He nodded.

“So what do you do? Or, I guess I should ask, what did you do?”

“We started out with petty stuff, but we expanded into everything from smuggling to money laundering to backroom gambling. No drugs—that’s our line in the sand. And, once we hooked up with your uncle, we went a bit more high class. He introduced us to the world of art. Including the underworld of art.”

“Wait. Wait, back up. What? Uncle Jahn?” I couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. “Uncle Jahn was tied up with you three?”

“The other way around, baby. Your uncle was our mentor, and pretty much the smartest man I know. That class he taught? He used it as a front. It was a legit class, but if he was working with someone, he’d slide them into the class to establish a reason to be seen together. It worked beautifully, and no one was ever the wiser.”

“How long was he doing it?” I asked. I realized that I’d slid off the bed and was pacing the length of the small room.

“About eight years on the classes, but decades with the smuggling and forgeries and everything else. From what he told us, he started dabbling in art theft when he was about thirteen.”

“Holy shit.” There was a chair tucked in under a small desk. I pulled it out and flopped down onto it.

How could I have not known this man that I’d loved so well? Then I remembered what he’d said about his wives leaving him. Secrets. “Holy shit,” I repeated. My uncle had lived a shadow life that even the people who were seemingly the closest to him knew nothing about. The thought made me sad. Especially since I’d kept so many secrets, too.

“So how close are you to getting out from under all this?” I asked. I wanted him out. I wanted him done. And I’m not sure if it made me a bad person, but I didn’t want him out because of any moral qualms against his criminal past. No, I wanted him out because I knew that Kevin had painted a bull’s-eye on him, and I wanted to deflect that attention.

“Close,” he said, and I breathed a little easier. “You’ve already heard a bit about the problems at Destiny.”

“Larry,” I said, then shivered. “But I don’t know the details. Just that it’s something to do with the girls, right?”

He nodded. “Some used to be prostitutes—don’t worry, we don’t run that shit. And Destiny’s a legit operation, though we do use the facility to launder money.”

I lifted a brow. “In that case, I have to question your definition of legit.”

“Point taken. At any rate, that’s stopping. I don’t want to give up my ownership interest and Cole and Tyler don’t want to go completely clean. So the money laundering operation is moving.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “And I intend to make certain they know better than to ever tell me.”

“You are serious.”

“I am.” He looked hard at me. “I’m highly motivated.”

“I believe you. And I’m glad.” I would still worry about Cole and Tyler, but there was no denying that my primary concern was Evan.

“Anyway, none of the girls turn tricks anymore, and part of their compensation is tuition if they want to go back to school. That has a tendency to piss off their former pimps.” He held up his hand, where the raw knuckles had now completely healed. “We have bouncers and security staff, but sometimes it’s easier to deal with a problem yourself. That was part of our little crisis the other day, too. When Cole pulled me out of the pub.”

I just shook my head, still trying to process it all.

“What?” he said, reaching for me. “What are you thinking?”

“What am I thinking?” I leaned forward and took his hand, then let him pull me out of the chair and back onto the bed. “I’m thinking that I’m worried about you because the FBI is watching. And I’m thinking that not many men could plant the seeds of an empire at fifteen. And not many would break that empire down in order to make sure that somebody else is safe.” I stroked his face. “You’re an amazing man, Evan Black.”

He began to trace the outline of my collar with his finger. “There’s another reason that I’m breaking that empire down.”

“You mean other than Ivy.”

“I do,” he said.

“What is it?”

“A beautiful woman,” he said, with so much heat in his eyes I thought it might burn right through me.

“Really? Tell me about her.”

“She’s exceptional, and she makes me want to be a better man.” I wore a thin cotton button down, and now he started to work on those buttons. “I once said that I was a bad bet. She makes me want to change that. She makes me want a future.” He slipped the shirt off my shoulders. “She makes me want,” he whispered.

I trembled as his fingers unfastened the front clasp of my bra. “Want what?”

“Everything,” he said, and then bent to close his mouth over my breast. I arched up to meet him, relishing his touches. But I wanted more—I wanted him, and I reached down, fumbling with his fly, then shoving his jeans down over his hips.

“Take them off,” I begged. “Please. I want to feel your skin against mine.”

He didn’t argue, and while he peeled off his jeans and shirt, I extricated myself from the rest of my clothes, too.

He slid over me, his body hard against my soft curves, making me feel decadent and feminine. “I want to go slow,” I said. “But no foreplay. Not tonight. I want you inside me. I want to feel you moving inside me until neither one of us can stand it. Please, Evan. I want to push the limit, and I don’t want it to end.”

“Oh, baby,” he said, as I spread my legs and lifted my knees so that he could thrust into me slow and deep. “That’s it,” he said as I hooked my ankles together at the small of his back, my legs tensing in time with his thrusts, slow and languid, then faster, then slow again as he got closer.

He was holding back for me, and the knowledge that he was keeping his own pleasure in check in order to satisfy me was that much more erotic.

“Faster,” I whispered. “Harder.”

He didn’t hesitate, thrusting hard inside me as my body clenched tight around him, as if determined to keep him with me forever. His hands were on my hips, and we were moving together in a joint rhythm that seemed both calm and frenzied even as it grew and grew until finally I couldn’t take it any longer and I cried out his name even as the world seemed to shatter around me.

I was dissolving—I wasn’t anything but sensation—and yet he was still able to hold me, and he thrust inside, deeper and harder until I felt him explode, his orgasm shadowing mine, twining with it to draw us both together as our bodies, sensitive and primed, shook and convulsed and drew every last drop of pleasure out of this moment that we shared.

I gasped, finally falling back down to earth, safe now in the arms of this man. This dangerous man who had made love to me so wildly and yet so tenderly. “Evan,” I murmured.

“What?” he asked, and I opened my eyes to see him smiling down at me.

“I was just thinking how safe you make me feel. It’s a little ironic under the circumstances.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, his expression more serious than I’d ever seen it. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, Lina. You need to know that.”

“I do,” I said, then rose up to brush my lips over his. I settled back. “I’m so happy it feels almost criminal.”

He rolled his eyes, and I laughed out loud.

“You never told me the second thing,” I said, suddenly remembering.

“The what?”

“You said there were two things you had to extricate yourself from. Before your criminal present could become your criminal past. You told me about the stuff still going on at Destiny, but you didn’t tell me the other.”

“No, I guess I didn’t.”

“So what is it?”

“There’s just this one job that we thought was over and done with, but something’s come up lately. Something that could come back and bite us on the ass.”

“Can you fix it?” I asked, suddenly worried.