Sinful Hearts: Chapter 28

This is more.

More than I was looking for or expecting. More than I’ve ever felt I’ve deserved. More than I’ve ever wanted.

More…everything.

That, by the way, is a good thing.

In the darkness of the room, with just the lights of the city stealing in around the edges of the curtains, I watch Elsa as she sleeps next to me.

This is a first.

I’ve never slept—like actual -slept—with a woman before. I guess in the most technical sense, I still haven’t, given that I’m awake and watching her. But I’m about to close my eyes and pass out, and when I do, it’ll be the first time I’ve spend the night with anyone.

I’m strangely okay with that. Actually, I’m a whole fucking lot more than okay with that. If I wasn’t, I’d already be out the door and gone. But leaving her and her bed right now is the last thing I want to do.

Which is a goddamn .

I’ve seen buttoned-up, stick-up-her-ass, tense, business Elsa. I’ve seen the other end of the spectrum, too, when she’s shattering for me, clawing at my skin, and squeezing my cock tight with her sweet little cunt.

This is a new side I’ve never seen before: “at peace” Elsa. I drop my eyes to the woman lying asleep next to me, and my lips curl as I shake my head.

“

?” I murmur, my eyes sliding over her bare shoulder as I tuck a strand of white-blonde hair behind her ear.

I already know what it is that makes her different. I’ve spent my entire adult life losing myself in strangers. Not to find anything out about myself, but to from myself. It was never because of a desire for pleasure and escape.

Rather, it was a need for the obliteration that meaningless sex with numberless strangers brought me. And that’s the part that my family’s always gotten so wrong with their jokes about my personal life.

I’m not a sex addict. I’ve just been trying for the last sixteen years to escape the memory of a room that smelled like chemicals, a woman who tasted like cigarettes and regret, and a brother who . And the blank, black escape of giving small pieces of myself to people who didn’t give a fuck about me as a human was always the easiest and fastest way for me to do that, even if it was only a temporary relief.

But I think I just found a better one. Except it’s not an escape at all.

It’s a cure.

She murmurs, stirring in her sleep only enough to curl her body back against mine as I slide in behind her.

My lips brush her shoulder. My arm encircles her.

Then sleep pulls me under.

When I wake to find an empty bed, instantly, my jaw tightens. The exhilaration of last night, while I watched her sleep and realized I didn’t have to run from my demons anymore, breaks off like a choked breath.

Until I hear footsteps. Until her bedroom door swings open, and a panting, sweating Elsa wearing running clothes comes bouncing in.

She grins, pulling the headphones out of her ear as her eyes land on mine.

“You’re awake.”

I glance at the clock and groan. I am a morning person.

“It’s five-fucking-forty. Why are ? I thought you’d be hungover.”

She giggles, shrugging. “I had Gatorade. I like to get a run in before I get ready for the day.”

“Type A much?”

Elsa grins. “There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want.”

“Is there a kid sister in there, too? Because my pants are still in you dryer.”

Elsa laughs. “She’s on her way to dance class, actually. Help yourself. I’ll be in the shower.”

She steps into the bathroom, closing, but not latching, the door behind her. When I hear the water start to run, my cock thickens against my thigh.

I slide out of bed, but don’t go to the kitchen. I walk into the bathroom, which is already filling with steam. Elsa’s running clothes are discarded in a heap on the floor. Through the steam, I can see her naked body under the spray of the shower.

Coffee sounds good.

I can think of something that sounds much fucking better, though.

She gasps when I open the glass door and step in behind her. She whimpers when my lips crush to hers.

Then she moans when I pin her to shower wall and guide my cock between her legs.

I’m not a morning person.

But I’m pretty sure she could turn me into one.

There’s one thing bothering me about last night. I didn’t bring it up with her at the time, because I was having too good a time with her.

But now, I would very much like to know why Elsa looked so fucking cornered and scared while she was talking to Gavan Tsarenko.

And I’m about to find out.

A blonde woman glances up at me as I step into the lobby of the Russian bathhouse on 78 .

“

”

“Good afternoon,” I answer, tapping into the extremely limited Russian I have. “No, I don’t have an account.”

She smiles. “You are here to see someone then, sir?” she replies in heavily accented English. “We are members only, I am afraid.”

“Yes, I’m here as a guest of Pascha Andreev. I don’t believe he’s here yet, though.”

.

She taps something on her computer, and then smiles at me. “Ahh, of course, sir. If you’d like to wait for him in the lounge—”

“I’d love to unwind for a bit and just meet him in the steam room, if I could?”

This place is ground fucking zero for Russian Bratva business. It was a gamble whether or not Pascha had a membership here. But luckily, apparently he does. Or, did. Or…whatever.

The woman at the desk smiles. “Not a problem, sir. If you’d like to follow the hallway past these doors, your second right will be the locker room, which will lead to the rest of the facilities.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ve got bigger balls than I would have guessed, Drakos.”

I take a seat on one of the tile benches in the giant steam room. Across from me, half-obscured by clouds of fog with a towel wrapped around his waist the same as me, a shirtless, tattooed Gavan gives me a pointed look.

