War (Romanian Mob Chronicles Book 5) (8 page)

M
ilan

“
W
e could have taken
my car,” I grumbled about thirty minutes after we’d left the police station.

The haze of the police station had cleared a little and left behind a numbness I embraced. Numbness was far better than the despair that threatened when I even contemplated thinking about Tiffany. Better than numbness was having something to focus on, and right now, that focus was my car.

I shifted in my seat to face him, looked at him expectantly.

“We’ve discussed this, Milan,” Priest said.

He didn’t sound impatient even though I’d said the same thing twice before. Still, explanation notwithstanding, I couldn’t help but push the point.

“Yeah, we talked about it, but I don’t understand. Why couldn’t we take my car?”

When he pulled the luxury sedan we’d gotten into to a stop at a red light, he turned to face me, half of his face in shadow, the other half illuminated.

I swallowed, trying—and failing—not to notice his dark beauty, knowing that doing so was beyond foolish but unable to stop myself.

The intensity of his eyes was too much, so I dropped my gaze. The intensity lessened, but only barely, because now rather than looking at his eyes, I was staring at his solid, stubbled jaw before my gaze was drawn to the corner of his mouth.

What would it be like to feel those lips against mine again? As crazy as the thought was, I wanted more than anything to know. I felt myself smiling as he parted his lips, and it was only when I heard his voice that I realized he was speaking.

“Every cop, and by now, every criminal in this city knows that car is yours, and they know you were with me. Which makes it a target. People are going to look for it, hoping that if they find it, they’ll find you and me. If it’s the cops, you’ll be lucky. They’ll come up something to charge you with as punishment for leaving the station. If it’s not the cops, you’ll be less lucky.”

He didn’t elaborate, and when the light turned green, he pulled off. I got his point, but still couldn’t let it go that easily.

“I loved that car,” I grumbled, looking out of the passenger-side window, watching the scenery as it passed by.

He huffed out a breath, the first sign of impatience I had heard from him. “Milan, if I make it out of this alive, and you never mention that fucking car again, I’ll buy you a hundred of them. Deal?”

I turned to look at him, saw his jaw twitching, a clear sign of his exasperation. Oddly, seeing that out of him made me want to laugh. I didn’t laugh, though, because if I started, I doubted I’d be able to stop.

Maybe I was in shock or something, but this didn’t feel real. I mean I was here, in my body, but I didn’t feel like myself. I was waiting, hoping that at any moment I would wake up, tell Tiff about this crazy dream I had had.

The stab of pain in my gut was the proof that there would be no waking up from this.

Tiffany was gone.

Dead.

I had seen her myself, and no matter what I might have wished, prayed, she wasn’t coming back. I was not waking up from this.

“I’m not waking up from this,” I said out loud.

Priest had stopped at another red light, and when I turned, he was looking at me, his gaze searching mine, his eyes hard, glittering, but almost empathetic.

“No. No you’re not waking up from this,” he said.

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” I said. Maybe an odd sentiment, but his words, his truth, was welcome and only strengthened my confidence that my belief in him, my faith in my perceptions, was not misplaced.

“Why are you thanking me for that?” he asked as he again began to drive.

“I can handle anything.” I chuckled, realizing that Priest, that this day, was going to give me more than I had ever anticipated. “At least, I like to think so. If I know what it is, I can plan for it, handle it, manage it. Can’t do that with lies. So thank you for not lying to me.”

He nodded. “We share that in common,” he said.

“Speaking of…” I said, deciding to address the thought that had had me so driven earlier.

“Speaking of what?” he asked.

“Never mind,” I said.

“Milan, we both decided we prefer the truth, so tell me,” he said.

“So whoever killed Tiffany, they were looking for you?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

I’d known that, but hearing him say it still left me momentarily stunned.

“You hold me responsible,” he said.

The certainty in his voice had me looking at him again, trying to gauge what had made him assume that. It also left me trying to gauge whether I did, whether I should.

