“Should we get out of here?” she whispers seductively in my ear.
“Woman,” I snarl, shifting so she falls onto the chair beside me. “You just interrupted your superior.”
Anatoly raises his hands with an indulgent smile. “If a pretty girl cannot interrupt me, who can? I am done anyway, my boy. Emily is waiting up for me.” He rises to leave.
“Well?” Alena whispers, sliding her hand up my thigh. “Seeing as it’s just the two of us … You could even take me home. Back to your place.”
“No,” I say at once. “If we leave, it will be to a hotel.”
She makes a catlike whining noise, but knows better than to argue the point. She knows I am not ready—will never be ready—to invite her into my personal sanctuary. I feel nothing for her except the pulsing at the base of my manhood.
But it would be good to forget, just for a little while.
“Come on, baby,” Alena breathes, tugging on my shirt.
She seems distracted this evening. Usually she throws herself at me as though her life’s goal is to make me love her, eyes burning into me, tugging and sighing and moaning. But now she is glancing at the door. And then she compensates by being far pushier than usual, her hands tightening to fists on my clothes.
“Come on.”
I grab her by the shoulders and shove her back onto the bed. She falls with a giggle, though it sounds somehow off. I do not know Alena as well as she would like, but my senses have been honed through years of filthy, bloody work.
Something is wrong here.
Or is it perhaps that the night has made me paranoid? Fyodor and the treacherous game of politics that is leadership in the Bratva, Damir and his stomach-churning desires to forge alliances with racist monsters, the remnants of the Italian mafia still nipping at the edges of my territory… it’s enough to drive a weaker man insane.
But I was born for this.
Alena tilts her head up at me, trying to look cute. It is like she is playing a part. But of course she is. She has been playing a part ever since we met—loyal fuck toy, mindless distraction.
So why is there a pit in my belly?
I ignore my gut instinct as I climb on top of her. We throw ourselves into the foreplay, but again there is something amiss in Alena’s moaning. It is even more overdramatic than usual.
Then, just as we are about to start having sex, she gives me a little kiss on the cheek and stops us.
“One second, baby,” she says. “I’ve got this new toy I want to try. Do you mind?”
Before waiting for an answer, she slides from beneath me like a serpent. She makes toward her bag. My breath catches in my throat; my gut churns.
I tell myself to relax. Surely, I am wrong. Merely a man on edge, imagining monsters under the bed when there is nothing to fear.
But when she veers for the door and flings it open, everything I suspected presents itself in cold, savage reality.
I leap to my feet and pull up my pants, cursing myself for a fool. My pulse is pounding in my throat. My whole world has shrunk into one question:
What is on the other side of that door?
When Radovan steps through with the pistol, my heart almost stops.
But I don’t have time for emotion. There is only raw survival, or death. Nothing more. So I force the sorrow down into my gut.
If I am going to die here tonight, I will do it as a man.
Alena disappears behind Radovan’s broad back, shielding herself.
“You two make quite the pair,” I say calmly.
“I told you I didn’t have any wits,” he says, sounding almost sad.
But that doesn’t stop him from raising the pistol.
I charge. Bang. The room erupts as the gun flash winks. He fires again and lava pours into my shoulder, pain flaring.
“Traitor!” I roar, throwing myself on top of him.
Alena batters my back with balled-up fists as Radovan tries to wrench the barrel into my neck to get off a shot that will end my life. I wrestle with him, my muscles straining so hard that veins bulge on my forearms. I knock him with a quick elbow. His mouth fills with blood. He makes a groaning sound as I finally get ahold of the gun.
Alena smashes a glass over my head.
I stumble.
Radovan leaps for the gun.
But it is too late. I fire right between his eyes, killing this man who has been loyal to me for years.
He crumples back, eyes rolling into the back of his head. Blood seeps into the carpet.
I turn to find Alena diving at me with a knife.
“No!” I roar, raising the gun. She doesn’t stop. Maybe she loved Radovan; maybe she needs the money from whoever is paying for this hit job. Something like grief mixes with the fury in her face.
I make to drop the gun to wrestle the knife from her, but then Radovan twitches behind me, not quite dead. Men never die as quickly in real life as they do in the movies.
Mayhem consumes us and I end up firing three more shots: one into Radovan and two into Alena’s belly.
“Shit,” I mutter, standing up as Alena slumps on top of the big brute. My shoulder throbs in agony.
I glance down at them as Alena bleeds to death. I wonder if I should call the cleanup crew. My chest is heaving in shock and white-hot rage as blood pulsing from my shoulder stains my shirt.
But I can’t call the crew, because that would mean letting the Bratva know about
