I’m talking about.”
She shook her head dazedly. “I’m not pretending anything.” He looked as if he’d cut her off, but she hurried to add, “It doesn’t surprise me that you know this. Now that I have a better idea of the extent of your power, it would surprise me if you didn’t know everything about everyone who’s ever crossed your path. What I don’t understand is why Alex would be targeted for assassination for his work. It isn’t as if he’s the first person to ever make a breakthrough in such a field.”
“You really don’t know, do you?” When she shook her head, his teeth made a terrible grinding sound. He clearly hated that he had to explain more than he’d bargained for. “I expected as his research partner and sister, he’d confided in you that he’d discovered tampering at the highest levels in both the private research facility and the IEA to falsify his results.”
The revelation hit her like a punch to her tender gut.
She slumped back, the ever-hovering tears flowing down her cheeks again.
Ivan stabbed a hand in his raven mane, his frown one of realization. “He must have wanted to shield you from it all, must have wanted to expose the fraud without your involvement to protect you. Yet it’s clear he didn’t think they’d decide to silence him forever.”
A sob tore through her even as she struggled to bring herself under control. “H-how did you find all that out when I didn’t even suspect any of it?”
The reluctance to give her information about himself, what had always been his default, tightened his face further. “I have my ways, Anastasia.”
Yeah. That he had. Being called the king of the cyber world must mean he had an ear and an eye, not to mention a hand, in just about everything that made the world go round.
“But if you found out the liquidation plan, why didn’t you warn Alex? Or...did you warn him and he didn’t believe it would come to that?”
“Alex was very careful in covering his tracks as he investigated the culprits and gathered evidence against them. So careful even I didn’t trace it until he requested an emergency meeting with all key players in the project, no doubt to make his revelation. It was just a couple of hours before the meeting when I pieced together the whole thing.”
She bit her trembling lip. “The meeting he told me he’d go to alone.”
“He wanted you away from any possible fallout, which he probably thought would only involve professional setbacks or legal repercussions. It’s clear he didn’t realize how huge this was to those he was going to expose. He didn’t imagine they’d kill to stop him.” His jaw muscles bunched and those emerald eyes grew more turbid. “In the tight time I had, I had two options: alerting the police with an unsubstantiated claim, and only having them protect Alex temporarily if they even moved in time. Or I had to intervene myself, as the one equipped to effect comprehensive and permanent protection. I tried to call Alex to tell him to stay put until I came to extract him. I sent him messages, to no avail. And though I suspected you wouldn’t be with him, I tried you, too. I had no response from you, either.”
“He—he always forgot to take his phone off Mute. I keep mine on Vibrate, but I hadn’t even looked at my phone that morning. I—I was too focused on getting to him before he left for that meeting.”
“I almost went out of my mind being unable to reach either of you so I could warn you.”
“But how did you get to us in time?” This she had to know.
His grimness deepened. “I didn’t get to you in time.”
“You almost did...”
“Almost doesn’t count. I couldn’t save Alex.”
She swallowed another red-hot shard of agony at the reminder. “What I mean is, how were you so close that you reached us so quickly?”
“My Black Castle headquarters, with my apartment above it, is half an hour’s drive from your labs. I came by helicopter.”
He’d been that close? She’d spent the past years thinking he’d returned to Russia, or was flitting around the world, never settling in one place like he’d once said he never would. Had he been that close all along? So near she could have stumbled upon him on the streets?
Maybe she had. Maybe it was why she’d always felt him around her. Maybe he’d crossed her path many times but had remained out of sight.
He went on. “On the way, I saw the GPS signals of your phones next to each other. My blood froze when I realized you were together when you’ve been working in different labs during this phase of the research.”
She nodded, stunned yet again at the extent of his knowledge of her and Alex’s routines and the latest developments in their research, not to mention his ability to track them with such pinpoint accuracy. “I had a feeling Alex wasn’t telling me something important about that emergency meeting so I went to him instead of going to my lab. To see if I could persuade him to let me join him.”
His nod was terse, bleak. “The moment I realized you were together, I knew it would be the perfect time for them to strike. I knew they’d assume what I did, that he’d taken you into his confidence and you had to be eliminated with him. I have no doubt they would have leveled the whole building to destroy all evidence had I not arrived when I had.”
The memories assaulted her, vivid and palpable. She choked as she felt as if she’d been thrown back into the horrifying moments all over again. “I’d just walked into his lab...and before I could say anything to him, they—they...”
Horror and agony filled her throat again, sealing it, cutting off her words, her breath. But she had to ask, had to know.
“I—I saw our attackers fall. Did you...?”
Ivan again looked as scary as he had during those moments when he’d swooped down on her and Alex. “I took care of them.”
“You k-killed them?”
Her answer was a terrifying flare in his eyes. Not only affirming that he had, but also telling her he wanted nothing more than to resurrect them so he could have the pleasure of killing them over and over, this time slowly, agonizingly.
This was an Ivan she hadn’t known, hadn’t dreamed existed. Not the virtuoso cyber entrepreneur or the dream lover. This was a seasoned warrior, a remorseless exterminator. It made her wonder again if she’d ever truly known him.
Not that seeing this lethal side to him upset or scared her. It didn’t even occur to her to be bothered about the illegality of his actions. He’d exacted immediate revenge that she considered just. Had she been able to, she would have done the same.
The need to know what else he’d done burned her. “What else did you do? Besides get us here?”
“I erased every sign of the attack.”
“You removed the bodies?”
His nod was so matter-of-fact it made her wonder how many times he’d been involved in situations like this. It seemed this man she was discovering she knew very little about had dealt with lethal scenarios so many times before, he’d developed an unblinking ability to take ruthless action and had all the resources
