Page 57 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

Dimitri

I am no more than a convenient monster.

“All right, it is settled. We set our trap, plug in the flash drive, let the signal send out, and—in theory—we will draw everyone who is after it to the warehouse,” I summarize.

“Or at the very least, most of the heaviest hitters. Kyle too, if we’re lucky,” James finishes.

“We’ve got our falcon,” Wesley nods at the two of us.

“Is that what you Brits call a flash drive?” James interjects.

Wesley frowns. “No…”

James frowns back. “Why’d you call it a falcon? Is that the brand or something?”

“It’s not—” Wesley cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “It’s not called a falcon. It’s our falcon. As in The Maltese Falcon ?”

I do not have to be looking at James to know that we are wearing twin expressions of blank confusion. Wesley has also lost me with this reference.

“The extremely famous film noir? The Maltese Falcon ?” He throws his hands up. “Fine, we have the thing everyone wants .”

“Why didn’t you just say that?” James asks.

“Didn’t think I needed to explain. Uncultured swine,” he grumbles, cracking the top of one of his disgusting, fruity cans of energy drink. By now, I can control my facial expressions, but they smell so bad to me .

“Hey, let us know how Nicole’s doing after you talk to her, okay, D?” James asks, switching topics and assuming a more somber tone.

My brow quirks. “Why?”

He cuts me a look. “I dunno. Maybe because I’m a decent person, and she seemed upset. Made me feel like a deer in headlights, like seeing one of my sisters crying.” He shivers.

“I second that. Feels like she’s part of our dysfunctional little family.”

It pleases me to hear them say that. So much so that I confess, “I plan to ask her to move in.”

Wesley grins as James leaps up and claps me on the shoulder. “Hey, congrats, man!”

“What happened to ‘women are a distraction’?” Wesley jokes.

“They are,” I sigh, though even as I say it, I know the word falls short of describing Nicole. Calling her a distraction is putting it lightly, and the implication that it is an unwelcome one is incorrect. “But perhaps some distractions are worth the problems they create.”

“The most romantic guy in the world, over here. Women: a worthwhile problem,” James chuckles, throwing an arm over my shoulders and waving his free hand through the air like he is reading from a sign.

I do not turn to him because I know it would put our faces closer together than I would prefer them to be, but he gets the message of my displeasure as I cross my arms. “Get your head back in the job—this is not over yet, but I would like to finish it as soon as possible. We rarely have the luxury of control over the environment and plenty of time to prepare.”

“Agreed,” Wesley chimes in. “Best take full advantage. If we can get everything in order tomorrow, we should be able to finish this tomorrow evening.”

James releases my shoulders, turning the move into one that stretches his back, which makes a cracking noise as he does it. “Sounds like we’ve got an early start, then. I’m turning in. See you both at 0500? ”

Though James is the one to end the meeting, I am first out the door. Planning sessions take hours, and we had much to discuss, so it is fairly late. Still, I need to speak more with Nicole, so I am pleased to see the lights still on in the pool house.

She is standing by the edge of our bed, wrapped in a large robe that splits around her propped-up leg.

As she rubs something into the soft skin of her muscular legs, it leaves a sheen that smells warm and floral.

My cock stirs at the sight, hungry still from this morning.

She seems lost in the motion, not looking over as the door closes.

I step behind her and curl my arm around her waist, blindly searching for the tie. The warmth that radiates from her body is slightly damp, creating a friction against my touch. As I undo the tie and the robe falls apart, she shudders against me.

“What are you thinking about?” I murmur as I press a kiss against her neck.

She grabs my wrist as my hand reaches up towards one of her full breasts, and I smile against her skin. But there is a sharp tug and, in an instant, I realize that she is not holding on; she is stopping me. So, I still.

When she pulls away, there is not much room between where we stand and the edge of the bed, so she steps to the side. I watch, perplexed, as she reties her robe.

She is… refusing me? Not in the mood? Still upset?

“I was thinking about the end,” she says softly, eyes downcast.

“The end?” I repeat, heart thudding. “Of… the threat to your life?”

She nods, and some of the weight is lifted from my chest. “On how it ends, I suppose. I knew I’d have to eventually, and I think I put it off because…” I watch her throat work on a swallow. “This was so nice, despite how it began. I wanted to live in these moments with you.”

A spark of hope ignites, tempered by confusion. Her words do not match her tone or her careful physical distance. “We can live in these moments,” I promise .

Her smile is soft and odd, like this information brings more than just happiness. “Did you guys decide what you were going to do with the money?”

I nod. After her reaction to the contents of the drive, we agreed I should not give her all the details.

Still, it is her life, and she deserves to know about what will happen next.

I sit on the bed, resting my elbows on my thighs.

“We will transfer it to a secure new location so it can no longer be accessed with the information on the USB. Same money with a different lock and a different key that only we will know. Then we are going to use the tracking feature built into the drive to draw anyone who wants it out to a place of our choosing.”

“And then you’ll kill them?”

I search her face for any hint that this is the source of her concern. We have spoken of death many times, and she knows of its inevitability—its place in both our lives. “ Da .”

“And then I’ll be free.”

I feel the blood drain from my face. “Free?” I repeat. Surely, I misunderstand her meaning.

“To leave.”

No . Without thinking, I spring to my feet and reach for her wrist, as if she plans on running and I must hold her in place. I can feel the echo of the action from weeks ago—the other times she has run from me for one reason or another.

She pulls back, but I tighten my grip.

“We both knew this was coming,” she says quietly, brows tilted up in the middle as she watches the shock and denial play across my face.

“I disagree. You want to leave?” I ask. I sound stupid. I feel stupid. It is like trying to think through a haze of drugs—every thought is difficult to catch and hold. All the contentment I felt in her approval and acceptance last night has been abruptly snatched away, and my head is spinning .

