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Text me your address. My driver will pick you up in the evening.

That won’t be necessary. Let’s end it here, Dimitri. With good memories. Delete my number and forget you ever met me. Please.

You can text me your address, or I can find it myself. Either way, my driver is picking you up tomorrow. Your choice.

Her reply takes longer this time. I can practically see her spiraling on the other end, weighing her options. She won’t want me digging into her life.

The thought should satisfy me, but it doesn’t. If anything, the idea of her panicking sits wrong in my gut, and I hate it. I hate that a little over twenty-four hours with her has me wrapped around her little fucking finger.

I glower at my phone as her text comes in.

I have an interview scheduled near Times Square tomorrow. Late afternoon. So there’s no need to send my address. Your driver can pick me up there.

Look at her, still fucking lying. An interview, my ass.

See you tomorrow.

I drop my phone and glance at my laptop. Both programs have finished their searches.

My heart lodges in my throat as I click to see the results.

Grace Turner.

Final-year nursing student. Recently completed her undergraduate internship and is waiting to take her licensing exam. Orphan. Abandoned on the steps of a Catholic church as a toddler. Grew up in foster homes, transferring between them until finally ending up at a group home.

I chew on the information. So that’s the woman I spent the past twenty-four hours with.

Grace.

Somehow, the name fits. The nickname her friend apparently gave her somehow works too. But was that story even true, or another lie?

Why fucking lie to get on my yacht?

To give me her virginity?

My cock stirs at the memory of her, of how tight she was.

That’s the only thing I’m sure was real. She didn’t fake the pain on her face, the tightness of her cunt, or the dripping wetness. She wanted me.

My cock hardens, and a low groan drags from my throat. How the hell am I still drawn to her after all this? If it were any other woman, my blood would be running cold for her by now, my hands itching to close around her throat.

Instead—

My phone rings, saving me from those thoughts, and I latch onto the distraction without hesitation.

It’s Ivan.

“Are you back in the city?”

“Hello to you too, brother,” I reply, mostly out of reflex. I usually enjoy fucking with him, but my heart isn’t in it this time. My mind is distracted.

“Yeah, yeah, hello, Dima. How are you? Wonderful, yes, I’m well, thank you for asking.” His voice drips with sarcasm. “Now. Did you find the fucker behind the warehouse explosion?”

I don’t need him to clarify which warehouse. The one on the East River, where everything went to hell a few weeks ago. The image still haunts me. The fire. The collapsed roof. Vanya pinned under the beam with Melani crouched beside him, tears streaming down her face.

When Luka—Vanya’s right-hand man—and I went back inside for them, I had been running the calculations in my head: how long since the blast and how long before the rest came down. If we’d been ninety seconds slower…

The thought makes me sick, so I push it out of my head. “I want to find that motherfucker as much as you do, Vanya, but he’s a slippery bastard.”