It's not cold outside, duh. It's L.A.; it never gets truly cold here. However, after the pulsating heat of the party, the breeze touching my burning face is just what the doctor ordered.

"Come on, Ryan, where do you live?" my wife nags.

I squeeze her elbow to my side and say nothing, squinting down the wide driveway to see if the limo is coming. A yawn comes on, and I let it out with gusto.

"Don't strain your jaw," she says.

"Never a moment's peace with you."

"Ha! What do you need peace for, Ryan?"

She's a live wire. An asp and a live wire. No matter what I compare her to, it always ends up an attractive thing. Dangerous, yet attractive.

Boy, am I a delusional fool or what?

The fucking party was a perfect demo of what Naz was born to be. A glam wife who knows what's what, keeps her teeth shut and spawns the next generation. A woman who is schooled on what to do while the husband is in jail, how to conceal serious money, how to side-step the moral norms, all those lovely soft skills of the mafia wife. There was a room-full of women like that inside. Scali's turning my once girl-pal Bryn into one of them, and it can't be stopped now.

A glimpse inside Naz's suffocating love affair is enough to get it why she swam against the current and wanted to be something else. Can't say that proving herself the bigger thug than the boys seem like a worthy life goal either. To me, that is. To her, it can be different.

What do I care? I tug my bowtie with the arm that's not tangled with Naz's, suddenly short on air. The ridiculous thing strangles me. Should I rip the buttons off?

Her fingernails scratch my thumb. "Stop trying to force it. It's like the Chinese finger trap, so you're only making it worse. Here..."

The fabric, both the white of the shirt and the black of the tie, releases its grip on me under the feather-light touch of her fingers. "Just look at you, wasting these soft wifely skills on me."

"You're very welcome, Mr. Bond."

Naz and Luca would have devoured each other eventually. I should have left them to it, and I didn't.

Against my better judgment, the red-hot anger flashed through me when I saw her with Luca. I hated him for so long my reaction shouldn't have been visceral. I should have expected him come at Naz. But for a second, or half-a-second, or a tenth of a second, her vulnerability messed me up.

Was it in the curve of her neck, the tightening of her fingers? Was it a twitch too brief to describe, imperceptible without my training in reading people's body language?

Whatever it was, it triggered me. I charged in, not thinking, not analyzing, nothing. I had to save her from Luca's grabby hands, and that was it. Stupid, fucking idiot.

Our limo finally rolls to a stop in front of us, and we pile in.

Naz kicks her heels off and leans against me, head on my shoulder, a mass of blonde curls tickling my freed neck. "Where do you live, honey?"

I should elbow her away. Instead, my arm wraps around her, skin and silk moving softly under the palm of my hand. She needs it, the arms to hold her, even though she'll vehemently deny it. I need to hug her. It's not because she's pretty. Luca's actually a more handsome man, than Naz is a beautiful woman. It's the attitude more than the assets, I guess.

Basically, I have no trouble believing that Luca is a vile son of a bitch, while Naz... I'm not all that sure she's a monster.

There, just look at a dreamy smile playing on her lips. Her eyes are shut. Naturally, she can be daydreaming of robbing someone or fucking Luca, but I don't know. I doubt it.

Her curled hip twitches. It's smoothed by the red silk. Two pale ankles peek from under the hem more than before. It brings to mind our first meeting and how her tiny, booted foot teased me. She was showing her ankles just like that. They're so slim, they look fragile next to her hips. Sexy, and more than sexy.

Here it is again, me being a fool. I see vulnerability where there is none. She can kick me in the jaw with that foot. Or use my feelings against me if she spots them. Beautiful they may be, but the asps and the naked wires kill you, if you touch them. They always kill you.

"Naz... Naz? Wake up. What's the story with the treasure? You promised to tell me."

"Later," she says, without opening her eyes. Then she adds, as if it's an afterthought. "Where do you live?"

"Later," I echo her and smile inwardly.

She thinks she's a fairy godmother and a Princess Charming—wrapped up in one—to my Cinderella, when we're driving into a different fairy tale entirely. I don't know which one it is and what our roles are in it. I just know that it's a different yarn.

The rest of the ride passes in silence, save for the jazzy mix the limo driver plays on the passenger stereo. He knows his stuff, so not a muscle twitches in his face when he parks next to my beat-up Wrangler in the parking lot. "Here you go, Sir."

