A question with so many answers. I’d stayed away for her sake, for my sister’s sake, for my own sake, for many years. I told myself it was for her protection. Because as an eighteen-year-old, I’d had no way to help her, to keep her safe from my uncle. I couldn’t save my sister, either, so I’d had to play by his rules.

I couldn’t have gone against him with the might of the organization at his back. And then her father…I couldn’t even let my mind go there. My gut soured as I glanced up and saw a picture of her with her dad on the wall. A little kid smiling straight ahead on Charles’s shoulders. She was in a striped blue and yellow top and shorts. Her hair was in twin braids dangling over her shoulders. The smudges on her face turned up the corners of my mouth. Even back then, she hadn’t minded getting her hands dirty. My gaze drifted back to her dad. The look on his face, one of pride and love. I dragged my eyes away when it got too painful to stare for a second longer.

When I saw her picture in the newspaper at that house, splattered with the blood of yet another guy who’d fucked his life up, something I’d been trying to escape for a long time smacked me right in the face: she was it. She was the lifeline I’d needed back when we first met, and she was my lifeline right now, literally leaving her mark on my skin.

“There’s nothing keeping me there anymore. His hold on me isn’t what it used to be.” Elena would be on a plane to the US soon, and I had made enough friends and strong enough connections to weather the fallout of replacing him.

That seemed to satisfy her for the moment. She worked in silence for a long while. Every time I opened my mouth, the words evaded me. This was not my usual way with women, but she’d always tripped me up. Her flirting was never based on my family or what I could get her. She was about me. And I was all about her. She made all the crazy shit in my life fade away.

When I was with her, nothing else existed. Until it did. Until the real world came banging on the front door with a flashlight and the barrel of a gun in our faces. And leaving her behind had been the only way to help her. Then the world I’d been hiding from came up real fast.

I looked around at the rest of the walls. They were covered in portraits of her tattoos. There was nothing telling me they were hers, but from the vibrant colors to the artistry in each one, I knew they were all hers. Her talents were ones I’d known she had. I was glad she got to use them the way she did. Too good to be stuck on someone’s wall. Her art needed legs. It needed to move and breathe and live.

She stretched, pressing both of her hands into her back.

“We can take a break whenever you are ready,” I said, shifting in my chair.

“That’s usually my line,” she said, rubbing the back of her hand. “It’s been a long day. What do you say we call it a night and I’ll see you back here tomorrow?” she said, snapping her gloves off.

I nodded. I didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to have to spend the night away from her. She wrapped my shoulder in plastic wrap, and I tugged my shirt back on while she cleaned up her tools. After she finished, she kept pressing her thumb onto her palm. It must have been cramping after her intense work.

“Here. Let me help.” I held out my hand, and she eyed it warily.

“Help how?” She took a tentative step closer to me.

I caught her elbow and positioned her between my opened legs. With a skeptical look on her face, she set her hands in mine, and I ran my hands over hers, the roughness of my fingers sliding along the back of her smooth hand. A look of confusion fell over her face, and I pressed my thumb into her palm, just under her thumb. Moving it in small circles, I massaged that area. I glanced up at her, and she bit her lower lip, her head tilted back.

I pressed deep into her flesh, kneading out the knots and tightness from her work on my throbbing shoulder. I could easily ignore the pain if it meant I got to get my hands on her. I stopped to move to the other hand, and her head snapped back down.

“Don’t you dare stop.” Her eyes were sharp with a warning like I’d threatened to take away her favorite toy. The energy buzzed between us, transferring from my body to hers with each touch. It traveled up my arms and spread throughout my whole body. From the way her breathing changed, she felt it too. It was undeniable. We were so good together. It almost hurt.

“I was only switching to the other hand.” I traced along her palms and changed sides, pulling her chair around to the front of me. Without question she sat down and rested one hand on my thigh. Not the best idea for me. It was pure torture, her hands always so close to my skin, so close to my body, but a barrier between our skin.

I pressed harder and deeper into her flesh, working down her delicate fingers. She groaned, and her head lolled back again. As I massaged her, she leaned closer to me. The outsides of her thighs rubbed against the inside of mine, and the bulge in my pants was only partially hidden by my jeans. Watching her relish the massage, I’d show up and do it for her every day.

Using both my hands, I pushed just above her wrist and her knees dipped. Another moan ripped from her throat. I repeated the motions, moving from hand to hand. Every time I stopped, she’d glare down at me. Sometimes I stopped just to get her to do it. This was the most fun I’d had in a long time: massaging the hands of a woman who inflicted skin-searing pain and torture on me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Her shoulders were relaxed, and she almost looked on the verge of sleep. I threaded my fingers through hers, tugging on them. Her eyelashes fluttered as she stared at me. The look in her eyes much like the one I’d seen before. The one that told me what I felt wasn’t one-sided, that her aversion to me wasn’t as complete as she pretended it was.

I kept our fingers like that. Mine threaded through hers. Her pounding pulse synced with mine, with her caged by my legs. She was so close I could reach out and run my fingers along the side of her face, tucking her hair behind her ear. No flinch. No jump. No running away from me. The urge to drag her to me and swallow every moan she had to give was nearly overwhelming.

