MON­STROUS URGES

VEN­OMOUS GODS
BOOK FIVE

JAG­GER COLE

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 Mon­strous Urges
Jag­ger Cole © 2024
All rights re­served.
Cover and in­te­rior de­sign by Plan 9 Book De­sign
Pho­tog­ra­phy by Ren Sal­iba

This is a lit­er­ary work of fic­tion. Any names, places, or in­ci­dents are the prod­uct of the au­thor’s
imag­i­na­tion. Sim­i­lar­i­ties or re­sem­blance to ac­tual per­sons, liv­ing or dead, or events or es­tab­lish­‐
ments, are solely co­in­ci­den­tal.

No part of this book may be re­pro­duced, scanned, or dis­trib­uted in any printed or elec­tronic form
with­out prior writ­ten per­mis­sion from the au­thor, ex­cept for the use of brief quo­ta­tions in a book re­‐
view.

The unau­tho­rized re­pro­duc­tion, trans­mis­sion, dis­tri­bu­tion of, or use of this copy­righted work in the
train­ing of AI is il­le­gal and a vi­o­la­tion of US copy­right law.

Cre­ated with Vel­lum

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 CON­T ENTS

Playlist
Trig­ger Warn­ing

Chap­ter 1
Chap­ter 2
Chap­ter 3
Chap­ter 4
Chap­ter 5
Chap­ter 6
Chap­ter 7
Chap­ter 8
Chap­ter 9
Chap­ter 10
Chap­ter 11
Chap­ter 12
Chap­ter 13
Chap­ter 14
Chap­ter 15
Chap­ter 16
Chap­ter 17
Chap­ter 18
Chap­ter 19
Chap­ter 20
Chap­ter 21
Chap­ter 22
Chap­ter 23
Chap­ter 24
Chap­ter 25
Chap­ter 26
Chap­ter 27
Chap­ter 28
Chap­ter 29
Chap­ter 30
Chap­ter 31
Chap­ter 32
Chap­ter 33
Chap­ter 34
Chap­ter 35
Chap­ter 36
Chap­ter 37
Chap­ter 38
Chap­ter 39
Chap­ter 40
Epi­logue
De­viant Hearts
Also by Jag­ger Cole
About the Au­thor

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 PLAYLIST

liMOu­sIne - Bring Me The Hori­zon, AU­RORA

Mas­ters of War - Bob Dy­lan, Drew Sher­rod, Strange Daddy
Dark Side - Bishop Briggs
fa­vorite - Is­abel LaRosa
Af­ter Dark - Mr.Kitty
Un­holy - Sam Smith, Kim Pe­tras
Do It For Me - Rosen­feld
Scor­pio - Pour Vous
Noth­ing Burns Like The Cold - Snoh Aale­gra, Vince Sta­ples
AN­GEL - Toby Mai
Dirty Mind - Boy Epic
Put It on Me - Matt Mae­son
Make Me Feel - Elvis Drew
Apart­ment - BOBI AN­DONOV
Lose My Breath - Rhea Robert­son
Into the Mys­tic - Van Mor­ri­son
Bad Drugs - King Cav­al­ier, ChrisLee
Daddy - Ram­sey
Fan­tasy - Black At­lass
use me - Makk Mikkael
The Sci­en­tist - Cold­play
Lawyers, Guns and Money - War­ren Zevon
Lis­ten to the playlist on Spo­tify!

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 TRIG­G ER WARN­I NG

Dear Reader,
This book con­tains darker themes and graphic de­pic­tions of past trauma.
The plot heav­ily re­volves around pri­mal/CNC play, im­pact play, and very
rough adult acts of a du­bi­ous na­ture.
The French have a del­i­cacy pre­pared from the or­tolan bunting, a small
song­bird, which is eaten whole. While de­li­cious, the dish is con­sid­ered so
sin­ful and wrong that din­ers cover their heads with nap­kins while eat­ing it.
I would humbly sug­gest keep­ing that tra­di­tion in mind be­fore you start
chap­ter 26.
While these scenes were writ­ten to cre­ate a more vivid, in-depth story, they
may be trig­ger­ing to some read­ers. Please know your own trig­gers, and
read with that in mind.
Thanks for read­ing,
Jag­ger

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 1

TAY­L OR

It’s not what it looks like.

