“Aside from the obvious?” He lifted a brow to indicate the hot mess of our relationship. “We need to discuss a certain painting I saw at one of the bratva offices today.”

Ideally, this was where I would have scrunched up my brow and feigned complete ignorance. However, his words were so unexpected, all I could do was struggle to keep my desperate panic from showing on my face. My heart rate doubled almost instantly, but I refused to let my breathing reflect its extra exertion. I kept my face impassive and my body totally motionless aside from perfectly controlled breathing. “I’m not well versed at Russian art but go ahead.” The retort wasn’t half bad, and I gave myself a mental high five. Not that it mattered. In every other respect, I was a deer sighted by the hungry wolf, and my chances were slim to none.

“I assume since the artwork was yours, you’d be very familiar with it.”

“And what makes you think the piece was mine?”

“It was a painting of a pile of skulls. The same pile of skulls I watched you working on that night I came to talk to your father. The same skulls you were so worried about me seeing when I told you I’d watched you paint.” His detached air heated with accusation as he laid the groundwork for his claims.

I shook my head and pulled out my phone. “Is this what you saw?” I thrust my phone forward, showing him an image of a painting. “It’s called Pyramid of Skulls by Paul Cézanne. Yes, I was painting a lookalike, but people do that stuff all the time! It’s like seeing a Monet or van Gogh knockoff at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I don’t know why you’d think my painting would be with the Russians. Just because you’ve got an active imagination doesn’t mean I’ve done anything wrong.”

His eyes perused the image, then narrowed as I attempted to argue my way out of the conversation, but he never made a move for the phone. He eased off the wall and slowly stalked toward me, causing me to retreat backward.

“For the past seven years, it’s been crucial for me to hone my instincts and listen to my gut. You know what my gut is telling me right now?” he asked in a rumbling, seductive tone.

My back pressed against the opposite wall as I shook my head, unable to form a response.

“It’s telling me you’re full of shit.”

My nostrils flared as I attempted not to act outraged. “I suppose it’s your word against mine.”

A wicked glint sparked in his eyes as the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Not exactly, Sofia, baby. If you don’t want to tell me the truth the easy way, we’ll just have to do it the hard way.”

The hard way? What did he mean?

Nico would never hurt me.

At least, I didn’t think he would. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. “What are you talking about?”