Chapter 293: Will You Come To Bed With Me?

"It made me realize that I’ve been living in a bubble," Eve said. "On the island, at home, pretending that the dangerous parts of your world exist separately from me. But they don’t. They’re part of you. And if I’m going to be with you, I need to accept that again and again. But I also need to know what’s happening. I need to understand the threats. I need to be informed so I can make decisions about my own safety."

Dimitri watched her with an expression that was equal parts relief and concern.

"You’re asking me to tell you about the warehouse robbery," he said.

"I’m asking you to not keep me in the dark," Eve corrected. "Tell me about the warehouse hit. Tell me about Dante. Tell me about what’s happening so I can understand what I’m actually dealing with."

Dimitri stood and pulled her up from her chair, wrapping his arms around her.

"Okay," he said, kissing the top of her head. "I’ll tell you everything. But not right now. Right now, I need to sleep. Will you come to bed with me?"

Eve nodded and let him lead her upstairs.

They lay together in the darkness of the bedroom, and Dimitri held her while she talked. She told him about calling Mike.

And Dimitri listened without judgment, his hand stroking her hair.

"I love you," he said when she finished. "I’m sorry for trying to protect you by keeping you ignorant. I’ll do better."

"I love you too," Eve replied. "Even though you’re terrifying and dangerous and everything I shouldn’t want."

"Especially because of that?" Dimitri asked with a slight smile in his voice.

"Maybe," Eve admitted. "Probably."

She fell asleep in his arms, feeling safer than she had since waking up alone in the night.

And Dimitri lay awake, thinking about the anonymous text message. Thinking about who would know to contact Eve.

By morning, he had plans. Plans to find out who’d sent that text. Plans to make sure it never happened again.

But that was a problem for later.

Right now, he just held his woman and let himself have this moment of peace before the war resumed.

***

The safe house was a nondescript brownstone in Brooklyn, three blocks from the Williamsburg waterfront. It had one exit for Jennifer, which meant it had one chokepoint for whoever came to collect her. Which meant it was perfect.

Dimitri sat in the surveillance van parked two blocks away, watching the monitors that fed from the cameras positioned around the perimeter of the building. Marco was in position on the roof of the adjacent building, rifle fitted with a thermal scope. Two additional teams....six men total, were positioned at strategic points around the block: alleyways, rooftops, parked cars that looked abandoned but had eyes inside them.

"Jennifer’s in position," Marco said through the comms. "Wire is transmitting. Audio is clear."

Dimitri nodded, though Marco couldn’t see him. The feeds on the monitors showed the safe house’s interior, Jennifer sitting at a kitchen table, trying to look nervous , which wasn’t hard, because she was genuinely terrified, waiting for the burner phone they’d given her to ring.

"How much longer?" Mike asked from his position two blocks in the opposite direction, heading up a secondary intercept team in case anything went sideways and they needed to move fast.

"We wait," Dimitri said. "Dante’s people will be careful. They’ll be watching for surveillance. They’ll want to make sure this isn’t a setup."

"And if they decide it is a setup?" Mike asked.

"Then we kill them," Dimitri said simply. "And Jennifer becomes leverage in a different way."

He heard the grim satisfaction in his own voice and didn’t bother to change it. This was who he was. This was what he did. There was no point in pretending otherwise.

The night stretched out. Hours of waiting. Hours of tension coiling tighter and tighter in Dimitri’s chest. He could still see Eve in his mind, asleep in their penthouse. Completely safe. Completely unaware that he was sitting in a van in Brooklyn, about to orchestrate a hit that would draw even more blood onto his hands.

That was the cost of loving her.

His phone buzzed. A message from Marco: "Vehicle approaching from the north. Black SUV. Two men inside. Driver is unknown, passenger matches the description of Mancini, Dante’s operations manager."

Dimitri leaned forward, watching the monitors. The black SUV rolled slowly down the street, doing a loop around the safe house. Looking. Watching. Calculating.

"Don’t move," Dimitri said to his teams. "Let them confirm."

The SUV completed its loop and parked half a block away from the safe house. The engine cut off, but the two men didn’t exit immediately. They sat there, watching. Making sure nothing was out of place.

Dimitri could feel the tension ratcheting up another notch. This was the moment where everything could fall apart. This was where Dante’s people could decide something was wrong and walk away.

"Jennifer," he said into the comms. "They’re here. When the phone rings, you answer it. You sound desperate. You sound like someone who needs this to work because her brother’s life depends on it. Because it does."

"Understood," Jennifer’s voice came back, small and terrified.

The SUV door opened. Salvatore Mancini emerged first, a compact man with dark hair and the watchful eyes of someone who’d spent decades in the business of violence. The driver followed...a larger man, muscle, someone whose job was to make sure no one caused problems.

They approached the brownstone carefully, still watching. Still calculating.

Dimitri’s hand drifted to the Glock at his hip, a reflex. Not because he thought he’d need to use it from here, Marco had the angle if anyone needed to die from a distance, but because it was habit. Because it was comfort.

The phone rang inside the safe house.

Jennifer answered it.

"Hello?" Her voice shook appropriately.

Mancini was now at the door to the brownstone. He let himself in, Marco had ensured it was unlocked, and climbed the stairs.

"It’s me,"Mancini’s voice came through the wire. "You have information?"

"Yes," Jennifer said. "Yes, I do. But I need to know about my brother first. I need to know that...."