My eyes peer at the dark road ahead of me. Street­lights flicker past, glim­‐
mer­ing over the wind­shield. My hands tighten, dig­ging my nails into the
steer­ing wheel, wreck­ing my new man­i­cure.
It’s not what it looks like.
It’s the ex­cuse that’s the most in­sult­ing part. Not the fact that twelve hours
ago, I came back to my apart­ment in the mid­dle of the work­day to find my
boyfriend, Steven, with his cock down some col­lege girl’s throat. Not the
fact that his bare ass—and hers—were planted on my brand-fuck­ing-new
Restora­tion Hard­ware white sofa. Not that fact that my dream apart­ment,
with the per­fect kitchen and the per­fect views and the per­fect dé­cor, is now
to­tally tainted.
No, it’s the gall of that fuck­ing ex­cuse.
It’s not what it looks like.
Imag­ine hav­ing the balls and the ut­ter dis­re­spect to say that to some­one—to
your girl­friend—in her own fuck­ing home.
Tell me, Steven: ex­actly what could one pos­si­bly be do­ing with their dick in
an­other girl’s mouth that isn’t get­ting a blowjob? What bad, X-rated Sat­ur­‐
day Night Live sketch en­tails you “ac­ci­den­tally” prob­ing the ton­sils of a
ran­dom Kappa Delta Phi sopho­more pledge with your pa­thet­i­cally C-mi­nus
grade pe­nis?
I glare at the road.
Ex­cept, the worst part isn’t ac­tu­ally the ex­cuse.
The worst part is, I don’t re­ally care.
I’m an­gry, yes, but it’s at the to­tal lack of re­spect for my house and my new
god­damn sofa. Not at the cheat­ing.
I’m re­lieved.
Steven was never “the one”. We’ve been dat­ing for close to seven months,
and I can count the num­ber of times we’ve slept to­gether on less than five
fin­gers.
Re­ally.
I could tell my­self that it’s be­cause “de­mand­ing” barely scratches the sur­‐
face of my work­load as an at­tor­ney and man­ag­ing name part­ner at the pres­‐
ti­gious firm my two best friends and I built from scratch. I could say it’s be­‐
cause Steven’s job as a Phi­los­o­phy Pro­fes­sor at NYU—though way less
stress­ful than mine—is just as de­mand­ing on his time and fo­cus.
But blam­ing our jobs is like blam­ing the dog for eat­ing your home­work.
It’s bull­shit.
There’s a rea­son that seven months into a “re­la­tion­ship” with the man who
just cheated on me, we’ve barely ever been in­ti­mate, I’ve never mem­o­rized
his num­ber, and I’m not to­tally sure what his par­ents’ names are.
Steven, like any re­la­tion­ship be­fore him, is just check­ing off a box for me.
Bad-ass ca­reer with cor­ner of­fice? Check.
Gor­geous apart­ment with a claw-foot tub? Check.
Sexy-ass fuck­ing car—a Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabri­o­let; cherry red, ob­vi­‐
ously? Check.
Ap­pro­pri­ately hand­some, but not too hand­some, mild-man­nered boyfriend
with a ca­reer in academia? Check.
Go ahead and tat­too “live laugh love” on my fuck­ing fore­head right now
and crown me Ms. Ba­sic with a cap­i­tal B Girl-Boss. Spon­sored by Pin­ter­est
and some cheap rosé brand.
My mouth purses again. As I leave the Tues­day evening lights of New York
be­hind me and wind my way up the wooded banks of the Hud­son River, my
gaze slips from the road ahead to the phone perched on its dash­board
holder.
In­stantly, the pissed-off thoughts about Steven and his TA dis­re­spect­ing my
couch fade away, quickly re­placed by some­thing…dif­fer­ent.
Some­thing twisted. Some­thing dark. Some­thing…
Sin­is­ter.
Dan­ger­ous and reck­less. De­praved and ex­it­ing.
Some­thing se­ri­ously fuck­ing stupid, and you need to turn around right now
and call Dr. Jes­nick ASAP and tell her to clear her sched­ule be­cause Tay­lor
Air is com­ing in hot for a land­ing with a full cargo of bag­gage.
I glance at the road again, then the phone. My teeth rake over my lower lip
as some­thing heated and deliri­ously dark pools in my core. Be­fore I know
what I’m do­ing, I’m pulling off to the shoul­der of the road, throw­ing the
Porsche in park, and pluck­ing the phone from the holder.
I nav­i­gate to the app, my pulse quick­en­ing as I tap on my cor­re­spon­dence
with him.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
I’m go­ing to make you my per­sonal lit­tle cum slut. My fuck toy.
My pretty lit­tle whore.