“I thought… I thought after last night…” I break off, clearing my throat of the emotions making it thick. This is not who I am—some imbecile that cries when a woman turns away from him. I am rational. I am like stone. “I thought you would stay here. I thought you would want to.”

She begins saying several words at once, snapping her mouth closed when the noise that emerges is unintelligible.

Glancing down, she tucks the edges of the robe in around herself more tightly.

“We’ve been avoiding having this conversation.

And I think we both know why. I have to go.

It’s what we talked about, right? Back when I first got here, you promised to help me.

You said as soon as we knew what was on the USB drive and we understood the extent of the danger, you’d get me a new identity and help me start over. ”

“No,” I deny. I remember saying this, but I did not expect to hear my own words used against me this way. “You cannot leave. The danger is too great. I am the one who can keep you alive and safe, my med. ”

I know I am blindly reaching for any damn reason, but her hopeless expression is digging into my gut and laying me bare. This is what I can do for her—keep her safe.

And it is all I have to give.

She shakes her head and offers a smile that makes her bottom lip wobble.

“Viktor’s dead. And the rest of them… they don’t care about me, not really.

They want the money, and your plan will make it clear that I don’t have it, right?

If I go far enough away and I have nothing to do with this money, there’s no reason to think—”

“No,” I repeat, more angrily.

Her inhale breaks in her throat, and she shoots me a look full of apology and sadness. “I don’t want to do this without you, but I can’t stay here,” she says, and her voice cracks. I watch with a morbid, detached sort of curiosity as the bead of a tear forms underneath her closed eyelid .

“Why?” I fall back a step, resisting the urge to lift a hand to my chest to ensure my sternum is still intact. It feels as if there is a hole blown through it.

“I can’t be imprisoned. I need a place of my own, and a job that’s fulfilling, and friends, and hobbies—”

“You would not be a prisoner here,” I interject. “You could live like Eleanor, who comes and goes. You could have a job, you could—”

She interrupts me this time. “In Ulysses, I’m a missing person who had hundreds of millions of dollars of Mafia money in my possession. There’s no scenario where I’m free to live how I want here—not safely. I can’t be looking over my shoulder for Russian guys with guns for the rest of my life.”

The words echo around me, recalling a memory of a conversation we had over a month ago.

This has always been her concern. “You told me you were searching for a place to call home. Why not here? You like Eleanor and James and Wesley. You like this house. And I am here.” The second I say it, it makes me grit my teeth.

I feel like a fool. I believed we were aligned, that I would not have to argue with her or fight for my place in her life.

“Unless it was… Was it meaningless to you?”

“No!” she gasps, but the denial feels too little, too late. “I don’t want to leave you, but… We barely know each other, Dimitri—we haven’t talked about the important stuff. And there are things I want in life. Things you can’t give me, that I can’t have if I’m forced to live here.”

Forced.

“Like what?” I snap, hearing my voice harden.

“Normalcy,” she says simply. It is not a challenge; it is a fact. “A life where I’m not stitching you up in the bathroom at 3 AM and worried you’re out there adding another tally to your tattoo. I’m not equipped to handle that life. It’s better to just leave now.”

“You do not even want to try?” I take a step back, away from the steely, heartbroken resolve written all over her face .

“I can’t. There is no trying. If I stay with you, there’s no way I’m not falling for you. And if I fall for you, you’re going to break my heart. So, I think it’s best to end things now. Before either of us gets… too attached.”

My body goes cold and still.

I have already fallen. I am already attached.

But obviously, I am alone in this.

“I just… don’t see another option—I can’t be here, and I can’t ask you to leave your team to come with me to start over. Like you said, this is who you are. I don’t want to take that from you.”

My jaw clicks as I grind it. Admittedly, when thinking about our future life together, I never considered the possibility of leaving my current life behind. Was that selfish of me? To assume she would give up everything for me?

Even if it were… what use could I be to her in the small, normal life she wants? I cannot hold a real job or go out freely without concern of being recognized by the wrong person. I could end up getting her hurt or killed.

The weight is back on my chest, and it has brought a rush of conflicting, horrible emotions like guilt, hurt, frustration, and vindication.

I always knew the truth, though I let myself believe she thought differently—I am no more than a convenient monster.

I will shield her from the dangers and fuck her when she wants as a temporary distraction, but she would not choose a life with me.

Deep down, I always knew. I knew she would never want someone like me.

I knew I was not worthy.

“So that is it, then? You have decided? You chose for us both?” I ask. I hear the hurt-laced venom in my voice, but I am past trying to control it.

Her eyes are downcast, shielded. “From the moment we met, you’ve been making decisions for me.

Running in the maze, getting on that boat, putting me in the trunk of the car, coming here…

I don’t regret it,” she adds quickly, “but it’s…

not how I want to be with someone. It’s not sustainable.

I don’t have it in me to meekly follow orders or sit at home while someone kills people on my behalf.

“I need to be able to make my own choices. Don’t take that from me again. Don’t take this choice from me.”

I reel as if she physically struck me. In fact, I have to turn away, so she will not see how her words have destroyed me.

“I have to go. You have to let me go, Dimitri.” It is so soft, it is nearly a whisper.

My heartbeat thuds so hard and loudly, it is the only noise I can hear for several long seconds of tense silence.

I keep waiting for her to take it back—to realize she makes this decision too rashly, too rooted in fear.

But her expression haunts me. She is resolute.

Almost calm, if slightly broken-looking.

“Very well,” I say tightly. “I will have Wesley falsify some documentation for you. It will take a few hours.”

She has the grace to thank me, but it makes me flinch. I am halfway to the door, refusing to look back over my shoulder when I hear her soft sniffle. Cringing at the sound, I pause. “In the morning… you can go.”