Page 119 of Beautiful Secrets

As if I’d summoned him, I hear heavy footsteps a moment before Yuri steps back into my cell. “What is Sarah’s number?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him.

He draws back an arm, but when I narrow my eyes and steel myself for the blow, he pauses. “I honestly don’t know.”

Yuri holds up the phone, showing me the screen. “This is about Mika?”

“I doubt it. She saidfamilyemergency.”

Honestly, I doubt there’s anything else it could be. Sarah doesn’t have my number, but how long it took her to find the right hotel where a Mr. Cole Hendry was booked into the penthouse suite, fuck knows.

Mika is the only reason Sarah would be trying to contact me, and the fact that she left the message via my concierge means they know something is up.

Probably because I disappeared off the face of the fucking planet the same day I was meant to drop Mika off.

Which means Mika is safe.

She must be, right?

So how the hell do I get myself out of this mess and back to her?

“But…yeah. It’s probably about Mika,” I tell him.

He almost looks caught off guard, but then he rallies with a sneer. “Where is she?”

“Unless Sarah sent me a text, I’ve got no fucking clue, mate.” I shrug. “In case you forgot, I’ve been a little tied up lately.”

Yuri’s sneer intensifies, but then he comes around and starts untying the ropes binding me to the chair. “You take me to her,” he says. “You—”

“No.”

The ropes come free with a final yank. Yuri stays behind me, which makes my fucking skin want to crawl off me.

“No?” he repeats.

“You say you want to slit her throat, but how is that going to help you?” Christ, it hurts to speak those words, but it’s true. Yuri doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who bluffs his way through life. In fact, he’s probably more the kind who says he’ll slit someone’s throat, but instead hacks off their head and parades it through town on a spike.

Under promise, over deliver.

So I have no doubt he wants to kill Mika for the perceived “disrespect” she showed him.

I can’t have that.

Not now, not ever.

Not a fucking chance.

Yuri stays quiet, forcing me to turn my head to look at him. At least now I can see his face, but I’m not sure if I like the cold, calculating glint in his eyes—like a snake hiding under a rock.

“Bring those other two Barisovas in here. I have a proposal.”

Yuri barks out a laugh. “I do not want anything from you.”

“Yeah?” I quirk an eyebrow at him and hope he doesn’t decide to slice it right off my face. “Two seconds ago you were singing a different tune.”

He considers me for a second, and then shrugs. “What is this proposal?”

I give him a dry chuckle. “Yeah, I don’t trust you further than I can throw you. But I like to believe your kind has at least a sliver of decency in them. So bring your pops and his pops and we’ll have a chat, the three of us. Actually, bring Dimitri along, too.”