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“All part of the plan, sweetheart,” he said easily, taking turn after turn out of the neighborhood we were in.
I frowned at his strange response, but too caught up in my own problems to give it proper attention. “Yeah, well, thanks anyway. I just needed to get out of there. I was pretty lucky that you were here,” I said, suddenly frowning as something occurred to me. “Why were you here?” I asked, a sudden knot of suspicion starting to tighten my stomach. Maybe Delaney had reached out to him? Hopefully.
“I was following you.”
I stiffened in shock. “What? Following me? Why?”
His phone rang and instead of answering me, he started speaking rapidly into the phone in another language. A language I was strangely familiar with.
Russian.
Alarm bells went off in my head. I had no idea what they were saying, but I knew there was only one way to interpret this information. Drew spoke Russian. Orlov was Russian.
Before I had fully digested this revelation, Drew turned to me, and I was immediately jolted by his eyes.
They were different.
No longer were they a brilliant blue. No, they were dark brown, nearly black. My mind reeled back to the picture of Orlov that Ivan showed me. The boyish looking man with cold, dark eyes. I shook my head, my brain slowly digesting the reality of my situation—that in my emotional panic, I ran right into the arms of the man stalking me.
“You know why,” he said, smirking and throwing off his Cubs hat and pitching it in the backseat. “I hated wearing that fucking thing,” he muttered as I stared at his hair. His short, blond hair.
Drew had longer, brown hair and blue eyes. Orlov had short blond hair and dark brown eyes. It must have been growing in blond at the roots, so he just cut it to the blond part. They were the same person.
I stared at this new version of Drew and while it wasn’t an exact likeness to the man in the picture, I could now see the similarities now that I wasn’t hung up on signifiers such as eye and hair color.
And context. Drew had been a blue-eyed bro, but Orlov? He was a cold, dark-eyed killer in the company of the Russian mob.
This was not Drew. There was no Drew.
Oh my fucking god, what have I done?
I started to pant lightly, trying to regulate my breathing as panic sent my heart rate soaring. My phone vibrated again in my hand, pulling me out of the stupefied horror that was winding its way through my body.
“You remember me, don’t you?” Drew—Orlov asked with a small grin.
I swallowed. How was this possible? I shook my head, but I wasn’t sure if it was in response to his question or simple denial of the situation I’d put myself in.
“Yes, you do, Emmy. I bet you’ve known all along, on some level.”
“I-I didn’t. Honestly,” I replied quickly, because holy shit, I had no idea. “I thought you were Drew. Drew was a nice guy.”
Orlov snorted. “Drew was a fucking pussy. I hated him. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was forced into the role. Now you get the real me.”
God, that couldn’t be good. I looked down at my phone and tried to casually open the screen. Ivan’s was my most recent text, so I clicked on his thread and two words and hit send.
Emmy: Help. Orlov.
Chapter 32
Ivan
I ran out of the bar, Will trailing behind me. My heart pounded like a war drum in my chest and sweat slid down my spine just thinking of Emmy at the mercy of fucking Orlov.
I needed to calm down. Orlov had romanticized her; he didn’t want to hurt her. At least, not yet. Not until he realized she didn’t give a fuck about him and would run at the first opportunity.
I hopped in my car and pulled out my phone to text her back. Just seeing her name on my screen made my breath catch. When I first read her message, my blood pressure jumped with terror and adrenaline. Even though I knew Drew was Orlov, the confirmation still made my chest compress with fear and regret. All my bullshit and resistance to Emmy now felt fucking stupid and pointless.
Ivan: Humor him. I’m coming.