“Bring Maddok, and it’s done.”

He took Lila’s arm, walked out. One of the security guards stood beside his car. He handed Lila her purse, opened the passenger door and remained silent as Lila got in.

She didn’t speak, barely breathed, until they were through the gates and speeding along the road beside the high wall.

“You need to make that call, and I . . . Could you pull over for a minute? I feel a little sick.”

When he veered to the shoulder, she shoved the door open, stumbled out. She bent over, closed her eyes as her head spun—and felt his hand on the small of her back.

“Take it easy.”

“Just need some air.” Something fresh, something clean. “He’s worse than she is. I didn’t think there could be anything worse, but he is. I don’t think I could’ve stood another five minutes in that room, in that place. It was like suffocating.”

“You could’ve fooled me.” But he could see it now that she’d let down her guard. The light tremors running through her body, the pallor of her face when she lifted it.

“He would have killed her himself, right there, right in front of us, if it would’ve gotten him the egg. And he could’ve walked away, snapped a finger for some servant to clean up the mess.”

“She’s the least of my worries.”

“We would never have walked out of there if you didn’t have what he wants. I know that. I know that.”

“He’ll keep his word. For now.”

“For now,” she agreed. “Did you see his face when you showed him the pictures? He might’ve been looking at God.”

“It’s one of his.”

She let herself lean against him, closed her eyes again. “You’re right. He’s not crazy, not the way I imagined, anyway. He believes everything he said, about the Romanovs and bloodlines. All those beautiful things, placed so precisely behind glass. Just for him. Just to own. Like the house, his castle, where he can be tsar, surrounded by people who’ll do whatever he tells them to do. Any one of those pretty boxes means more to him than the people who do his bidding. And the eggs, they matter most of all.”

“We’ll finish it, and he’ll have nothing.”

“That would be worse than death for him. I’m glad. I’m glad it’ll be worse for him. When he put on those stupid gloves, I wanted to lean over and sneeze in his face, just to get a reaction. Except I was afraid someone would come in and shoot me.”

“You’re feeling better.”

“Much.”

“I’m going to call Alexi, just in case the cops didn’t get the transmission.”

“Okay, I’m going to check my purse, the car. They had plenty of time to install a bug or a LoJack.”

She found the tiny listening device inside the glove compartment, showed it to Ash.

Saying nothing, he took it, dropped it, crushed it under his heel.

“Oh! I wanted to play with it.”

“I’ll buy you another.”

“Not the same,” she muttered, then dug a mirror out of her purse. She crouched beside the car, angled the mirror. “If I trusted absolutely no one, and someone had one of my gods, I’d . . . and there it is.”

“There what is?”

“The tracker. A LoJack. I just need to . . . I told Julie white’s not practical.” She stripped off the jacket, tossed it inside the car. “Have you got a blanket in the trunk? I really like this dress.”

Fascinated, he got the old bath sheet he kept in the trunk for emergencies, watched her spread it, then, armed with her multi-tool, scoot under the car.

“Seriously?”

“I’m just going to disable it. They won’t be sure what happened, right? Later, I can take it off, see how it works. It looks like a really good one to me. They work differently—or have different ones for classic cars like this. I’d say Vasin’s security team’s ready for anything.”

“You want to change the oil while you’re at it?”

“Some other time. There, that did it.”

She scooted out again, sat up, looked at him. “He thinks we’re stupid.”

“We’re not only not stupid, but I’m smart enough to have a woman with her own tools who knows how to use them.” Taking her hand, he pulled her to her feet. “Marry me.”

She started to laugh, then revisited the head spinning when she realized he was serious. “Oh, God.”

“Think about it.” He caught her face in his hands, kissed her. “Let’s go home.”

Just an impulse of the moment, Lila assured herself. A man didn’t propose to a woman who’d just disabled a LoJack planted by an obsessed criminal with delusions of tsarist grandeur.

An impulse, she thought again, because their part in this whole convoluted, bloody and surreal nightmare was essentially done.

Undercover agents would keep the rendezvous in Bryant Park. As they took Jai Maddok and Vasin’s “representatives” into custody, Fine and Waterstone, in conjunction with a joint task force with the FBI, would arrest Vasin. Conspiracy to murder, murder for hire topped the bill.

They’d managed to bring down an international crime organization, with hardly more than a scratch.

Who wouldn’t feel a little giddy?

And nervous, she admitted, pacing the bedroom when she should’ve been checking her web page, working on her book, updating her blog. But she just couldn’t settle down.

People just didn’t go from meeting—and under horrible circumstances—to mutual interest, to sex, to love, to marriage all within a matter of weeks.

But then, people didn’t generally work to solve murders, discover priceless objets d’art, fly off to Italy and back, and step into a vicious spider’s web to trap him in it.

All while essentially finishing a book, creating paintings, having really great sex. And faux painting a bathroom.

But then, she liked to keep busy.

How would they deal together when things slowed down to normal? When they could just work and live and be?

Then he walked in. He’d taken off his suit jacket and tie, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Tousled hair and those X-ray eyes. He looked the artist again. The artist—what he was—who made her yearn for things she’d never believed she wanted.

“It’s set,” he told her.