The Promise (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 2) by Bethany-Kris (fiction book recommendations .txt) 📕

“Jimmy is a lot of things but nice for the sake of being nice is not of them. And I’m not surprised. You have the potential of being good at everything—you only have to try.”

Nothing he said was untrue, but it still stung a little to say it. He should have been in Vermont teaching Karine to shoot skeets over the lake.

“How are you?” she asked, then, not giving him the chance to respond before she added, “I feel like whenever we talk, I just end up monopolizing the conversation. It’s always all about me.”

Right.

“Because you’re what matters, Karine.”

She gave a little sigh. “You haven’t told me anything about how things are going there.”

He preferred to keep their conversations light because he had enough on his mind already. Not that he expected her to understand.

“I don’t want to talk about things that aren’t important,” he settled on saying. “I want to talk about you. Besides, there are some things I just ... can’t discuss. You understand, don’t you?”

Karine was quiet for longer than he liked before finally saying, “I do understand.”

“But it’s not easy, right?”

“You said it, not me.”

Roman laughed darkly, and scrubbed a hand down his neatly trimmed beard. “So you know though, just because I’m not giving you all the details of my day-to-day life right now, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you.”

“No, I know that, too. I just ... everything sounds scary and complicated. I figured I should at least ask, you know?”

It was complicated, but he wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

“Why do you feel that way—has something happened there, Karine?”

It took her a second to respond.

A second too long.

“I’ve just overheard some things. That’s all. Mostly the guys talking amongst themselves around here. I heard one say Leonid was acting as the boss in Chicago. I don’t understand what that means. What about ... my father? What’s happening?”

Fuck.

Roman quieted—he didn’t know what to say. Well, shit, he would be having a word with the bulls to make sure they were careful about what they said to each other. Especially when they thought no one was listening.

Clearly, someone was.

He didn’t want Karine overhearing anything else. Every piece of news she learned would come from his mouth alone. This was fucking bad enough.

“Things sound dangerous, Roman,” Karine told him, her tone turning shy when she added, “I just want everything to be over ... so you can be here with me again.”

“Me, too, but I can’t make the world move faster, Karine.”

“Funny.”

Roman arched a brow. “What is?”

“It definitely feels like you make my world go faster.”

Maybe so.

It just wasn’t the same thing.

Unfortunately.

• • •

Marky dropped him back off nearing midnight at the Astoria Hotel where he’d been staying the last two nights, and they had spent most of the day driving around doing fucking nothing. Roman was imprisoned in his own city. A place he had once felt was his kingdom had become a constant reminder that he wasn’t free to do as he wished.

The cloud of the FBI and the Chicago bratva hung over him after he’d said goodbye to his friend and headed for the hotel’s entrance, but Karine wasn’t too far from his thoughts, either. A few more nights and he was going to move to a different, random location. That was the plan so far.

Roman intended on heading to the bar first before he went up to his suite. He wasn’t doing much drinking in public, but he planned to bypass the wait staff bringing him up a bottle. Why not get it himself?

Drinking himself to oblivion seemed like a good way to get his mind off things. Even if it was just another way to deflect his own feelings. Roman had come to learn he didn’t really deal well with his own pain. No matter the reason for him feeling it, he just wanted to bury it.

However, his plan came to a screeching halt when he walked into the lobby and found his father waiting there. Demyan stood with two men whom Roman knew as lawyers the family had on retainer. Affiliated men who knew the cost, and benefits, of defending criminals. If his father had lawyered up, it could only mean one thing.

The law was somehow involved.

“Say as little as you can,” Demyan opened the conversation when Roman walked up.

Trouble had arrived.

He nodded at the stoic, sharp-dressed lawyers literally on standby next to them. “What’s going on?”

“There are two FBI agents waiting in your suite.”

“And you just let them go up there?”

“I gave them the key for the room, actually,” Demyan replied.

He started walking in the direction of the opening elevator, followed on his heels by the lawyers. So, Roman had no choice but to follow them, too, getting more pissed off with every step he took after his father.

“Do you want to tell me what the fuck this means?” he called, barely below a shout, at his father’s back.

Roman was done being keeping calm.

“It means that you’re going to have to meet with the two bastards, but it doesn’t mean you’ll be talking to them.”

Ah.

That said a lot.

Clearly, the agents hadn’t given his father a choice in the matter.

“I thought you had it under control,” he said, stepping in beside a scowling Demyan on the elevator.

“I did have it under control. For over two weeks. It’s time you met with them, and shut them up for at least another few. I don’t like it, but it was going to happen eventually.”

Roman brushed a hand through his hair in frustration while the others packed into the elevator together. The lawyers stepped in before one of his father’s bulls followed them in, too.

“My other man went up with them to the room,” Demyan explained.

“Say nothing, or very little. They have nothing to make you talk, anyway. If they had any proof, they wouldn’t be demanding an informal chat.”

The lawyer who offered that nice piece of information while the elevator climbed floors earned himself a