My phys­i­cal re­sponse to the mes­sage, same as ev­ery time I’ve gone back in
and re-read it, is in­stant. In­stant and…all-con­sum­ing. My breath hitches.
My skin tin­gles with an elec­tric­ity that curls my toes and makes the hairs on
the back of my neck stand up. My nip­ples tighten to points. Wet heat pools
be­tween my thighs, and when I shift in my seat, I shiver at the de­li­cious
fric­tion of my panties against my core.
I can’t be­lieve I’m do­ing this.
Any of it. I mean, hell, I can’t be­lieve I’m up past nine at night, and it
doesn’t in­volve work. Much less cur­rently driv­ing to fuck-knows-where in
the woods forty min­utes out­side New York to play dark, dan­ger­ous games
with a man who says things like “I’m go­ing to make you my per­sonal lit­tle
cum slut”.
I shud­der again, my teeth bit­ing my lower lip even harder.
This is in­san­ity. And yet, here I am.
Most girls’ moth­ers tell them the ba­sics of how to sur­vive in the world.
Don’t talk to strangers. Be aware of your sur­round­ings. Don’t put your­self
in a bad sit­u­at­ion.
I think it’s safe to say “don’t meet strange men from the in­ter­net in the
woods at night to play out pri­mal fan­tasies with them” is prob­ab­ ly some­‐
where on that list, too.
At least, I as­sume most girls’ moms teach them those things. Maybe mine
never got around to it. Or maybe she did, and I’ve just for­got­ten it, same as
I’ve for­got­ten her and the rest of my child­hood mem­o­ries—all gone in an
in­stant, like a bad Ve­gas magic trick.
*Poof*, there goes the rab­bit!
*Poof*, there goes the nine of hearts!
*Poof*, there goes Tay­lor’s en­tire mem­ory from be­fore the age of eigh­teen!
Don’t for­get to hit the craps ta­ble on your way out, folks!
But this isn’t the time to ru­mi­nate on lessons my mom may or may not have
taught me. I’ve al­ready come this far, and there’s no back­ing down now.
Not be­cause I can’t. I don’t want to.
At least, I’m rea­son­ably sure I don’t.
Which is why I’m still driv­ing up the Hud­son, the Porsche’s head­lights il­lu­‐
mi­nat­ing the dark road ahead, fol­low­ing the map di­rec­tions to the agreed-
upon lo­ca­tion.
Where he’ll chase me. Where he’ll catch me.
Where he’ll do what­ever he wants to me.
This time, the shiver that rip­ples up my spine is a mix of fear and ex­cite­‐
ment. It’s ad­dic­tive as fuck. So is the sprin­kling of anx­i­ety and the throb of
ner­vous en­ergy.
Need­less to say, none of this is “me”.
Not Tay­lor Crown, at­tor­ney-at-law, who just had a cover piece pub­lished
about her in The Le­gal Jour­nal, de­tail­ing her rapid rise through the ranks of
the le­gal world of New York, up to and in­clud­ing found­ing Crown and
Black along­side Al­is­tair and Gabriel.
I’m the girl with the Chanel skirt suits and Louboutins. The one with the
metic­u­lous sched­ule in­volv­ing the four AM alarm so I can hit the gym and
get my jog­ging in, wall-to-wall client and board meet­ings, and the stand­ing
lunch reser­va­tion at Per Se. The one with the per­fect car and the per­fect
apart­ment with the per­fect white couch and the cut­lery that matches the
kitchen fix­tures. The girl with the per­fectly vanilla boyfriend.
I know I’m all those things, be­cause I’ve been all those things, robot­i­cally,
for a decade.
But tonight, I’m go­ing off-book. Off script.
Off the fuck­ing rails…
It started ear­lier, af­ter Fumi came into my of­fice and im­me­di­ately no­ticed
the black look on my face af­ter my in­ad­ver­tent lunchtime peepshow in­volv­‐
ing Steven and the co-ed. As usual when it in­volves even the slight­est whiff
of my per­sonal life, I clammed up. It works on most peo­ple. Not Fumi.
Even­tu­ally, she dragged it out of me. Af­ter that, it was a quick es­ca­la­tion
from her call­ing Steven a “baby-dicked piece of shit”, loudly, to us ditch­ing
work a few hours early and go­ing to get cock­tails.
That’s how we got onto the mor­ti­fy­ing sub­ject of my sex life, or rather the
com­plete lack thereof. That’s how Fumi—my good friend but also my em­‐
ployee—bluntly told me I needed to go out and “get good dick”.
And that’s how we got talk­ing about Club Venom.
Venom, which is run by Dante, the hus­band of Gabriel and Al­is­tair’s sis­ter
Tem­pest, is a pri­vate so­cial club that caters to New York’s most pow­er­ful,
wealthy, usu­ally crim­i­nally con­nected, and de­viant. Mix two parts Eyes
Wide Shut with one part Pro­hi­bi­tion speakeasy vibes, throw in a heap­ing
dash of lux­ury and op­u­lence, and stir.
It’s a play­ground for the dark and dev­il­ish. A place where those with spe­‐
cific tastes can come to in­dulge their ap­petites. Ex­cept, to call Venom a
“kink club” is like call­ing Buck­ing­ham Palace a “nice town­house”.
It’s hon­estly like noth­ing else. The guests wear masks. Anonymity is en­‐
cour­aged. Upon ar­rival, you’re in­vited to choose from a se­lec­tion of wrist­‐
bands of dif­fer­ent col­ors, all sig­ni­fy­ing in­ter­est in dif­fer­ent kinks, and high­‐
light­ing if the wearer is a sub or a Dom.
I’m tech­ni­cally a mem­ber, but cer­tainly not for leisure pur­poses. Crown and
Black has built a lot of its client base on the more…col­or­ful types in New
York: Mafia dons, Bratva pakhans, and the like. The type who al­most cer­‐
tainly are mem­bers of Venom. Plus, given the club’s anonymity, se­cu­rity,
and ban on cell­phones, it’s a per­fect place to hold busi­ness meet­ings with
peo­ple who make their money in less than le­gal ways.
…If you can ig­nore the fact that there may be an orgy hap­pen­ing thirty feet
away.
I’ve been a hand­ful of times, al­ways thank­ful for the mask to hide the
heated look on my face when I’m there. Fumi, of course, knows that I’m a
mem­ber for work pur­poses, and sug­gested that it could be the per­fect place
for me to “find some good dick”—as if hook-up sex is what I need to get
over the men­tal im­age of see­ing my couch vi­o­lated so cal­lously.
But that’s a hard pass. Is the idea of go­ing to a place that in­dulges cer­tain
darker fan­tasies ap­peal­ing to me, given my hid­den tastes in said dark fan­‐
tasies?
Yes. Then again, I also think tigers are pretty neat, but there’s zero per­cent
chance of me tak­ing a stroll through the jun­gle look­ing for one.
The de­sires and tastes I have and keep locked down tight and deep aren’t
the sort of de­sires I tell any­one about. Not my friends, never my re­la­tion­‐
ships. Be­sides, mask or no mask, the idea of be­ing rec­og­nized at Venom is
al­most crip­pling for my anx­i­ety.
But then Fumi started telling me about Venom’s new web por­tal: a way for
ex­ist­ing mem­bers to seek each other out out­side the club—specif­ic­ ally,
mem­bers who have an in­ter­est in the sort of ven­omous, dan­ger­ous kinks
that I keep buried un­der the floor­boards.
Mem­bers who want to chase or be chased.
Pri­mal kink.
Some­thing dark and throb­bing teases my core as my hands tighten on the
wheel.
I’m al­most there.
I waited un­til Fumi went to the re­stroom be­fore I snuck out my phone and
checked out this web por­tal for Club Venom. Sign­ing in was easy. I’m al­‐
ready a mem­ber, so I was pre-ap­proved. An­swer­ing some sim­ple ques­tions
about my­self and my pref­er­ences for a part­ner was just as easy, as was
snap­ping a quick pic­ture of me from lips to waist—with a few but­tons of
my blouse un­done to give a gen­er­ous glimpse of the girls—and up­load­ing it
to my pro­file. As was choos­ing a stupid and ad­mit­tedly kind of cringe user­‐
name: “Se­cret­Slut”.
I mean, I’m not. But dress for the job you want.
An hour later when I glanced at the app again, my heart skipped. I had
twenty mes­sage re­quests.
Most of them even had de­cent open­ing lines. Which would be great if I was
on Hinge, or OkCu­pid, and look­ing for a nice din­ner out with a mild-man­‐
nered pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­ogy at NYU with a pen­chant for get­ting his dick
sucked by co-eds on his girl­friend’s new couch.
But, that’s not what I’m look­ing for on the Venom site.
Not. Even. Close.
“Let me fly you wher­ever you want tonight.”
“I want you to be my dirty girl.”
Even a bolder one who had ac­tu­ally clearly read my pro­file and knew what
I was look­ing for:
“I want to chase you, baby.”
I kept glanc­ing at them when­ever Fumi was pre­oc­cu­pied. I even al­most re­‐
sponded to one or two. But then I saw his ini­tial mes­sage, and af­ter I man­‐
aged to pick my jaw up off the floor, that’s who I replied to.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
I’m go­ing to ruin you

