Then he stops, curls his hands around my waist, and pulls me upright. He encircles my waist and draws me closer to him. Our naked bodies touch and I sling my arm around his strong neck.

‘I’m meeting Stella for drinks tonight.’

His body stills but expression doesn’t change. ‘Want me to get a table for you at the Matrix?’

‘Nah, we’re just going to go to Jamies.’

He raises a soaked eyebrow. ‘Jamies?’

‘You won’t have heard of it. It’s very low rent and a bit of a dive really, but it’s our local and we like it. They play the kind of music we dig.’

He nods. ‘Right. What time will you be home?’

My stomach flutters. We sound like a real couple. ‘I guess around midnight.’

‘Midnight? All right, I’ll be waiting for you.’

The thought comes unbidden. I’m so in love with you, Zane. I hurriedly drop my gaze so he does not see anything he shouldn’t in my eyes. I let my fingers trace the crevice of the scar on his face. ‘How did you get this?’

‘He had a knife and I did not,’ he says simply.

‘What happened then?’ I prompt.

‘I got a scar and he lost his life.’ His voice and face are devoid of any emotion.

Oh God! How can I possibly live in his world? Yet I cannot walk away. Not yet.

‘Do these stars mean anything?’ I ask softly, tracing the blue star tattoos on the front of his shoulders with my fingers.

For a few seconds I think he is not going to answer then he gives a slight shrug. ‘Since you ask I will tell you. They denote the highest distinction that can be reached in Vor v Zokone’

‘What is that?’ I am very curious about his past, but I keep my tone light. This is the first time he has ever offered any information about his past and I don’t want to scare him off by being too insistent or intense.

‘A rough translation would be Thieves in Law.’

I look at him levelly. ‘Thieves in Law?’

‘Vor v Zokone is the elite of Russian organized crime and operates under a very strict code of ethics. Breaking the code is punishable by death. When I got these stars they meant something. Nowadays, a lot of young men have them without belonging to the organization.’

‘Why do you have the same design on your knees?’

‘The stars are worn to declaring an intention never, no matter what the circumstances, to kneel or co-operate with what we call musor or pigs. but you probably know them as the police or government officials.’

‘So you are a member of this elite organization?’ I ask cautiously.

‘I did. A long time ago.’

I stare into his eyes, so luxuriously fringed by thick, wet lashes. ‘You are no longer part of it?’

‘When the Soviet Union collapsed the character of the Russian mob changed. The stupid ones quickly ended up behind bars, the highly connected ones bought up state resources for a song and became billionaires, others looked for new homes far from the motherland to run their often ingenious smuggling operations.’

‘Ingenious?’

He shrugs, the movement careless, elegant and foreign. ‘They were clever scams.’

‘Yeah. Like what?’

‘Like dyeing wood grain alcohol blue, labeling it windshield washer liquid, shipping tanker loads of it back to Russia, un-dyeing it, and selling the stuff as vodka. The goal was to avoid paying alcohol taxes.’

‘I see.’ I say softly. ‘So you were one of those who came to England?’