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“She’ll come around.”

He eyes me silently for a moment. “I can’t let you force her.”

I huff. “Since when do I answer to you?”

Another moment ticks by.

“She’s important to my wife. I have to protect her if she asks for it.”

We’ve been friends for many years, and we’ve made more money than I’ll ever spend working together. But there is no hierarchy here. I do not answer to Alexander Volkov. Never have and never will.

“I won’t let you get in my way. Not on this,” I say.

After another long silence, he grins with a hard nod.

“Then I would suggest she not stay here too long, or Megan will have her moved into one of the spare rooms.”

“Rurik.” Mira’s voice hits me only a moment before she comes flying through the entrance, jumping over the one step into the living room.

“I need your gun.”

Megan practically runs into me when she catches up to me in the living room.

“She doesn’t need your gun,” she says, catching her breath.

“I do. Give it to me.” I put out my hand and wiggle my fingers, like a teenager asking for some money to go to the mall.

Slowly, Rurik gets to his feet. It’s amazing how silently the man can move with all those muscles.

“Why do you think you need a gun?” He asks, remaining completely calm.

Maybe he thinks he can talk me out of myplan, but he’s wrong.

“I’m going to kill Marco.”

It sounded better when I said it in my head. I hatched a great plan while Megan relayed the horrors she endured on Marco’s orders. Being kidnapped by Rurik was basically a vacation compared to what the DeAngelo family put her through.

And all because of me.

“No, she’s not.” Megan grabs my arm and pushes it back down to my side. “Don’t give her a gun.”

Rurik’s eyebrows shoot up at Megan’s dictate, and for a moment I think he might actually give it to me, simply because she told him not to.

I can relate.

“No one’s giving her a gun.” Rurik folds his arms over his chest and settles his attention back on me.

Heat runs just under my skin thanks to the way he pulls his eyebrows together and sets his jaw. It’s his ‘what trouble are you causing now’ look, and it’s damn hot.

“Why does she want a gun?” Alexander bypasses me and asks his wife.

His wife!

Megan had to marry this man because of me.

I’m going to have to get her a seriously great present for her birthday this year. The sushi dinner and willingly sitting through reality TV with her for one night that I gave her last year isn’t going to cut it to cover all that she’s done for me to clean up this mess.

“Because Marco needs to die.” I glare at Rurik. “I can get my own if I need to.”