He left Lukas to his equipment and stepped outside for a smoke. He had no doubt that Madison had retreated to her office and would leave out the back when she was ready. He thumbed his lighter and cupped his hands around his mouth, before expelling a long sigh, as if he had been holding all that smoke for the entirety of their encounter. Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders, but it was inevitable they would begin to edge back up as soon as his thoughts turned toward the missing evidence.
Maxim. He must have stolen the note somehow when Vlad wasn’t looking. Had the drunkenness with the broken and repentant confession all been for show? Had his own brother played him like a Stradivarius violin?
What he wouldn’t give for another meeting with his dear sibling. It was almost enough to make him wish he hadn’t been so quick to change the locks.
6
“Careful with that!” Madison exclaimed.
“Sorry, Miss O’Connor.” The mover, a kid who couldn’t have been long out of high school, reached up to tip his baseball cap, which caused him to relinquish his grasp on the box. Madison dove forward as it leaned, catching it before it slipped and fell to the floor of the apartment hallway.
“Careful!” She tried to keep her voice level—at the very least below a shout—but it was proving as difficult for her as not dropping anything was proving for her movers.
This is what came of trying out new services. If she thought the old company was bad when it came to handling gallery purchases gently, then this lot was even worse when it came to handling her personal property. At least she could console herself in the fact that she didn’t own anything especially nice… and if she did, she was certain to find it in pieces by the end of the day.
The men didn’t appear to be listening to her. Two of them loitered by the entryway to the stairs, their arms crossed and decidedly not filled with boxed items; a third stepped out of the nearby elevator and nearly dropped the chair he was carrying when he noticed something fall out of his left pocket. The two by the stairs erupted into rough gales of laughter when everyone watching in the hallway realized it was a joint.
Madison’s face burned. Just what was she paying these people for? The move into her apartment was going to take all day unless—
“Get the hell out of my way,” a low, measured voice warned from the stairwell. “And get that van unloaded in the parking lot in the next hour.”
“What?” one of the loiterers questioned as he turned. “Who the hell do you think you—?”
Unfortunately, Madison already knew the answer to that question. She watched as the two men sprang away from the tall, ominous figure filling the entryway, surprised that they didn’t yelp their terror like two frightened dogs dismayed to discover their master had just come home. Vlad stepped from the landing into the hallway, seemingly nonplussed by their reaction and unwilling to repeat his order. His bright blue gaze flashed down the hallway as he looked for more obstructions, finally alighting on Madison herself. Her stomach gave a startled twist as their eyes locked; she might as well have been riding a rollercoaster that just dropped out from underneath her.
It was an unexpected feeling, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Not by a long stretch.
“Madison?” The cold edge to Vlad’s voice warmed with his recognition of her, although he didn’t sound any less confused than she felt. The cluster of gawking movers quickly amassed themselves back in the elevator and disappeared behind the closing doors. Somehow, Madison felt more confident now that her belongings would be unloaded in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, it had once again taken the particular charisma of a blond-haired mobster to motivate the men at her disposal.
“Today’s my move-in day. I had to reserve the elevator.” She had no idea why she was babbling about the elevator to the tall, too-familiar man standing before her. “Vlad, you… live here?”
“I live in that unit.” He nodded to the door directly beside hers. He was dressed casually again today in a plain V-neck and jeans, and he carried a bag of groceries in his arms. Madison could plainly see the full sleeves of his tattoos now, and the fact that the midnight-black ink seemed to cover more muscle than his pale flesh did. What would those arms look like wrapped around her, contrasted with the milk-white plane of her naked stomach, her breasts?
“No… no way,” she said, shaking her head once to clear it of the invading image. Her suspicions about the work he commissioned at the gallery came crashing back now with a vengeance. “Are you surveilling me?” she demanded.
Vlad’s eyes dropped from her face to rake her figure. Her question may as well have been a self-fulfilling prophecy, Madison realized too late. She folded her arms across her chest, trying to obstruct his view, but knew it was a lost cause. He seemed like he could see right through her clothes.
“I might ask you the same,” Vlad said, “considering I was the one living here first.”
“I knew it,” Madison muttered to herself. “I knew I shouldn’t have moved into this building, sight unseen, with only a blueprint to guide my decorating decisions. All right, let the seeing commence.” She moved away from him and reached for the handle to his apartment.
“Inviting yourself over already?” Vlad sounded amused. The door didn’t give beneath her hand as she had half-expected; she heard the rattle of a ring of keys and stepped back as Vlad unlocked his apartment for her perusal.
“If you really live next door to me, then your apartment is as small as mine,” she deduced. “I need ideas on what to do with the space.”
She didn’t know what she expected. She supposed her number one assumption was that a son of the mob would not be living in such a low-cost building. Maybe a part of her still thought Vlad was putting her on for his own amusement, but the fact that his key turned effortlessly in the lock proved her wrong. If he really did live next door, then surely his apartment would be furnished lavishly, expensively, hybridized by technology and rare antiques bought and paid-for by a resume of crimes Madison couldn’t even begin to quantify. Maybe she expected to find a dark room; a jungle of wires; a tree of glowing computer screens displaying various rooms in her family’s art gallery. Maybe she expected a table of half-assembled illegal arms and an open briefcase full of money.
She didn’t expect to find Vlad’s apartment so… empty.
“You can’t live here,” Madison muttered as she gazed at the solitary armchair in the rugless room. She took in the lopsided window curtains; the single water stain on the side table; the empty bottles of vodka littered around the lonely chair. “Can anyone?”
“You know, you’re at your most insulting when you aren’t trying to insult me at all,” Vlad observed. He deposited the bag of groceries on his kitchen counter and turned, crossing his arms. He appeared to be considering Madison like she was a new feature he wasn’t sure he altogether liked installed in his living room.
“Boy, you really take the lone wolf thing seriously, huh?” Madison said as she turned a slow circle, hands finding her hips as she studied her surroundings. “I guess it’s kind of romantic. You must consider yourself a prince in exile to live like this.”
“My home is not a gallery for you to critique,” Vlad expressed. “I’m not a wolf, or a prince, and I certainly don’t need romance in here.”