He's so good, in fact, I parrot him when I open the passenger door and hold it for Naz. "Here you go, Ma'am. The carriage awaits."

She shoots me a stern look, but switches the rides without a word of complaint.

There goes the speech I was preparing to unleash. My truck isn't janky or dirty, just well-used. It's just what I need in my line of business: inconspicuous. Then, again, she probably climbed into all sorts of cars, because you can't rely on the drug dealers to lovingly maintain their vehicles. Some of them ain't stereotypical.

By the time I slide behind the wheel, she's already made herself at home. The shade is down, light is on, and she's applying another layer of red glop over her lips.

"Don't stress on my account," I tell her. "I like your lips as nature intended." Like in the gym, when she didn't have any make-up on.

She smooches air with the rosebud of her mouth. "I'll keep that in mind." Then she pops the lipstick's top again for the touch-ups.

Sure, her lips can be fuller, but come on! "Jeeze, if you're that self-conscious, go do Botox. It's L.A. for God's sake."

"I didn't take you for a guy eager to kiss ass."

It takes a second for me to get it. Botox injects fat from ass to plump up lips. Clever. "Ass is better than all the shit they put into the cosmetics. At least it's natural." Plus, I can kiss her butt and enjoy it under the right circumstances.

Haunted by this thought, I start the car and step on the gas. No, I'm not childish enough to hope that the sudden acceleration would jerk her hand to put a red streak across her cheek. If I wasn't driving, I'd even lick it off for her as an apology later. I just... I hated kissing her through all that red plaster.

God, what did they put in my Champagne that my mind is stuck on her? I clear my throat. "It's a long ride. How about telling me about your family's treasure?"

Her blond head nods. "Papa was really excited about it when I was small. Apparently, it's the Diamond Fund of Russia quality, made for some stupid princess."

"Don't fuck with me."

"I'm not. It's that valuable, or at least that's what Papa believes."

She sounds sincere, and so did her dad at the party. Seeing that both Nazarevich and Tangorello families have European pedigrees, they wouldn't pull a nobility scam on one another. They'd leave it for the Midwest Americans.

I rack my brains for a possible provenance. "Nazi's lost hoard then?"

"You're getting warmer." Her ultra-red lips curl into a teasing smile that I only see because I dart a quick glance at her in the rear-view mirror while waiting at the traffic lights.

"If you don't want to tell, then don't."

"Ryan, stop bitching."

"I'm not bitching."

"You are. Non-stop." She rolls her eyes. "But, whatever. You were on the right track, sort of. Right after the Revolution—"

I can't help groaning. "Naaaaz... Don't even try to sell me on a princely family bit by hard luck. Nigeria is where it's at now."

"I would never insult your intelligence--such as it is--with a scam."

We drive in silence, while she's shaking with suppressed giggles. "Okay, Okay," she says once she is over her own wit. "We're not princely, but we're the crème de la crème of the underworld. Great-grandma Sonya belonged to a gang that nicked prime valuables from the struggling new order."

"Didn't the Bolsheviks put a bullet in your head for shit like that?"

Another nod. "Very much so. That's why she didn't travel with her share after the heist."

Naz scrunches her nose trying to remember the details. "Her mates were caught, and, like you've said, executed without a trial. But two of them fled to the South. There, they hid the loot, then escaped Russia through Istanbul before the Bolsheviks seized control."

"Why not take the treasure along?"

"Didn't have a reliable way to smuggle it out without being robbed themselves." She shrugs. "They didn't plan to stay away for too long either. Not many back then predicted that the regime would last."

"Okay." I honestly don't know if it's reasonable or not, but I didn't live back then. "So, what happened in the nineties?"

"What everyone thought would happen in the twenties. The Soviet power collapsed."

I clench my jaw. "I'm thirty-four, Naz. I have a few decades left in me to listen to your story, but faster would be better."

"And..." another smile tugs at her lips. She's enjoying this shitshow of a night way too much. "Someone has survived, like they always do. The rumors circulated that the cache was finally recovered."

"I assume it burned their fingers?"

"Correct. That's when negotiations started to remove the goods from Russia, but before that occurred..." she wiggles fingers in the air and her engagement ring catches the streetlights. Or what streetlights there are in the rough part of town. It gives away a pure brilliant light.

Luca's snide smile looms before my mind's eyes. If she is your wife, why is she wearing my ring? I should have broken the bastard's jaw, and to hell with the consequences.

"I've heard the rest." Once, I smoked a pack of cigarettes to change my voice for an assignment, and I didn't sound half so hoarse.

