Page 74 of Carnal Urges

“Stavi, look at me.”

It takes a moment for him to tear his gaze away from my feet.

I make my face and voice very stern. “Tell me.”

Frantic, he licks his lips. “I… I…” He pauses, then it comes out in a burst. “I told him I’d wear a wire anytime I’m with Kazimir and that he could tap my phone and my email to monitor our communications.”

I’m so horrified, I’m unable to speak for a full minute.

In the interim, Stavros starts to grovel.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have, but I was so worried about you, and he said he wouldn’t let you go unless we made a deal, so I had to, Ihadto!”

I hold up a hand to stop the torrent. Stavros falls silent, panting and white-knuckling the arms of his chair.

A wire. A deal. Those two details stick out in my head like neon flashing lights. They sound official. Like terms a prosecutor would use. Or the police.

Then something else occurs to me. With trepidation, I look at the front of Stavros’s white button-down dress shirt.

He shakes his head.

Relieved I’m not being recorded, I sit back in the chair and blow out a hard breath. I debate telling Stavros that Declan was going to let me go without his help, but decide against it. The less said about him, the better.

Besides, Stavros is already distracted again by my feet.

I slip off my shoe, stand, and hand it to him. Then I lock myself in the bathroom so I don’t have to listen to the sniffs and moans as Stavros jerks himself to release with his nose buried in my footwear.

I take my time using the toilet, washing my hands, and splashing water on my face. When I exit the bathroom ten minutes later, Stavros is flattened against one of the windows, staring wide-eyed and white-faced at something on the tarmac below.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’shim,” he says, his voice strangled. “The Irishman!”

My heart jumps into my throat. I run to the nearest window and look out. Sure enough, there stands Declan on the tarmac near the front of the plane.

He’s got a rocket launcher slung over one shoulder.

Stavros screams,“He’s going to kill us!”

“No, he’s not. He just likes to make a grand entrance. Go tell the pilot to cut the engines.”

As a hyperventilating Stavros scrambles down the aisle toward the cockpit, the cell phone Declan gave me buzzes. I turn away from the window and pull it from the back pocket of my jeans. Though I might be having a heart attack, I make myself sound bored when I answer.

“Gino’s Pizza, may I take your order?”

Over the line comes the growl of an infuriated grizzly bear. “Aye, I’ll give you a bloody order. Get your arse off that plane before I blow your little boy toy to smithereens.”

“Nobody says smithereens anymore, gangster. In case you haven’t heard, it’s the twenty-first century.”

“You have five seconds. Four. Three.”

“I’m sorry, which personality am I speaking to now? Because it’s definitely not the one who told me goodbye half an hour ago.”

“Half an hour ago, I didn’t know you weren’t pregnant.”

I pause for a moment. “You called the doctor?”

“I called the doctor. I knew something was up when you said I was blind. And you don’t have nearly as good a poker face as you think.”