“Sounds like you think I do. That you think I should,” I said.

There was another tic in his jaw and then he spoke, his words even more measured than they usually were. “You should,” he said, his expression still stoic, though I saw a cloudiness in it I couldn’t quite interpret. Then it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

“Why?”

“You said it yourself. This is my fault. If I hadn’t involved you, none of this would be happening.”

“True,” I said and then I went silent, considering my next words in a way I seldom did.

“That’s all you have to say?” he asked.

“I was thinking,” I said. Then I went quiet again before I tried to articulate what I was thinking. “I blame you, but I don’t.”

He gave a mirthless chuckle, and I felt compelled to try to explain, though I couldn’t say for sure I understood it myself.

“Were it not for you, I’d be at home with my best friend, gossiping about that stupid wedding and or dreaming about my future. But because of you—and I’m still super fucking pissed about you getting into my car, by the way—I’m not,” I said.

“But?”

“But you didn’t kill her. She had nothing to do with any of this. She didn’t. Whoever did that to her…” I trailed off, the emotion overtaking me until I managed to swallow it down and continue. “Whoever did it is responsible.”

“What are you planning, Milan?” he asked.

I jumped, looked to him, and then realized I had my fist clenched tight. I relaxed my fist, my muscles protesting.

“What makes you think I’m planning something?” I asked. Sure, I was a little frazzled to say the least, but I was in control of myself and knew that nothing in my body gave away my thoughts. Which left me confused as to why he’d said such a thing and why he’d sounded so certain.

He gave me a look. “Don’t insult me, Milan,” he said, his voice silky with danger.

Some stubborn part of me wanted to push, needed to, if only to prove to myself I didn’t feel a shiver of desire in reaction to his voice, to prove the danger in it wasn’t drawing me in.

I didn’t, though, because with the feeling of desire came a crushing guilt. I had things to worry about, chief among them righting the wrong that had been done to my best friend. Priest, whatever his voice did to me, however much my body craved him, would have to wait.

“So, what’s your intention? You didn’t come with me because you saw reason,” he said.

My initial reaction was to ask him why he thought that, but I decided to heed his words and not insult him. Instead I said, “The police aren’t going to find who did this.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because they were talking to me, trying to find out what I knew about the wedding, the people who were there. They don’t give two shits about Tiffany. They’re after a bigger fish, and her death won’t change that. You disagree?” I asked, shifting in my seat.

I’d had my body turned toward the car door, but I faced him now, the animation that moved through me making it impossible for me to sit still. Besides, I wanted to see his face as we talked.

“No,” he said. “I don’t. Her death was a tragedy, but there are other things at play here. Things that mean she might not get the attention she deserves.”

“You don’t have to pretty it up for me,” I said.

“What?” he asked, eyes shifting to me quickly before he looked back at the road.

“In the absolute best-case scenario, Tiffany is maybe a third priority. That guy whose wedding it was is first,” I said.

“What’s second priority?” he asked.

“If I had to guess, I’d say you,” I responded, watching his face for a reaction.

But he simply said, “Unlikely.”

“Want to clarify that for me?” I asked, again wondering why he sounded so sure. Everything I’d seen told me he was professional, the kind that would rise to the level of police attention. So I told him so. “Don’t try to sell me some bullshit story about you being an innocent bystander or a banker or something else equally unbelievable.”

He chuckled, and this time there was real humor in the sound. “I won’t insult you either, Milan. No, I’m not an innocent anything. Haven’t been that in decades, if I ever was. But I doubt I’m on the police’s radar. I tend to keep a low profile.”

Something I could believe. Everything about him so far had been methodical, thought-out, and calculated. It was easy to believe he would take care to do nothing that would garner undue suspicion.

“Low profile,” I said, my mind humming with the beginnings of a thought.

He nodded.

“You’re low profile?” I said.

“I attempt to be, at least in the outside world,” he said.