I shrug. “If that’s your way of asking me to take the towel off…”

He smirks, but his eyes stay lethally riveted on me.

“I wasn’t aware you were a member.”

“I’ve been thinking about joining, so I asked for a tour. So far I’m impressed.”

He inhales deeply, rubbing his hand over his jaw.

“I own this place, in case you didn’t know.”

“Fantastic. Seems like that might take care of the sponsorship require—”

“What the fuck do you ,” Gavan growls. “Because I come here not to be pestered by anyone, and for the silence.” He glares at me. “I love my silence, Hades.”

I spread my arms. “Fine. Cards on the table. What do you want with Serj Mirzoyan?”

Gavan smirks. “I think it’s obvious we want the same thing from Serj. But I also don’t think we’re talking about the Albanians right now, are we?”

My mouth thins. “Who the fuck she to you?”

He smirks. “Elsa?”

I want to knock his fucking teeth in for even saying her name. But I restrain myself.

“

,” I hiss.

Gavan shakes his head. “As much as I’d enjoy fucking with you on this, she’s no one to me. She’s a lawyer who happens to work for the firm that I use for most of my legal needs.”

“Then what the fuck do you want with her?”

“Me? I don’t want a from Ms. Guin, actually.”

“Bullshit. Your guy Leo—”

“

,” Gavan hisses quietly, “you should find when taking a fucking steam bath and ask him then. Or perhaps Pascha Andreev, who has so mysteriously vanished.” His mouth twists into a thin smile. “Though I’m extremely curious to find out what it is that’s stopping you from asking directly.”

“Careful,” I growl.

Gavan pulls his towel away just enough to show me the knife in a sheath strapped to his bare, inked thigh.

“Believe me, I’m always careful, Hades.” He flips the towel back down. “And I’m also out of fucking patience and answers.”

I’m only half sure I believe what he just said regarding Elsa. I can also read him well enough to see I’m not going to get anything else from him. But that was only half the point.

The other half was to let him know in no uncertain terms that if he wants anything with Elsa, or even wants to speak to her again, it’s going to be through .

I start to walk out of the steam room.

“Hades.”

I glance back to see Gavan watching me intently.

“This stunt you pulled today is amusing all of . I can appreciate your balls. But don’t mistake amusement for an invitation. We’re not friends, Hades. Nor are we business partners. And we never will be.”

“Does that make us enemies, then?”

He smirks. “If this happens again, I can promise you, you’ll find out quickly enough.”

“Top of the morning, god of Hell.”

Cillian nods, stepping aside and ushering me into his office. He’s still working out of his late half-brother’s office at the Kildare family brownstone on the Upper East Side, though his penthouse apartment is back in Brooklyn—not that far from my place, actually.

But no one meets him there. I got to check out the ridiculously cool penthouse built into the top of an old clocktower overlooking the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges all of once, and that was before he met Una. Since then, to my knowledge, no one’s been invited over.

I guess drinking each other’s blood and fucking on pentagrams or whatever the hell those two get up to demands privacy.

So, yeah, today it’s the brownstone where I’m meeting him. The psychotic, green-eyed Irishman looks me over curiously as we sit on two couches facing each other.

“To what do I owe the unexpected visit?”

I shrug. “Meh. I was in the neighborhood.”

Cillian doesn’t say anything. He just levels that typical slightly-unhinged look of his at me. Which, even if we’re friends now, still has the ability to completely freak me the fuck out sometimes.

I exhale through closed lips.

“Actually, I need a guy.”

“You’ll need to be more specific.”

“A guy who can look into people.”

Cillian’s brow arches. “All right. Friend or foe?”

“Friend. But it’s complicated.”

“And…blonde?”

I glare at him, my jaw tightening.

“Is there something you’d like to say to me, Cillian?”

He tilts his head thoughtfully, sinking back into the couch. “I’d like to remind you that I’m good at reading people. But to answer your question, yes, I have someone. His name is Oren Frey, and he’s good.”

“How good.”

“

. He’s arguably the best. If there’s something to be found, he’ll find it. The man’s a bloodhound.”

I nod. “And what does he need to start?”

“Money, and a name.”

“Good. Can you send me his—”

“You’re you want to go down this road, Hades?”

Cillian’s hand reaches automatically for his pocket before he stops himself, a gritted snarl on his lips. He’s recently quit smoking. Which is great for his health, and pretty terrible for the health of just about everyone around him who isn’t Una.

“I just want some…inconsistencies cleared up.”

“Sometimes it’s best not to go looking for monsters, or to ask questions you don’t want the answers to. I need to ask you one last time: have you truly thought this through?”

Not really. But I need to know. I to know what the connection is between Elsa and the Bratva. It might not actually involve Gavan at all. But it definitely involves Leo.

And I’m tired of wondering if I’m going crazy.

“Well?”

Cillian eyes me one last time before he shrugs. “If you insist.”

He pulls out his phone, and a second later, mine dings with a shared contact.

“Thank—”

“People bury their ghosts and their skeletons for a , Hades,” he growls. “And in my storied and fairly blood-soaked experience, I’ve found it’s best to leave them where they are.”