We were frozen, our hands intertwined, no sounds in the room other than our breathing, both coming out faster and louder than before. I reached up to pull her to me, unable to beat back the need any longer, when my phone vibrated loudly on the metal tray. We both jumped as the sharp sound cut through the electrified air between us.

I cursed under my breath and grabbed my phone. She disentangled her fingers from mine. Before I could silence it, messages began rolling in. Something was going on.

Sergei: Don’t make me come look for you.

My blood ran cold, and I sent him a quick message. Exactly what I didn’t need, him combing the city searching for me. It seemed my evening with Dahlia was coming to an end far too soon. Always too soon.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dahlia busied herself straightening things even though she’d already cleaned up as I threw on my coat and stepped out of her studio. With one last glance over my shoulder, I forced myself out of the shop and into the crisp, quiet air of the middle of the night.

* * *

“Where the fuck have you been?” Sergei bellowed the minute I stepped through the doorway. His crystal tumbler was filled to the brim.

“I was out.” I leaned against the far wall and crossed my arms over my chest. Alexei sat in the chair angled toward me. I raised my eyebrow at him, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly. If he didn’t know what was going on, that meant trouble.

“Your darling sister and her bodyguard have gone missing.” Anger spewed from him, and I could barely hold back my grin. The slightest upturn ticked on my lips before I smothered it. “Where is she?” he shouted, pointing a finger at me and then Alexei.

“We don’t know.” Alexei leaned forward in his chair. “I’ve told you this twenty times already. And what does it matter if you can’t find her? She’s not a prisoner. She’s our little sister.”

“What have you two done?” I wasn’t sure how much he knew. Was he fishing or did he know the truth?

If she was gone, that meant she’d gotten her visa. All part of the plan to get her here as quickly as possible. But we needed confirmation.

“We haven’t done anything.” I pressed off the wall and stalked toward his desk. “If she’s gone somewhere, maybe she needed a break. She’s graduated from university. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you two are up to,” he said, grabbing the knife off his desk and stabbing it into the dark wood. The office door flew open, and Igor and one of his other lackeys came in, standing shoulder to shoulder like they were meant to intimidate us. Alexei raised an eyebrow.

“Uncle Sergei, I can’t believe you would ever doubt the two of us after all this time. You brought us here as orphans with no one else in the world to take care of us. We have always held the utmost respect for you. We would never go against you,” Alexei said, prettying up the ugly feelings he had underneath. Sergei never understood that. The sincerity of Alexei’s words calmed Sergei the slightest bit, and then he set his sights on me.

“I’ll ask you once again, where have you been?”

“I was out visiting an old friend. That’s all.”

He motioned with his head, and Igor and his sidekick approached me. Before they could take a step closer, I reacted, landing a solid punch directly to his throat and digging my fingers into the spot on his shoulder where he’d been shot. The punch was enough to bruise and serve as a reminder to him not to ever think he was able to take me on. He yelped and fell to his knees with both hands wrapped around his throat as he tried to catch his breath.

Meanwhile, Alexei got his sidekick in a choke hold. My brother always had my back. Always. Igor let out another wheezing breath, gasping while grabbing his damaged shoulder.

Many people took Alexei for granted or overlooked him because he was not as imposing as me or some of the other men in the bratva. But he could hold his own, and his speed was unmatched, as well as his marksmanship.

“Uncle, let’s not play games. Elena is missing. You think we’ve had something to do with her disappearance. Did you truly think Igor or his friend would be able to get this information out of us? I thought we were family. If you wanted to see my phone, all you had to do was ask.”

I walked past the incapacitated men and slid my unlocked phone across his desk.

He yelled in Russian to the two men he’d brought in here to intimidate us to get out. They stumbled from the room, Igor shooting a glare my way.

“If you ever hope to beat me, you’d better be sure to bring a gun,” I called after him in Russian. They slammed the door behind them. Sergei shook his head, the disappointment clear on his face. He kept his gaze on me when he picked the phone up and scrolled through it, tapping on the screen a few times before he made a disgusted sound and threw it back to me. I caught it against my chest and slid it back into my pocket.

“If you pull a disappearing act on me again, I will find you. And I think I might have found a new piece of information to motivate you,” he said, his heated glare pointed right at me. Had he seen Dahlia in the paper? Did he have her back in his sights? I kept my jaw from ticking. “Now, we need to find out where your sister is.”

“Give her a few days. I’m sure she’ll turn up. You know how she can be. She’s with Erik, so she’s safe, right? You’ve always said he was one of your most reliable back in Moscow.”

Sergei nodded absently. “I’m sure she will turn up. One way or another.” He dismissed us both and sat back behind his desk. Alexei shot me a glance. Our hope was that she was on the move, but Erik was an unknown. He was one of Sergei’s most trusted captains back in Russia, which was why he’d been assigned to Elena. Had she been as persuasive as we knew her to be and managed to get him on her side or eliminate him as a barrier to joining us? We could only hope we’d get word soon that she was truly safe.