Page 64 of Lethal Torture

I give her another bland smile, turning my glass on the table. “My member list is highly confidential.”

“Sure. But Lowbridge is one of those pricks who can’t help boasting. Apparently he told the journalist that he knows you well. He even insinuated that you work with us in order to protect your own interests.”

My glass stops turning on the table.

“Are you saying he implied that I use these girls in my own fucking clubs?” I keep my anger in check. Barely.

“The journalist, apparently, was too scared to print that part.” Niamh watches me cautiously.

Smart fucking journalist.

“I think I’d like to talk to this journalist myself.”

She looks uncomfortable. “He spoke to me in confidence.”

“If he’d like to keep speaking at all,” I say flatly, “you might suggest that he take my call.”

Niamh takes an extra-large gulp of her wine.

I don’t try to make her feel better.

Arrangements like ours are a two-way street. And every now and then, people like Niamh and Agatha need to be remindedthat the traffic only flows along that street because of the work I do from the shadows.

“Anyway.” She looks at her glass. “I should probably go soon. I need to get all the sleep I can on my day off, since it looks like it will be a midnight session on Saturday night.”

“Well, you know me,” I say lightly as we stand up. “I do my best work late at night.”

After Niamh leaves,I toy with the idea of going back to Pigalle Soho to work some more, but I have a feeling I won’t be able to focus.

Nothing to do with the fact that Luke isn’t there tonight, huh, Zinaida?

I’m not proud of the fact that I know Luke has taken the night off. Or the amount of times a day I check the dynamic schedule, just to see where he is.

Everywhereis the short answer to that.

After less than a fortnight, it’s hard to remember what it was like before he took over.

Anatoly’s heavy knock interrupts my thoughts. “Boss,” he says, putting his head around the door. “I forget to say—your apartment, she is done. I haf car to take you home ven you are ready.”

I frown. “The schedule didn’t mention anything about my apartment being done today?”

“Luke keep between me and him,” Anatoly says. I don’t miss the faint note of pride in his voice.

Or the way my insides do an odd turn at the thought that he was there, in my home. Scrutinizing every inch of my private space with those laser turquoise eyes.

Just imagining it gives me feelings. Big feelings that I don’t particularly want to examine.

I force myself to smile at Anatoly. “I’ll be down soon.”

The truth, I think as Anatoly closes the door, is that there’s barely an inch of my life Luke hasn’t been over with a fine-toothed comb.

The only place he has yet to infiltrate is Sophie’s House.

I’m a little nervous about bringing him into that space, especially after my meeting with Niamh. And not only because it’s a women’s refuge, where men are generally not tolerated.

I’m worried he’s going to take over my rescue operations. And I really don’t know how I feel about that.

Sophie’s House has been my goal, and my motivation, from the day my cousin was taken from me. The idea of anyone coming in and trying to dictate how it should run, or what I can and can’t do when it comes to rescue operations, doesn’t sit well at all.