This is how I know I’m supremely fucked in the head. Be­cause that, of all
things, is what cap­tured my at­ten­tion. Be­cause Fumi was right: this is what
I need. Not a date. Not an­other boyfriend to tick a box.
I need some­thing raw and real and now.
So that’s how we started talk­ing. No “I want to”. No “would you like me
to”.
“I am go­ing to ruin you.”
A man says the filth­i­est thing any­one’s ever said to me, and I’m in­stantly
all-in? Pag­ing Dr. Jes­nick: we need to chat, im­me­di­ately.
SE­CRET­S LUT
That’s quite the open­ing line
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
It’s not a line, it’s a warn­ing. Here’s an­other: be sure of what
you’re get­ting into if you choose to go any fur­ther with me, or
you’ll re­gret it.

I swal­low as my eyes scan our mes­sage ex­change again.

 SE­CRET­S LUT
Why would I re­gret it?
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
Be­cause I’m not play­ing games. My tastes are…sin­gu­lar…and
dark.
SE­CRET­S LUT
So are mine
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
We’ll see.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
Your safe word will be “Vault”. Un­til you use it, as­sume that I’ll
do what­ever I want to you. I’ll chase you, and catch you, and
fuck you hard and mer­ci­lessly in any hole I choose. We’re not
go­ing to “play”. I’m go­ing to make you my per­sonal lit­tle cum
slut. My fuck toy. My pretty lit­tle whore. Are we con­tin­u­ing, or
not.

I think it was the bor­der­line psy­chotic un­apolo­getic tone. Not a ne­go­ti­at­ion.

A de­cree.
And yes, that pulled a trig­ger in­side of me.
SE­CRET­S LUT
I’m still here.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
For now.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
What are your hard lim­its. Be very spe­cific.

