know everything there is to know about what's going on here. The last thing I need is to walk into this dangerous situation with a handicap. I'm not saying tell me every little sordid detail there is to know about the bratva. But you need to tell me everything I need to be aware of as far as Maxim and Patrick McGuire are concerned."

Nik stares me down, not bothering to hide his dissatisfaction with my demands. But two can play this game, so I glare at him, too. After long moments of tense silence, he sighs, and I know I've won.

"If you really must know," Nik mutters through gritted teeth, "McGuire hated Maxim because Maxim was in love with the man's daughter."

"That's it?" I ask, confused. "That doesn't sound too bad. It certainly doesn't sound like enough reason to murder someone."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Well, explain it to me, then. I thought that was the entire point of this conversation."

Nik shoots me a glance meant to warn me to take it easy with the sassiness, but I ignore it. I have a hard time feeling threatened by the man who, a moment ago, was tenderly holding an ice pack to my bruise and looking out for my health.

"It's complicated," he says. "She's been promised to someone else her entire life. By hooking up with her, Maxim put an arranged alliance in danger and publicly embarrassed McGuire. Suffice it to say, if anyone hated Maxim enough to kill him, it was McGuire."

Before I can respond, he gently brushes his fingers against my temple. "Does it feel any better?" he asks.

I roll my eyes, fully intending to tell him off, but his genuine concern makes me pause. "I'm fine," I say instead. "Don't worry about it. The doctor will confirm I'm as healthy as a horse."

Nik seems unconvinced, but he doesn't reach for the ice pack again. I'm relieved he is willing to drop the subject when his hand touches my neck. It stops there, and my breath hitches in my throat. After a brief hesitation, his fingertips trail down to my shoulders.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"You're all knotted up, Kat. That can't be comfortable. You're carrying a lot of tension on your neck and shoulders."

To my utter despair, Nik starts rubbing his knuckles down the column of my neck. Up and down, repeatedly. His movements are gentle but firm, and my eyelids grow heavy.

"Well, that's what being kidnapped does to a person, Nik," I say, clearing my throat. Maybe my tone will push him away. God knows I'm too weak to stop him, otherwise.

Nik sighs, and I'm both satisfied and disappointed that it might have worked. But his hands drop to my waist, and he lifts me, plopping my ass in front of him, between his parted legs. His hands return to my shoulders, and he kneads my tense muscles.

"I'm sorry it came to this, Kat. Abducting you, I mean. I wish there had been another way to bring you to me. For what it's worth, you can rest assured that Boris and Ivan will be punished for harming you."

"And who's going to punish you for having me kidnapped in the first place?"