“The threat was very real.” Dmitri took another step closer to me. “I told you I mended fences with my brother. At first, I did it because you obviously revere family, and I wanted to show no rifts in mine.” A united front is a powerful thing, no? “But Aleks was of great assistance in those cartel negotiations.”

Because Aleks was a mafiya vor. “The business matters that were crucial to you . . .” Dmitri had gone to his brother—hat in hand after decades of anger—to save my dad and my family.

“I paid the kingpin off, promising even more would come, but I asked him not to inform you that your debt was satisfied.”

Pete said, “Creating a sense of urgency.”

Dmitri nodded to him, then turned back to me. “I confided to Aleks my plan to win you. He alone understood I couldn’t learn charm and that courting you in a traditional fashion would end in failure. We both knew I could only hide my . . . limitations—and my obsession with you—for so long.”

His sexual limitations. Because people who dated had sex.

“You knew I would pull a milk-cow.” The first time I’d told him we couldn’t sleep together, he’d seized on it.

He inclined his head.

“Did Maksim and the others know about me and my family?”

“No, not until the morning after you met everyone. He and Vasili, his security head, ran a check on you over the night. Your efforts to hide your background would’ve been effective, but there is nothing those two can’t find.”

Benji raised his hand. “Wrong time to ask if I could chat with them?”

Dmitri looked receptive, but I glared at my brother, and he shut up.

“Maksim came to me the next day,” Dmitri said, “to break the news that you were a con artist, from a family of them. I admitted I was running my own con. He believed you would end any relationship we might have once you found out. To him, my hopes seemed doomed. My family has not visited us or called you because none of them wanted to lie to you—or reveal my plot before I could confess it to you.”

“How did Lucía take the news?” She’d been targeted by a man who’d used con tricks.

“She was fearful I would lose you as well. She’s been giving me tips this month.”

I worried my bottom lip. “Why not wait longer? You told me you weren’t ready.”

“Your badger games accelerated my plans.” He raked his fingers through his hair, even more tension stealing over him. “I didn’t want you seducing other men! So I burned your marks. But investigating each one was time-consuming. Texting Nigel as his scorned wife was easy; discovering her private number in St. Barts was not.”

He’d investigated them all? I grasped for my sense of indignation. “Why let me agonize over asking you for money? You knew I considered fencing my ring.” The one still comfortably parked on my finger.

“And I was silently willing you to turn to me instead. You believe the ring is a symbol. When you decided to trust me, I had hope you were keeping me as well as the ring.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You were testing me? That’s why you reminded me I could walk with the money at any time.”

Nod. “I was certain of you from the beginning, but I wanted proof for anyone who might doubt your intentions toward me.”

“Like your family.”

Slow shake of his head. “Like you.”

I swallowed. “Would you ever have come clean about everything you did?”

Another step closer. When had he gotten within a few feet of me? “I told you I would reveal all my secrets once you revealed yours. Explaining what I’d done would have been a lot easier—after you disclosed what you and your family did for a living.”

Good point. Again.

“I never lied, Vika.”

The grifter in me had to applaud his smoothness; it could be argued I simply hadn’t been asking the right questions. I would try to now. “Is there anything else you haven’t told us that I would like to know? Are there any more secrets?”

“Da. Since I first learned your address, I’ve had one of my men watching over you. When I wasn’t.”

I knew it! I couldn’t decide what level of creepy that was.

“You are the most precious thing to me in the world; how could I not protect you?”

When he put it that way, creepy seemed a bit extreme.

“In fact, each of you had a detail until I was satisfied the cartel danger had passed completely.”

I gazed over all of my family, lingering on little Cash. Dmitri had safeguarded each of us when we’d needed it most.

As if he was already a member of our pack.

He parted his lips to say more, then hesitated.

I shook my head warningly. “Spit it out.”

“The cartel was embarrassed to have been swindled. They wanted to make an example of your father.”

My gaze shifted to my parents. Mom’s nails dug into Dad’s arm. How close she’d come to losing him . . . He covered her hand, expression grave.

My lips moved wordlessly. Instead of having this conversation, I could be putting flowers by a tombstone right now, sick with the knowledge of how much my Dad had been tortured.

That was the checkmate.

Dmitri turned to Karin. “You should know the father of your child spies on you. Every Tuesday and Friday when you take Cash to the park.”

Karin clutched her son closer, her face lighting up.

Dmitri added, “But also outside of the, uh, camera house.”