“What do you think I’m saying, Spiker?”
His head cocked to the side. Then he dropped back against the couch and scrubbed his face with his hands. She was scared of his expression when he dropped his fists.
Spiker’s hands threaded into his hair, and he shook his head. Finally, he locked eyes with Vanka. “You’re telling me that was you?”
She nodded.
“The guy everyone calls Robin Hood—” He jumped to his feet, apprehensive and angry, and gestured to the empty glass table. “All those files. The reports. The analysis that you pored over, that was you?”
She continued to nod.
“What the hell were you thinking?” He threw out his hands. “You could’ve been killed—” Spiker stopped cold. She could see the puzzle pieces falling into place. “Your parents were murdered.”
Tears burned and brimmed in her eyes, and she nodded.
His fury and understanding turned crestfallen. “You never told me.”
The weight of his disapproval threatened to be her undoing. “No.”
Spiker stared at the table as if he could still see the reports she’d neatly piled, and when he looked up, distrust dulled his eyes. “You scouted those while working with me?”
Vanka couldn’t bear his reproach, but she kept her chin up. “Yes.”
Spiker crossed his arms. “You didn’t trust me?”
A tear spilled down her cheeks. “It’s not that, and I do.” Another tear. She hated that he questioned their bond. “I’m telling you now.”
His lips pressed into a thin line. “What kind of faith do you have in me if you couldn’t tell me that you moonlight as . . .” He lifted his hands and stared at the ceiling. “Whatever the hell you are.”
“I am sorry.” Her voice broke. “I didn’t want to hurt you—”
“You could have been killed! Do you understand that? I don’t know what the hell you’ve been doing, how the hell you pulled this shit off, but you could have been dead, somewhere that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t get to you. Do you get that, Vanka?”
She nodded.
“Do you?” he roared, then caught himself. His chin dropped. He pinched the bridge of his nose, adding in a hoarse whisper, “If something happened to you, it would kill me.”
Vanka couldn’t stay away. She tucked herself against his chest, needing his arms to wrap around her and keep her close. Spiker cocooned her to him and repeated, “It would have killed me.” His lips pressed to the top of her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“My parents . . .” A sad smile formed on her lips. She pushed herself out of Spiker’s embrace and pulled him back to the sofa. “When I was a child, I thought of my parents as superheroes. They knew everything, and they tried to teach me that too. I didn’t go to school like normal kids—no one taught me the birthday cake rule, just manners.” She quietly laughed. “They didn’t just teach me to appreciate the arts and history; they made sure I understood ethics. They wanted me to know how unfair life could be.” She paused and recalled how passionate they had been. “They were teachers and activists, and one day, they were tired of playing by the rules that so many in power chose to ignore. And that’s when the heists began.”
His forehead furrowed. “They found stolen pieces and returned them?”
“More or less,” she agreed. “That wasn’t easy before the internet. Nan was their primary researcher and one of their best friends. They had a fourth person on their team. His name was Osman, and he was just as close to my parents.” Vanka swallowed hard and cleared her throat. “Osman was Nan’s first husband.”
Spiker blinked, taking it all in. “What happened to him?”
“Dead, I hope.” The bitter words hung between them like a scathing canyon. Vanka couldn’t recall Osman. She’d been too young when everything had gone wrong, but time hadn’t lessened her hatred for the bastard. “At the time, we were living in New York City, but they were working on a project out of Paris. Unbeknownst to my parents and Nan, Osman reached out to their target and negotiated a deal very similar to modern-day hackers and ransomware.”
“He betrayed them.”
She nodded. “In exchange for a tidy sum, Osman shared the heist details.”
Spiker didn’t have to ask what happened next. He seemed to already know how the story would end, though not the duplicitous details that had shaped how Nan would raise Vanka. She swallowed hard. “If there was a lesson for Osman to learn, it would’ve been to ask more questions.” She squared her shoulders and kept her chin steady, as if stabilizing her posture could help with the treacherous blow. “Their target didn’t fortify and protect their illegally acquired possessions. They simply arranged for their premeditated, cold-blooded murder.” Her voice trembled. “All to protect an aristocrat’s art collection.”
There was nothing Spiker could say. He reached for her cheek. His thumb swiped the damp, fading path that a tear had left as though erasing evidence of her pain might alleviate the hurt.
What had happened before—the secrets she hadn’t shared—had been hard for both of them, and he understood her timing. Love didn’t stand a chance without the truth. They had to, in the great words of Sun Tzu, sweat more during peace, and bleed less during war.
He cupped her chin. This was the work they had to do. Spiker would accept her past and what he hadn’t known. She would believe that he would never hurt her.
Vanka dropped her chin and pressed her lips into the palm of his hand. The touch reached into his soul. He loved her more than he wanted to take his next breath.
“I never told you about my family or what we do.” Her voice was as quiet as misting rain. “I never told anyone.”
Thanking her for that trust seemed entirely too trite.
“From the day Nan became my guardian, she ingrained in me a distrust.” Her eyes lifted to his. “It was to protect me.”
He understood and pulled Vanka to his chest. He had never felt anything so strong and vulnerable in his life. “I will never hurt you.”
“I know.” She smiled against his chest and eased back until she had his eyes. “I’ve always known that.” The corners of her lips twitched. “I think Nan knows that too. I didn’t realize it at the time, but bringing you to the library was the equivalent of bringing you home to meet my mum and dad.”
He laughed. “I think she liked me.”
“No kidding.” Vanka blushed and laughed with him. “She wasn’t subtle.”
“There’s no being subtle around you.” He moved her onto his lap, so they were face-to-face. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He smiled at the lack of caveats. There was nothing she had to explain, nothing more he had to say.
Vanka slipped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes as if she were absorbing their connection. He touched his lips to hers. The kiss melted her to him and fanned the ravenous spark that now always hummed. He needed more.
His tongue touched hers and worked her mouth open to his. She tasted like heaven, warm and giving and entirely his.