A flush blooms in my cheeks as I read through the mes­sages from a few

hours ago.
SE­CRET­S LUT
No bath­room stuff. No an­im
­ als.

I mean, fine print and le­gal word­ing is my ca­reer. You’ve gotta cross your
T’s and dot your I’s.
 SE­CRET­S LUT
No ex­treme sadism like tor­ture or any­thing. No be­ing tied up or
im­mo­bi­lized. No anal. No other peo­ple in­volved.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
Nope.
SE­CRET­S LUT
Nope??
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
You may pick three of those.

I’d stared at the phone. Fumi was off get­ting us an­other round at the bar.
SE­CRET­S LUT
No, those are all my lim­its.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
Yes, and you get to keep three of them. That’s MY limit. You
have five sec­onds.

I know I could have, should have, just ended the con­ver­sa­tion with Mr.
Con­trol Freak then and there. But I didn’t.
I might still be try­ing to fig­ure out why.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
Four
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
Three
SE­CRET­S LUT
Ok, the first three

No bath­room stuff. No ex­treme tor­ture. No an­i­mals. I mean, of all the

things I listed, those are sim­ply non-starters. I sent the re­ply in a hazy blur,
my skin tin­gling.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
I’m go­ing to en­joy break­ing you, my lit­tle slut.

It’s em­bar­rass­ing how wet I got read­ing that at the bar. Or how much wet­ter
I got when he told me we’d be meet­ing tonight and sent me GPS co­or­di­‐
nates to what I as­sume is his house out­side the city, in the Hud­son Val­ley.
Be­fore Fumi came back with our drinks, I man­aged to send one more mes­‐
sage.
SE­CRET­S LUT
How will I know it’s you?
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
You’ll know I’m near when your pussy starts to get wet­ter

And then the icon next to his user­name went dark, leav­ing me star­ing at that
last line.
Two hours later, here I am.
The car’s GPS says I’m min­utes away from his house, and when it hits me
how close I am to ac­tu­ally do­ing this, some­thing dark and twisted rip­ples
through my soul.
Yes, this is in­sane. But, crim­i­nals though most of them may be, I know for a
fact that Dante vets ev­ery mem­ber of the Club. I mean, it’s not like he’s let­‐
ting in ac­tual psy­chopaths and/or dan­ger­ous mur­der­ers who want to lure
women to the woods and chop them into pieces.
…Right?
The GPS tells me to take the next turn. Up ahead, the main road goes on,
but a side road winds along the hilly side of the river, up into the trees. My
head­lights sweep over the dark, gnarled trunks and over­grown un­der­brush
as my tires no longer rum­ble over pave­ment but a dirt drive­way. The map
says the ad­dress is right up ahead, but I didn’t see a mail­box or any­thing
when I just turned.
The drive­way winds higher and higher up Into the trees. I frown, look­ing
for the lights of his house, or at least a porch light or some­thing. But then
the drive­way evens out to a flat clear­ing in the trees, and sud­denly, the GPS
dings again.
I’m here.
My pulse be­gins to thud a lit­tle faster as I glance ner­vously into the dark­‐
ness sur­round­ing the car.
There’s no house.
No lights.
Noth­ing.
Just dark­ness and woods, and the sud­den feel­ing that I’m in way over my
head. The idea of turn­ing around and go­ing home to read some­thing in­volv­‐
ing my fan­tasy, per­haps with a fa­mil­iar vi­bra­tor, in­stead of in­dulging in
what­ever in­san­ity this is be­comes very, very tempt­ing.
Shiv­er­ing, I pull out my phone again.
SE­CRET­S LUT
I think you gave me the wrong ad­dress by mis­take.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
I don’t make mis­takes.

My throat bobs as my eyes lift to peer into the dark woods next to the small
gravel clear­ing.
SE­CRET­S LUT
I don’t see your house.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
You wouldn’t from here.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
Get out of the fuck­ing car, slut.

Some­thing vi­cious stabs into my chest. Some­thing I know should ter­rify

and ap­pall me. Some­thing that should set off ev­ery alarm in my head.
The prob­lem isn’t that it doesn’t do all those things. The prob­lem is that it
most cer­tainly does, but I’m not leav­ing.
I’m still here.
My hands shake as I cut the en­gine. The head­lights switch off, and a cold
sen­sa­tion fin­ger-walks up my spine as the dark­ness closes in around me.
Don’t do this. Do NOT do this.
My hand ex­tends and grabs the driver’s side door han­dle. My brain screams
at me to stop as I slowly step out with shak­ing knees. When I shut the car
door be­hind me with a dull click, the in­te­rior lights stay on an­other few sec­‐
onds, a lit­tle glow of light to keep the shad­ows at bay just a lit­tle while
longer.
Then they go out.
And it’s just me, the dark­ness, and him.
Some­where.
My pulse starts jan­gling in my ears. My blood runs hot, my core tight­en­ing
as sweat slicks the small of my back.
This is crazy. Be­cause I’m ter­ri­fied.
But the prob­lem is, that’s what I crave. The rush. The adren­al­ine. The dan­‐
ger, and the fear. The quiet throb of ten­sion hov­er­ing in the sky be­fore the
storm breaks.
The feel­ing of be­ing hunted, in that split sec­ond be­fore the hunter pounces.
My phone lights up one more time.
NAPOLEONINEX­I LE
Leave the phone. You have three sec­onds to start run­ning. Af­‐
ter that, you’re fuck­ing mine.

