Dragusha Revenge ✓Completed✓

MIRA

ALEKSIO and I are sitting in our bed watching TV like a normal couple when he gets the text. The gleam in his eyes tells me what it is—intel on Kiro. “Gotcha, motherfucker,” he says, flipping through a lot of images. A man’s face. A man’s profile. Full-body shots. The man who took Kiro. I kiss him, hoping with everything that the guy is in some kind of database. If he’s not, the road to finding Kiro gets a lot harder. I decide to think positive. I jump out of bed to grab the champagne. I’m considering a toast, but he comes up and takes the bottle from my hand and pushes me face-first into the wall.

Already?” I joke, because we fucked all morning. He doesn’t answer. He moves my hair aside and kisses the nape of my neck. Just a kiss—a kiss that feels more intimate than fucking. “This is my place on you,” he says, planting another kiss on the curve beneath my hairline. “Sensitive and secret. I love this place on you.” He kisses it again, sending shivers up and down me. “Your hair covers it, and nobody touches it, but I do. And it’s my place, okay?” I laugh. “That’s a pretty chaste place, baby. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?

I won’t reconsider.” He turns me to him and cups that place, his secret place, and he kisses me with crazy intensity. Like he’s dying inside that kiss. I hold his sweet scruffy cheeks and kiss him back slowly, thinking he’s feeling emotional about maybe finding Kiro. He pulls me onto the bed. I lose myself in him, this man who fits me like no other man ever has. Sometimes fucking feels rushed and fun and dirty. Other times, it’s leisurely, hedonistic. And sometimes fucking contains the whole world and all of time. And sometimes that kind of fucking is goodbye, and you don’t know it. We’re in the shower afterwards when he tells me we need to go on a quick trip to the Duluth airport tomorrow. Picking up a package? Meeting a guy? He doesn’t say what it is, and I don’t ask. I know the drill..

The secrecy reminds me of the way I grew up. It’s what I always wanted to get away from. My heart sinks at the thought. We park in the airport lot the next morning and walk into the sweeping glass-fronted building. He pauses near the security line. “Gimme your purse.” I hand it over. “What are you up to?” He looks through it. Takes out my hand lotion. “Four ounces. No go.” He tosses it out. “What the hell?” He hands my purse back to me along with a brightly wrapped gift, the size of a book. My heart begins to pound. “What is this?” “Open it.” I tear off the paper and pull out a plane ticket and a key ring with a key on it..And a baggie of gas station English toffee.

“Aleksio—” “I’m getting you back home.” “What?” “Getting you back to your life, baby.” I hold the stuff in my hands, blood racing. I thought we had more time. “You’ll be safe. I rented you a new place that’s ultra-fortified. Tito flew down yesterday. He’s setting up your security detail. You won’t have actual bodyguards—don’t worry. But they’ll watch over you from afar. They’ll know if anybody’s watching you. We hired the best..

I swallow past the lump in my throat. I know I have to go, but I thought he’d fight my going. I thought I’d wait. He nods at the departure board. “Direct to La Guardia. It’s boarding in ten.” “So…just like that?” Aleksio kisses me—hard. Then he puts his forehead to mine, and I get the feeling he doesn’t want me to see his face. “I love you. I always will.” My throat feels thick. I want to say I love you back. I want to say a world of things.

“You wanted to go, right?” Standing there, I see a possible life with him flash before my eyes. I see a life with a man who sits on top of a violent machine. I see myself looking the other way from a zillion crimes. And maybe I have my career, but what kind of mockery would that be, involved with a mafia boss? Of course he’s right. Of course I have to go. Right? His dark eyes are deep with soul and sadness. “You need to go rebuild the sandcastles that jerks like me kick down..

My voice trembles. “Right.” I kiss him again. A droning voice over the loudspeaker announces that my flight is in preboarding. I pull out my ID, telling myself it has to be like this. “Let me know what happens with Kiro.” “Of course,” he says hoarsely. I want to say more, but he turns and walks away, dark and lethal in his suit, just the way he came back into my life. But so different. The security line is short. Before I know it, I’m up at the front, untying my shoes..