"Ryan!" Naz sings, "Ryan, Ryan, Ryan... why so gloomy? We won tonight!"

"Right." Just before the tires jump the sidewalk, I force myself to let go of the anger and listen to her. "What did we win, Naz? Enlighten me."

"Papa expected Luca to piss himself with fright." She tilts her head to study my reaction. I wince but have to give the credit where it's due. She cares enough to check if I'm onboard her crazy wagon.

"He didn't, though," I say.

"Almost did." Naz squints out of the window at the street rushing past us. A small crease cuts in between her brows. "Where are we going?"

"Home," I reply curtly. "So, that's it? You're satisfied with Luca almost pissing himself?"

"Oh, no, my darling! I'm just getting started!" She pauses, then puts her hand on my knee. "Just like Papa wants us to. He wants us to beat Luca to the trove and show everyone what a wuss Paulie's son is."

I let her words sink in, despite her hand taking an interesting turn on my thigh. According to her, the aging mobster blessed our mismatched union with the permission to double-cross his hand-picked prospective son-in-law? I don't know about that... But Naz had been raised by Jorah Nazarevich. She knows him better than anyone else. "What makes you think so?"

"The way he laid all the cards on the table in front of us." Naz shrugs. "Plus, Ilya was smiling at me the whole time and gave me thumbs up when you were carrying me away. They want us to tweak Luca's nose for fucking with our family."

"Naz, your father wanted you to simmer down and marry Luca."

"That was before I made fools out of the Tangorello Family." She squeezes my... let's-say-knee, eyes aglow. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

I have to grip the steering wheel to keep the truck from wavering across lanes. "Naz, I'm dangerously distracted." And painfully hard.

"Luca'll get everything that he deserves." She applies more persuasion. "Think of it. In the Caucasus, there'll be no rules. No fucking rules, except the rule of the strong! You and I will wreak havoc there."

"That's not what I signed up for." I slow down to a crawl, because dying in the car crash would put an inglorious end to Naz's sweeping plans. If I could park, roll that silk skirt and fuck her brains out...

Lust and conviction in her voice floats my head. I believe this more than her argument. I've been starved for faith, for good news and for a woman who appreciates me. The moment she'd mentioned going after Luca in the place where we can play a completely different ballgame makes my heart race.

Could it be that I would rid the world of one Tangorello? Or get it on with my wife? Will either change my fate?

"That's what your heart needs," Naz says with even more conviction. I'm not sure if she's factoring the sex in, but damn her for being right.

I need it.

I need success. I need a change. I'm so tired of leading this cowered life. I can't live like that much longer. It's intolerable.

Even taking the slowest lane, my truck rolls into the familiar parking lot by then. I swear, the engine did it on its own. Like an old horse to its stable, the Jeep went back home, because my mind was elsewhere. It still is, struggling to be rational. And climbing out of the gutter.

"Naz, let's sleep on it. Maybe you can make contact with Ilya, confirm your guesses—"

She ignores me, staring out, after opening the truck's door. "Ryan? This is a marina."

"Yes," I reply as yet another smile bends my lips. I was looking forward to this moment before she seduced me with the new hope. "It is."

Naz is still barefoot, so I pluck her out of the Jeep and carry her toward my place. The pair of heels dangle from her hand. She takes in deep breaths that wave her breasts under the silk. Would it be so bad to drop her on the boards right fucking here, pull her skirt up and let go of all pretenses? It's this kind of a night.

Despite the sexual fantasies assaulting me, I make it to the end of the wharfs. There, I set her down on the peacefully rocking dock in front of my home. Fresh breeze comes off the bay, so once out of my arms, Naz immediately wraps herself with hers.

The ocean water laps at the posts below our feet. The stars shine down upon our heads. Los Angeles blazes in the darkness like a giant tangle of Christmas lights. The wind plays with the loose strands of Naz's hair. It tugs her skirts, tossing the silk this way and that around her hourglass figure. She's barefoot and unmolested. But oh my God, is she tempting...

The awkwardness that I haven't felt since my teens gets me. The joke I was preparing for this moment slips my mind. I drink in her face, her arching eyebrows, her crinkling eyes, her insanely red lips while she studies the white houseboat. The light is just enough to make out the dark-blue lettering on her hull, spelling The Layover.

"Love the name!" Naz exclaims. "But, Ryan, darling, you need a bigger boat!"