Page 90 of The Wrong Brother
“Why would he bother? He told you what he thought about you coming here, and you weren’t exactly receptive.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing catastrophic yet.” He adjusts the cuff of his coat carefully. “But men notice instability quickly. Rivals notice it faster.”
I lean back against the leather seat, jaw tightening. “Stepan has things handled.”
“Stepan is excellent,” Frank agrees. “Stepan is also currently trying to run an empire while you obsess over Colorado.”
The word is deliberate:obsess.I dislike how accurate it sounds.
Frank studies me for another moment before continuing. “You built something extraordinary, Ruslan. Ugly in places, yes. Violent. Criminal. But real.” His gaze hardens slightly. “You abandoned all of it the second your brother’s engagement appeared on television.”
Heat flickers low in my chest. Anger, not just at Andrei, but at the realization that Frank isn’t entirely wrong.
“I did not abandon anything.”
“You boarded a private jet within days.”
Fair. I say nothing.
Frank sighs softly and glances toward the passing city outside. “Is revenge truly worth risking everything you spent years creating?”
“Yes.”
His expression shifts subtly, not judgmental exactly, but disappointed in a way that irritates me more. “And the girl?”
My eyes narrow immediately. “Emma is not a girl.”
“You know what I mean.”
I look away again. Traffic crawls slowly near downtown, while pedestrians flood the sidewalks beneath trees beginning to shift gold with early autumn. Somewhere across the city, Emma is probably wandering the hotel suite barefoot with coffee in hand. Is she waiting for me? No; that would be ridiculous.
Frank watches me carefully now. “She should not be involved in this.”
“She already is. I needed her to throw Andrei off.”
“She was dragged into it.”
“No.” My voice sharpens slightly. “Emma is many things, but innocent is not one of them.”
Frank goes still beside me. “Explain.”
I hesitate briefly before deciding there is little point in hiding it now. “She worked for the FBI.”
Frank is at a loss. “Well…”
“Apparently.”
“And you know this for certain?”
“I know enough. But she doesn’t know that I know.”
The memory still sits badly beneath my skin. Andrei spitting the truth at me in the middle of that fight while cameras flashed around us.
FBI—I should have cut her loose the second I found out. Even as an ex-agent, the risk is too great to be worth it. So why am Ikeeping her here, in the same bed with me at night, pretending not to notice the way her body shifts in sleep?
Why do I care that she lied?
