Page 25 of Bride of Vengeance

The fact that I'm sharing a safe house with the man I've spent two years trying to arrest.

I sit up carefully, testing for injuries from last night's excitement. The bandage on my arm pulls slightly where Mikhail tended to the glass cut, but otherwise I feel surprisingly decent for someone who was nearly murdered twelve hours ago.

The guest room is elegant in that understated way that screams expensive taste. Cream walls, dark furniture that probably came from Italy, artwork that looks original instead of mass-produced. Even the guest accommodations in this place are nicer than anywhere I've ever lived.

What kind of criminal lives like this?

The smell of coffee drifts under the door, rich and dark and infinitely appealing. I follow it like a bloodhound, padding barefoot across hardwood floors that don't creak despite the building's obvious age.

The kitchen is magazine-perfect, all granite countertops and stainless steel appliances that probably cost more than an average car. Mikhail stands at the massive island, dressed in dark jeans and a black sweater that does dangerous things to my ability to think clearly. His silver hair is slightly messed up, like he ran his hands through it, and there's something almost domestic about the scene.

Domestic. Right. With the most wanted criminal in New York.

"Good morning," he says without turning around. "Coffee?"

"Please."

He pours from a French press into mugs that look handmade, adding cream without asking how I like it. Which means he knows. Which means he's been watching me long enough to learn my preferences.

Two years. He said two years.

"You know how I take my coffee."

"I know a lot of things about you, little wolf." He slides the mug across the island, and our fingers brush when I take it. The contact sends heat shooting up my arm in ways that are absolutely inappropriate given our circumstances. "You prefer dark roast, cream and no sugar. You always order the same sandwich from the deli near your office - turkey and swiss on whole wheat. You run five miles every morning at six-thirty, except Sundays when you sleep until nine."

The coffee is perfect, obviously. Rich and smooth and exactly how I like it. Which should be comforting but instead feels vaguely unsettling.

"Anything else?"

"You have a scar on your left shoulder that you always keep covered. Your favorite color is amber, like your eyes. You haven't been in a serious relationship in over three years."

Jesus Christ.

"You've been stalking me."

"I needed to know everything in order to protect you." His dark eyes meet mine over the rim of his coffee mug. "There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Stalkers want to possess. Protectors want to preserve." He takes a sip of coffee, never breaking eye contact.

I wander away from the kitchen before I can say something stupid, exploring the house that's become my prison. Every room reveals new facets of the man I thought I knew. The living room has built-in bookshelves filled with volumes in multiple languages—Russian, obviously, but also German, French, Spanish. Literature, philosophy, history, science. The kind of collection that suggests a mind that hungers for knowledge.

Not exactly what I expected from a contract killer.

A baby grand piano sits close, sheet music open to something that looks complicated. I run my fingers across the keys experimentally, producing a soft chord that echoes through the space.

"Chopin," Mikhail says from behind me. "Nocturne in E-flat major."

I turn to find him watching me with an expression I can't read. "You play?"

"I used to. Before." He moves to stand beside me, close enough that I can smell his cologne. Something clean and masculine that makes my pulse skip. "My mother insisted all her children learn an instrument. She said music was the language of the soul."

His mother.For some reason, the idea of Ghost having a mother—someone who worried about his piano lessons and made him eat his vegetables—makes my chest tight.

"What happened to her?"

"Chernobyl." The single word carries years of grief. "Along with the rest of my family. Officially, anyway."