“What’s the outside world?” I asked, momentarily thrown off course.

“Do you know my business, Milan?” he said.

“I’m guessing you’re not a florist,” I replied, to which he laughed as richly as I had heard him.

“No, I’m not. I’ll spare you details, but I think it’s enough to say that some of my activities fall outside of legal boundaries.”

“So you’re a criminal?” I asked.

A useless question that didn’t need to be spoken and needed an answer even less, though Priest supplied it anyway.

“Yes,” he said.

He’d just confessed to being a criminal, one of the least revealing revelations I’d ever heard. I waited for some reaction, anger, disgust, something, but there was none. Priest was a criminal. I glanced down at his sleeve and centered my eyes on the dark weave of his suit jacket.

Priest also had an excellent tailor. That fact held more weight than the revelation he was a criminal. It was something that should have mattered, something that should have made me recoil, at least should have made me question the trust I had in him.

I didn’t question that trust, though. Not for a single second.

“So a criminal, huh?” I finally said.

He nodded.

“And an important one?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t draw attention to yourself?”

“Exactly.”

“So…” I trailed off, trying think of the best way to ask my question. “So why come to the police station?”

He looked at me again, and then back to the street, but I’d seen something in his eyes. “Would you believe me if I told you I came back for you?”

I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t sure if he saw it, but something told me he didn’t miss much. “Well obviously. It would be far too coincidental for you to have happened to be there at exactly the same time as me,” I said.

His lips crinkled ever so slightly, but for him, it was close enough to a smile that I had to return it.

“Maybe I had other business there,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “So now that we’ve established you came for me, the question still stands. Why? I mean, going to the police station is not a low-profile thing. You were probably caught on camera at the very least. What if I hadn’t been outside?”

I spat my questions rapid-fire, my mind now churning as I considered the possibilities.

“I would have come in,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Okay, but that doesn’t answer my question. Why?”

Again, his eyes turned to me and then back. “I had concerns about your safety. And I owe you,” he said.

“For Tiffany?” I whispered, the levity that had been building as the conversation had continued wiped away within the space of those two words.

“For everything.” He glanced at me yet again, a look I couldn’t label anything but regret in his eyes. “There’s no reason for you to believe me, Milan, but I am regretful that I had to involve you in this. There are things I can’t change, things I can’t give you back, but I owe you this, and I will see that you come through it unharmed,” he said.

I believed him.

As unbelievable at it was, as terrified as I should have been, I believed him.

There was a certain logic to it, I supposed. Sure, it was possible that this was some nefarious plan that involved him ending up in my car, sparking the attraction that I knew wasn’t one-sided, and ended with him luring me away from the police station, only for me to end up in a shallow grave or meet some worse fate.

That logic was flawed, at least from my admittedly skewed point of view. I was no one, a dreamer with no specific dream, one who would have never crossed paths with Priest in ordinary circumstances. Besides, if Priest had intended me harm, he’d had every opportunity to do so. He hadn’t, so the only conclusion was that he hadn’t wanted to.

Warmth bloomed in my chest and settled in my stomach, a comfortable weight that helped chase away some of the sadness. Maybe the explanation was convenient, one I was falling back on because it made me as happy as I could be right now.

But I didn’t think so. The explanation was convenient, but it was also true.

“So you’re going to put me on a bus or something?” I asked.

“That displeases you?” he said, and it was only after he spoke that I was able to notice that I again had let my emotion bleed through.

“Yes. I can’t go hide while whoever killed Tiffany gets away with it.”

“What would you do if you found the person responsible?” he asked.

“I would kill him,” I said without pause. If conviction was the same as action, there was no doubt that I would cut down whoever had killed Tiffany without a second thought. But conviction was one thing, action another. I’d cross that bridge if and when I came to it.

Where Priest stood on the matter was not a question. “You wouldn’t,” he said without pause. “It’s not such an easy thing, Milan, not one to be taken lightly.”