Shak­ing, my pulse roar­ing in my ears, I turn and set my phone and purse
down on the roof of my car. I pull out the mask—we’ve agreed to wear
them, in the spirit of Club Venom—and ad­just it over the top half of my
face. For the first time, I re­al­ize how badly pre­pared for this I am. I mean
I’m wear­ing a fuck­ing Ver­sace pen­cil skirt, Valentino blouse, and god­damn
Louboutin stilet­tos.
In the woods.
About to be chased.
Caught.
And fucked.
Panic and adren­al­ine throb and siz­zle through my veins as I turn to sur­vey
the dark, shad­owy tree line.
Then, it’s like time slows. My spine stiff­ens, and my breath catches.
Wet­ness and heat pool be­tween my thighs.
That’s when I know he’s here.
“Your three sec­onds are up, lit­tle prey.”
The words are rough, growled in a slight Eu­ro­pean ac­cent be­hind me, rasp­‐
ing dark and deep, like they’re com­ing from a black cave. My chest seizes,
my pulse skip­ping a beat as my face goes white. I start to turn, and when I
do, what­ever courage I had left shat­ters like glass.
He’s huge. In­sanely tall and broad-shoul­dered, with a pow­er­ful chest and
thickly mus­cled, rip­pling arms bulging out the sleeves of the black t-shirt
he’s wear­ing with black jeans. But it’s not his out­fit that has my blood turn­‐
ing to ice wa­ter.
It’s the matte black devil mask he’s wear­ing, the bot­tom half open to re­veal
his leer­ing, coldly beau­ti­ful and ter­ri­fy­ingly ma­li­cious smile.
My heart pounds as I start to back away and he ad­vances across the clear­ing
to­ward me.
“You had three sec­onds, my lit­tle fuck toy,” he growls, melt­ing out of the
black­ness like ink stain­ing a sheet. Like a night­mare emerg­ing from be­hind
the open closet door in your bed­room late at night.
“You should have used them.”
He rolls his neck as he leers coldly at me.
“Too late now.”
It hap­pens so fast that I freeze to the spot. One sec­ond, he’s just stand­ing
there, ra­di­at­ing mal­ice and wrath as his cold eyes stab across the dark­ness
into my soul.
The next, he’s ex­plod­ing to­ward me.
Ready to take me.
To catch me.
To de­vour me whole and spit out the bones.
The scream stran­gles in my throat, and I turn, and run.

OceanofPDF.com
 2

TAY­L OR

G et to the trees . Just get to the trees.

