I WAS SO BUSY thinking about Grigory watching me, I’d reached the landing at the top of the stairs before I realized I had no idea where I was going. I don’t know where our bedroom is!

I risked a glance over my shoulder. Grigory was still glaring up at me. He actually took a step towards the stairs as if he was going to follow, but then one of the other guards asked him a question and he cursed and turned to the man to answer him. While he was distracted, I raced up the remaining stairs and went right, picking a direction at random. I just wanted to get out of his sight and find our room before anyone—

“Well, that seemed to go okay.”

The voice came out of nowhere and it was so sudden I literally jumped, then flattened myself into an alcove, eyes everywhere, trying to find the source.

And then it sunk in that the voice was familiar. Calahan, in my earpiece. I slumped in relief. Then, as I replayed what he’d said in my mind, my face went hot.

He’d been listening to everything.

I swallowed. The kissing at the airport, what had just happened downstairs...hearing wasn’t the same as seeing, but...I remembered the moan I’d made, when Konstantin slid his fingers into me, and flushed harder. Had Calahan sounded jealous? Or was that just my imagination? “Yeah,” I muttered at last. “Now I have to find our room. Any ideas?”

“Sorry,” said Calahan. “We know zip about the inside of the mansion. You’re going to have to do some exploring.”

I started along the landing. The mansion was huge, but most of the doors I opened led to unused bedrooms, some completely empty and some with beds covered in dust sheets. The rooms were amazing: the ceilings were so high I had to squint to see all the intricate plasterwork and the chandeliers were iron octopuses the size of small cars, draped in glittering glass. You could have opened the place as a hotel for at least fifty guests. But it looked like Konstantin never had anyone to stay.

As I walked, I thought about the name I’d heard downstairs, the one that had enraged Konstantin. “Ralavich,” I said to Calahan. “You don’t think he means Dmitri Ralavich?”

Two years ago, in Alaska, my friend Kate had almost died when she’d come up against a Russian mob boss by that name. A truly evil man, notorious for trafficking women.

I could hear Calahan working a keyboard. “He started out in St. Petersburg, same as Konstantin. It would make sense for them to be rivals. But what the hell would Ralavich be doing in New York? There’s no territory he could take here: Konstantin and the other two bosses have the city all sewn up.”

By now, I’d made my way up to the top floor and right to the end of the west wing. I pushed open a big set of double doors... and gasped. I’d finally found the master bedroom, or rather the master bedroom suite. There was a massive bedroom complete with an Emperor-size bed, separate dressing rooms and bathrooms for Konstantin and me and a sort of lounge area. God, this place was fit for a king and queen. Or maybe a Tsar and his Tsarina.

I’d thought the clothes Christina had brought back from Milan were amazing, but her walk-in wardrobe was something else. One entire wall was devoted to shoes, from elegant, calfskin-leather knee boots to stilettos in every conceivable color. I picked up an amazing pair of midnight-blue kitten heels and sighed. I’m not big on fashion, but even I recognized this as shoe heaven... and none of them would fit. I was going to have to quietly buy some replacements in my size and use those. If Konstantin had a favorite pair he liked to see me in, I was in big trouble.

The clothes were less of a problem. They’d fit, if maybe a bit tightly on the bust. I’d just need to work up the courage to wear them. Christina seemed to like low necklines or high slits, or both. And then there was an entire section devoted to lingerie, each matching set neatly arranged on a hanger together with packs of expensive stockings. Am I really going to wear this...for him?

“How’s it going?” asked Calahan in my ear. “Find anything useful?”

I quickly left the closet and started searching the room. “Got his laptop,” I said. It was on a table next to a vase of flowers and I stared at the scene for a few seconds, my eye for detail kicking in and noting how the laptop was angled and where a few fallen petals had fallen onto it. I powered the machine on but just like Calahan, I was stymied when it asked for a hardware key. Without that, we weren’t getting in.

There was a tiny crack on the landing outside the door. Shit! I powered off the laptop and angled it just how it had been, carefully replacing the fallen petals. I had time to take one step away from the table before—

The door crashed open and Grigory stood there, glaring at me. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing!”

Grigory marched across the room and grabbed me by the upper arms. I felt my insides turn to water. “Stop playing games!” he snapped.

I’d been right: somehow, he knew I was an imposter. I screwed my eyes closed in fear. He was going to tell Konstantin and then the FBI would find my body floating in the harbor—

“Three weeks!” he snapped. “You call him, but not me. And then downstairs, you make me watch the two of you....”

My eyes flew open. What?!

He grabbed my face in both hands. “God, I’ve missed you.”

And then his lips were on mine.