Chapter 21: Nothing Sweet on the Pier

Nika's POV

I folded the cardigan in half, and then in half again.

I laid it on a bollard at the head of the Ninety-fifth Street pier.

It was only wool, and I was sorry to set it down.

Behind the glare of six pairs of headlights, car doors opened.

The harbor boss walked out into the light with fifteen men fanned behind him and his napkin gone.

Under the hanging lamp I could see every one of them.

Nobody in that line was relaxed.

Some had been in my yard on Saturday night, and the rest had heard about it.

"Miss Rostova," said the boss pleasantly. "I wondered if you would walk out."

"I wondered if you would follow him."

"The old man is my business, and the son is the old man's. You are a courtesy I did not expect."

"I'm sure you didn't."

At the end of the pier Viktor Draganov spoke for the first time.

"Take her," he said. "She is the one you want."

"The Ghost, with a price on her head. Take her, and let my son go."

I almost laughed.

Luka drew a long breath beside me.

"You were going to give her to them," he said. "To the men you hired to kill me."

"I was going to save you, Luka."

"You offered me up in the yard, Papa. You put a gun to my head."

"I was making an arrangement."

"I know," said Luka. "I read the ledger."

He turned his back on his father, which I had never seen him do.

He looked at me, and he said very quietly, "May I stand in front of you?"

I stared at him.

He had never asked me anything in twenty months.

He had told me, and I had agreed, and we had both called it love.

"Stand beside me," I said.

His mouth did something complicated.

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