Page 69 of Arseni

We.

As if anyone would ever dub me a mastermind.Anything I’ve done, I’ve done for Nikita.The Bratva knows that.It still won’t keep them from stringing me up by my toes, but no one will be disillusioned.

“Many…”

“What are you getting at, son?”

I shrug and open my mouth, but I don’t have any new words to say.I could run him around in a circle for the next twenty minutes, but every second that tics by is a second that my heart races too fast.

He knows what I want.At some point, he’ll get annoyed by me beating around it.

“If I hid a secret from the Bratva… Would you keep it?”I ask.

“A secret like … letting the whore go?”

I don’t say anything.Instead, I pull into a gas station and put the SUV in park.

My eyes stare out the windshield at a mother and son passing by.It’s a second before I find the courage to speak.

“She would never go to the police… I swear on my life.”

When he doesn’t answer, I turn toward him.He studies me with no sign of what he’s thinking.

“How can you swear on your life when you know I can’t kill you?”

I run my finger over the grooves of the steering wheel.“You could tell the rest of the Bratva.They’d do it for you.”

“Ah, and what would you do with our secretsthen?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”His brows raise.He thinks I’m lying.I don’t know if I am or not.

I nod, my throat feeling unusually thick.“They’d die with me… But it’s a moot point.She’d never go to the police.”

“Because…?”

I open my mouth, searching for the reason.He seems to find it before I do.

“Because she loves you?”

My eyes constricting, I look away.“No… But she cares for me.”

“Do you love her?”

“No,” I say automatically.I sound too certain, too quick, too nervous.It makes us both think I’m not certain at all.“I care for her too...”

“I see…”

I clear my throat and peer at the radio, the title of a song we aren’t listening to moving across the screen.“I need you to do this for me, Nikita.”My voice is low.It almost sounds desperate.“You do this, and I’m yours.All my loyalty belongs to you.”

“I thought it already did.”

I nod vigorously.“It does… It does.But you’re always talking about how important trust is.This solidifies it.We’ll both have secrets the other must keep, and we’ll go to our graves with them.”

“Hmmm.”He faces forward and takes a deep breath as he seems to consider it.Twenty seconds turns to thirty and maybe more.But finally, he gives a curt nod.

“Okay, Arseni.Set her free.”