For some rea­son, that’s what my brain hooks onto. As if we’re chil­dren
play­ing games, and the tree line is “home”. As if the branches and shad­ows
will save me from what­ever ter­ror is bolt­ing af­ter me through the dark­ness.
But even as I try to run, wob­bling in my heels, I know how vain a hope it is.
Shad­ows won’t stop some­thing that’s just melted out of them.
Re­gard­less, I don’t make it to the trees at all. I take all of four steps be­fore
the scream stran­gles in my throat as a pow­er­ful hand roughly grabs a hand­‐
ful of my hair. I choke on an­other scream as hot pain ex­plodes through my
scalp. He yanks hard with a deft grunt, spik­ing my adren­al­ine as I go fal­ter­‐
ing back­ward.
A mus­cled, rip­ping arm wraps around my chest, yank­ing me against his
hard, un­yield­ing chest. My feet kick at the dirt, as if I’m still run­ning.
But I’m not go­ing any­where.
I know this was planned. I know I chose to be here. But it doesn’t stop the
sheer ter­ror of the vi­o­lent flight in­stinct from ex­plod­ing through my sys­tem
as my mouth opens in a scream of pure sur­vival.
A rough, pow­er­ful hand slams over my mouth. My eyes bulge when I feel
the iron chest be­hind me rum­ble with a dark, grav­elly chuckle.
“No no no, lit­tle prey,” he rasps darkly into my ear. His lips and the scruff
on his jaw be­neath the ter­ri­fy­ing mask brush against the lobe, send­ing shiv­‐
ers of fear and adren­al­ine chas­ing down my spine.
“You’re mine now.”
Some­thing deep in­side me snaps to life. The last shred of my fight or flight
in­stinct erupts. I jab my heel back, catch­ing him in the shin.
It’s like kick­ing a tree trunk. He barely grunts. But his grip loosens just a
hint, and that’s all I need.
I jab an el­bow back, catch­ing him in the ribs be­fore I ex­plode for­ward out
of his grip. My heart lurches up into the back of my throat as I bolt for the
trees again.
This time, I only make it two steps.
I cry out when his sheer size slams into me from be­hind so hard that my
legs give out. I whim­per as I crash to my knees in the dirt, his enor­mous
frame drop­ping with me and en­velop­ing me. His huge arm wrap­ping around
my body. His hand coil­ing around my throat.
And squeez­ing.
It’s not with mur­der­ous in­tent, just enough to spike my pulse and send rip­‐
ples of some­thing vi­cious and cap­ti­vat­ing danc­ing across my skin. Ev­ery
sense be­comes more alive. A ring­ing fills my ears as his thumb drags slowly
up my jugu­lar.
“Caught you, my lit­tle slut.”
I whim­per as his other arm wraps around me, his hand—this one clad in a
black leather glove for some rea­son—roughly grab­bing my breasts. Be­fore I
can fo­cus on that strange lit­tle de­tail, il­licit plea­sure ex­plodes through my
core as he mer­ci­lessly pinches and rolls my nip­ples through the blouse and
my bra, drag­ging a hag­gard cry from my lips.
“I warned you, lit­tle prey,” the mon­ster growls into my ear, maul­ing my
nip­ples as I shud­der against him. “I warned you what hap­pens to lit­tle sluts
who go look­ing for trou­ble in the woods at night.”
I cry out as he roughly rips my blouse open, scat­ter­ing the but­tons into the
dark­ness. He yanks my bra down, let­ting my breasts spill free, bru­tally
twist­ing and pinch­ing my swollen nip­ples again.
“They fuck­ing find it.”
His bare hand tight­ens around my throat. The gloved one twists an abused
nip­ple be­tween his thumb and fore­fin­ger be­fore push­ing down lower, to my
thighs, yank­ing them wide open. He grabs a fist­ful of my skirt, and my
pulse jan­gles as he yanks it up to my waist, ex­pos­ing my panties. I squirm
against him, my breath rasp­ing in the tight­ness of my throat be­neath his
hand. I try and shut my legs, but in­stantly, he slaps my in­ner thigh, bring­ing
a cry of some­thing…wicked to my lips.
Some­thing des­per­ate and achingly needy. Some­thing de­praved and dan­ger­‐
ous.
“Uh-uh-uh, my lit­tle fuck­toy,” he snarls darkly into my ear. His fin­gers play
at my throat he yanks my thighs wider apart from be­hind with the other
hand. “You don’t get to run any­more. This fuck­ing pussy is mine now.”
My eyes bulge, my breath stut­ter­ing to a halt as his gloved hand boldly cups
my slick cen­ter through my panties.
“Whose pussy is this?” he rasps qui­etly, let­ting one sin­gle fin­ger drag up
my lips through the soaked lace.
I whim­per, al­most not even trust­ing my­self to open my mouth to speak.
I’ve had al­most this ex­act fan­tasy for as long as I can re­mem­ber. I’ve
dreamt of be­ing chased like this. Of be­ing forced to my knees and used.
Of hav­ing my con­trol taken from me. Of giv­ing in com­pletely and be­ing ut­‐
terly at some­one’s mercy.
And I re­al­ize now that fan­tasy doesn’t touch re­al­ity. Wet dreams and
fucked-up in­ter­net porn pale in com­par­i­son to the raw power, wrath, and
malev­o­lence throb­bing against my back with the stranger’s hand around my
throat.
His hand slips away from be­tween my pussy lips, reach­ing be­hind him.
When I hear a metal­lic schick sound, my blood turns to ice.
The knife blade gleams in the moon­light as he brings it around and dances
it in front of me.
Holy. Fuck­ing. FUCK.
Ev­ery nerve in my body ex­plodes in panic. Ev­ery brain synapse screams at
me to fight and run, be­cause we’ve left fan­tasy and fucked-up power plays
be­hind and en­tered a world of in­san­ity.
“You have two fuck­ing choices right now, my lit­tle toy,” the man growls
into my ear. “You can say the word you know will end all of this…”
