Page 65 of Cashmere Cruelty

At the door, I take her hand in mine for my customary goodnight, but she quickly slips it out.

“I almost forgot!” she says, rushing over to a corner of the room. A corner brimming with utter chaos, but I’ve been trying not to think about it. That’s for housekeeping to deal with.

When April rushes back to me, there’s a small bundle in her hands. “Come closer.”

I do. Despite all my intentions, all my instincts, I do exactly as she says.

She frowns in concentration, then rises up on her tiptoes. For a second, I wonder if she’s trying to chloroform me. That, or kiss me.

I can’t say which one would be worse right now.

But she doesn’t do either of those things. Instead, she goes for my breast pocket and carefully stuffs the bundle inside it.

That’s when I finally realize what it is.

“It’s lucky you’re wearing this jacket tonight,” she chirps, clearly pleased with herself. “Now, I get to see how it looks.”

The color is a deep, vivid indigo. I glance at the rest of my outfit, and it doesn’t take long to realize that it fits the ensemble perfectly. The hue, the size—it’s all flawless.

“I know you don’t think of outsiders as family,” April mumbles, wringing her hands. Her voice is barely a whisper. “But we’re going to share one. So, if you can’t think of me as family…” A tentative smile. “At least let’s not be strangers. Okay?”

I’m stunned. For a while, all I can do is stare.

Then I shake myself back to the present and take her hand again. I kiss it. The warmth is overpowering—nearly enough to break me.

But I won’t break.

After all,not strangersis still a far cry fromfamily.

“Goodnight, April.”

“Goodnight, Matvey.”

I drive back to the warehouse.

Once I’m there, I give one simple command: “Out.”

Everyone obeys.

I search every nook and cranny of the two interrogation rooms. I search like a man possessed. If there’s even a clue that can lead me to whoever wants to harm April—whoever wants to harm my child, I correct myself mentally—if there’s even a trace of a hint of a scrap of a clue, I will find it.

And I do. It’s nearly dawn when a little piece of metal blinks at me from the wall behind the Russian. In the corner, pressed into a crack in the concrete…

A bullet.

I grin like a wolf. “Game on,” I snarl out loud, hoping the piece of shit who fired it can hear me, wherever he may be.

I got you, motherfucker.

20

APRIL

I’m woken up at the ass-crack of dawn by knocks on the door.Insistentknocks. More like a bongo orchestra, really.

“What the actual…?”

I drag myself out of bed, ready to curse whoever has decided to disturb my beauty sleep. When you’re nine months pregnant, you need beauty sleep. Preferably up to twelve hours a day.