I LAY IN THE DARKNESS, watching the silhouette of his body as he breathed. I had to be sure he was asleep.

My body was still warm and pleasantly achy from the sex. It should have been a happy time, a time for cuddling and closeness. But closeness wasn’t allowed, with Konstantin: just as before, once we’d finished downstairs, he’d brought me up here, we’d shared a vodka nightcap, and he’d laid down on the opposite side of the bed.

What the hell had happened down in the dungeon? I’d glimpsed that other man, the one he tried so hard to hide. A man I really liked.

And now—my stomach knotted—I was going to betray him.

I counted thirty minutes in my head and then very carefully slid out of the bed and crept around the room. He didn’t snore so there was no way to be certain he was out. As I picked up his laptop and walked over to him, I held my breath. I was half-expecting to see him staring right at me.

But as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see his eyes were closed. The covers were around his waist, one arm on top of them, the moonlight making him into a silent, marble statue.

I knelt down on the floor next to him, carefully opened the laptop and—

Shit! The glow from the screen lit up the room like I’d turned on a lamp. It blasted directly into Konstantin’s face and he muttered something.

I slammed the lid almost closed and turned it away, heart racing. I knelt there staring at him, praying….

He didn’t wake. I opened the laptop again, this time facing away from him, cranked the screen brightness right down, and then turned it back. It asked for his hardware key.

I reached for his hand, my own hand shaking. This part seemed like more of a violation than actually looking at his secrets, somehow. The ring was scratched and even chipped in places, as if it had been through at least one war. Glued to the top of the ring, like a high-tech jewel, was the strip of coded electronics he used to unlock the laptop. It was tiny, maybe half the size of a grain of rice. He could have kept it on a card in his wallet or had it made into a shiny, new ring. Why had he chosen to put it on this thing that looked like it came from an antique store?

I just stared at him for a moment in the glow of the screen. In sleep, he was strangely vulnerable: that hard upper lip relaxed just a little and his frown disappeared. How can I do this? This is wrong!

Wrong?! He’s the enemy! If I didn’t find the evidence to bring him down, he would trigger a gang war. All those innocent lives, lost….

I reached for his hand. As soon as my fingertips brushed him, I caught my breath. Every time he’d touched me ran through my head on fast-forward, each one searing hot in my chest before sinking down, heavy and fluttery, to my groin.

I gently lifted his hand and brought the ring to the laptop. As soon as metal touched metal, the laptop unlocked and I was looking at his email.

I carefully put his hand back down and got back into bed, throwing nervous glances at him the whole time. If he woke and saw me with his laptop there’d be no way to explain, no excuse I could come up with. Whatever his feelings for me, he’d kill me.

I hunkered there in the darkness for a half hour, sifting through his emails and….

Nothing. Not a damn thing about any big new deal, or paying someone a quarter of a million in cash. My shoulders slumped and I let a long, silent sigh.

Then the guilt hit me. Was I relieved? I thought of what Carrie had said, just before I went undercover. Had I forgotten who I was? My mission was to bring him down.

I searched harder, digging through archived mail, and finally found a hidden folder where everything between Konstantin and one anonymous person had been filtered. I knew straight away I’d found it. This was the man I’d met at the mall.

The conversation started a month ago. Konstantin told the man he had a job that needed doing. There were no details, just a link to a picture hosted on some website, and when I clicked on it the picture had long since been deleted.

The man said he’d take the job for $250,000. I can do it any week day. 1pm seems to be the best time. But it will need a particular tool - perhaps with your contacts, you could help me acquire it? Again, there was a link to a picture and again, it had been deleted. Dammit! But I had to give them credit, it was a clever system - even if their emails were intercepted, the really important stuff was still hidden.

Konstantin replied saying yes, he could get the “tool.” And that he’d send a woman to deliver the money. “It’ll be in a box wrapped in red gift wrap. Don’t discuss things with her, she’s just the courier.”

Thank God I hadn’t asked Konstantin about the money. I’d been right, he’d kept Christina strictly need-to-know.

The exchange ended with the date for the job being set as the 18th October, with Konstantin agreeing to send the “tool” the guy needed on the night of the 15th. I shut the laptop down, slipped out of bed and put it back where I’d found it, then got back between the covers.

And it was over. I’d done it! I’d got a lot more information on when this thing was happening, even if we still didn’t know what the job was. Carrie would be happy. And I’d gotten away with it: Konstantin hadn’t woken up. I knew I should be elated or at least relieved.

But all I felt was bad.

I stared at Konstantin’s back and thought of him living here in the mansion by himself, with the appearance of a relationship but no actual warmth or love. Making these plans alone, not trusting even Christina enough to share them with her. If I didn’t bring him down, he’d take over the entire city..., and when that day came, he’d have no one to share the victory with. It was heartbreaking. I’d never met anyone so utterly isolated. What the hell happened to him?

I fought the urge to reach out and touch him.

He’s evil. He’s the enemy.

So why did betraying him feel so wrong?