My eyes are still on Cesar’s grave when I see a glint of something shiny and pointed coming towards me.
I scream as the needle pierces into the flesh of my neck.
No! My baby…
I’m pregnant… my baby…
But I can’t find the words.
The sedative works fast. I feel my legs buckle under the sudden invisible weight that compresses down on top of me.
I reach out—to whom, I don’t know.
I feel my weight being supported by someone, but my eyes are closing and I’m sinking and all the color is fading from the world.
My last thoughts are scattered fragments of pain and loss.
Cesar… my baby… please, no… I can’t breathe… I can’t see… my baby. Cesar. My baby.
“I won’t let you kill me,” I mumble through fat, uncoordinated lips.
The last thing I see is Artem’s cold sneer.
The last thing I hear is his laughter.
“Kill you?” he chuckles. “No, darling, we’ve got something very different in mind.”
15
Artem On A Plane Somewhere Over Southern California
Her eyelashes flutter slightly as she sleeps.
The sedative worked better than I had expected. She needed it, too.
She was visibly shaken, especially at the beginning when I first stormed her bedroom and found her cowering in the bathroom.
Can’t blame her.
Everything she once knew is now on fire.
I’m sitting two seats down from where Esme lies, her chest rising and falling subtly, lost in dreamless, drug-induced sleep.
Esme.
I haven’t yet gotten used to saying the name out loud, but it dances on my tongue, waiting to be spoken.
When my father had first mentioned the name during our final briefing in his office a week ago, it held no meaning beyond the facts of who she was.
“Esme Moreno.”
“The daughter of Joaquin Moreno?” I asked.
“The same,” Stanislav replied. “She is your next mission.”
Something in his tone stuck out to me. Extra gravity in my father’s voice. Extra importance attached to this mission.
I frowned. “You want me to kill some innocent girl?”
“Kill her? No, Artem, I don’t want you to kill her.”
He’d paused just then and looked at me over the tops of the glasses he’d refused to wear for the longest time.
Whatever somberness was in his voice was in his eyes, too. They flashed—dark like mine, and just as cold.
Then he’d finished: “I want you to marry her.”
Even now, those words echo in my head.
I want you to marry her.
The old man had lost his fucking mind.
Marry this girl? This poor wretch, born in the wrong place at the wrong time to the wrong man?
That’s all the proof I needed to confirm that Stanislav’s brain was well and truly gone.
But he showed no signs of that. His gaze was level. His voice was calm.
He looked the way he’d always looked—like the don of the most powerful Bratva in America.
I look over at her now.
One petite little girl seems hardly worth the trouble.
We left dozens of dead cartel soldiers behind us in Mexico. As our helicopter lifted out from the garden, I saw the first flames beginning to engulf her father’s compound.
By morning, it would all be ash.
And here she is, snoozing soundly. Sleeping fucking Beauty.
I frown. Cillian had pointed out earlier that she was shivering in the cold and not wearing much. It didn’t bother me then—I was more focused on getting the fuck out of that godforsaken place.
Now, it does bother me.
I get up and walk towards her. I stand over her and stare down at her body, admiring her beauty begrudgingly.
Who would have thought that fucking bastard, Joaquin, would have a daughter as lovely as her?
She is made of smooth lines and soft edges. She seems slightly fuller than when I last saw her, but I can’t be sure.
Either way, it suits her. Softens her. Makes her cheeks rosy against her caramel complexion.
I remove the coat I’m wearing and drape it over her. She sighs a little but she doesn’t move.
Even her eyelashes have stopped fluttering now. It’s a dramatic shift from the frightened girl I found huddled on the floor of her bathroom.
She still looks just as innocent, though. Just as pure. Just as young.
Looking at her, I get the same feeling as when I dirtied the white tiles of her bathroom with my muddy, bloodstained boots.
Like laying a finger on her—much less claiming her as a wife, the way my father wants me to do—is a crime against something so untouched.
But she has no choice in this.
Truthfully, neither do I.
I find my thoughts drifting to Marisha.
My second wedding will be completely different to the first.
No, this isn’t a real marriage. It’s nothing more than a political strategy. A power play.
What I had with Marisha was real.
This… this is just business.
Yet, even as the thought crosses my head, I know I’m more preoccupied with this woman than I should be.
I flash back to The Siren, the way her thighs had clenched around me, inviting me in.
The way her hands had fallen over my ass, pulling me deeper, begging me for more.
That memory has haunted my thoughts for four months now.
But I can’t afford to be distracted anymore. She was just a random fuck—up until now.
Knowing who she is changes everything.
I make a decision here and now: I won’t stain her. And I sure as hell won’t let her corrupt me.
It’s bad enough that she’s plagued my thoughts for months.
But no more.
She’s a prop. A bridge from the present to the future.
Beyond that, she means nothing to me.
“Everything okay?”
I turn to find Cillian staring at me. His eyes turn to the jacket I have just draped over Esme, but he doesn’t comment on it.
Wise choice—I’m not in the mood for his jokes.
“Everything’s fine,” I reply gruffly. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Cillian shrugs. “I don’t know, you just look…” He trails off without finishing his sentence.
I turn to him with one raised eyebrow. “Are you trying to annoy me?”
He throws me a shit-eating smile. “Nope. Just naturally good at