I tense.
“Or,” he snarls qui­etly. My eyes bulge as the knife low­ers, his hand drop­‐
ping be­tween my spread thighs with my knees in the dirt and my skirt hiked
up around my waist. I fol­low the blade with wide eyes, my mouth hang­ing
open in shock as he slowly touches the tip of the knife to my thigh. He
doesn’t cut me, but my skin prick­les to ice as he slowly drags the point up
my skin.
“Or, you can tell me whose. Fuck­ing. Pussy this is.”
He doesn’t speed up or stop. He just keeps drag­ging the vi­cious tip of his
knife higher and higher. I shud­der, but hor­ri­bly, it’s not from fear. My body
isn’t shut­ting down or coil­ing in on it­self to es­cape a night­mare.
It’s com­ing alive with a de­sire so fierce and needy that it scares the hell out
of me.
Sud­denly, the knife reaches the apex of my thighs. My breath chokes to a
halt as he lays the flat of his knife against my wet, needy pussy through my
panties.
That’s when I know there re­ally is some­thing fun­da­men­tally fuck­ing wrong
with me. Be­cause when the dark, vi­o­lent stranger in a devil mask who’s just
lured me to the woods rubs the flat of his fuck­ing knife against my sex, I
don’t re­coil. I don’t scream, or beg him to stop, or use the safe word at all.
I whim­per.
And I get wet­ter.
His chest rum­bles against my back as he chuck­les darkly.
“Such a filthy lit­tle slut I’ve caught,” he growls. His mouth brushes my ear
again. “I’m go­ing to fuck­ing ruin you, lit­tle whore.”
The blade drags up and slips un­der the waist of one side of my panties,
stretched over my thigh and hip.
He flicks his wrist and cuts the lace.
My breath­ing be­comes ragged as he drags the tip across the mound of my
sex, slip­ping it un­der the other side near my hip. An­other flick of his wrist,
and my panties drop away en­tirely.
The whole world fades away as he sets the knife aside and lets his huge
hand boldly run over my bare hip. He drags his fin­gers up and down my
thigh be­fore his hand slides to my stom­ach. His fin­gers splay out as his
hand be­gins to slide lower.
And lower.
And lower.
His fin­ger­tips are a frac­tion of an inch from touch­ing me.
That’s when re­al­ity kicks in. The haze of dan­ger­ous lust and de­mented plea­‐
sure clears enough for my brain to fo­cus for a nanosec­ond.
What the fuck are you do­ing?
I want him to keep go­ing. But at the same time, I know if he does, and if he
touches me—with his bare fin­gers, not a knife, this will have moved to a
new level.
This will stop be­ing a fucked-up fan­tasy, and I’ll have crossed the line into
real de­prav­ity. Be­cause if he touches me, it won’t stop un­til I’m ac­tu­ally let­‐
ting a stranger from the in­ter­net fuck me in the woods.
And some­how, that breaks the haze. Sud­denly, pro­fes­sional Tay­lor—hot-
shot lawyer Tay­lor with the cor­ner of­fice, reg­u­lated sched­ule, re­spon­si­bil­i­‐
ties, and ra­tio­nal thoughts, is back in charge.
Tay­lor, who’s in bed by nine. Tay­lor, who has a bru­tal car­dio rou­tine at the
crack of dawn to­mor­row fol­lowed by a full day of meet­ings.
Tay­lor, who barely even dates and who would never in a mil­lion fuck­ing
years drive to the woods at night to let a psy­chopath fuck her in the dirt
with a knife in his hand and a mask on his face.
“I haven’t even touched you yet,” he growls. “And this messy lit­tle pussy is
al­ready drip­ping at the thought of my fat cock pump­ing it full of my cum.”
His hand around my throat splays out again, his thumb stretch­ing up over
my jaw to drag across my quiv­er­ing lower lip. “I think af­ter I’ve fucked
your sweet lit­tle cunt,” he mur­murs, “I’ll have you clean my cock with
those pretty lips be­fore I take your ass⁠—”
“Vault.”
It’s like stop­ping the tat­too gun when it’s hov­er­ing over your skin. That last
gasp­ing sec­ond of clar­ity be­fore fan­tasy be­comes a re­al­ity you can never
take back.
The sec­ond I blurt out the word, and he freezes with his fin­ger­tips a hair’s
breadth away from touch­ing my clit, I wish I hadn’t said it.
Don’t lis­ten to me. Ig­nore that. Do it any­way. Do what­ever you want.
Fuck me.
Hurt me.
The man stills, kneel­ing be­hind me, loom­ing over me with one hand around
my throat and the other splayed out al­most touch­ing my pussy, my thighs
spread wide, my shirt ripped open.
“You dis­ap­point me,” he growls qui­etly.
His hands drop so rapidly that I flinch and his arms un­wind from around my
body. He stands with­out a word, and I feel a hol­low, cold sen­sa­tion creep
over me as I pull my ripped blouse over my bare breasts and turn.
He’s al­ready walk­ing away.
“Wait!”
The man pauses. His head turns, show­ing me that fear­some devil mask and
the cold, cap­ti­vat­ing glint in one of his eyes in pro­file.
“Wait, I⁠—”
“Too late,” he rasps darkly. “I don’t do sec­ond chances. But feel free to stay
in the woods and see what else might come for you.”
With­out an­other word, he turns and walks away, van­ish­ing into the shad­ows
like a wraith and leav­ing me gasp­ing on my knees.
What the fuck just hap­pened?

OceanofPDF.com
 3

TAY­L OR

I t ’ s not un­til I’m safely in­side my apart­ment, lean­ing against the door I’ve
just locked be­hind me, that I can process what just hap­pened.
What the fuck.
I’ve spent the last hour driv­ing back to the city in a fog, al­most numb. But
now that I’m home, it’s like my lungs open up and I can ac­tu­ally breathe
again. When I do, though, it hits me all at once.
A shud­der rips through my body. My skin buzzes with a ner­vous en­ergy as
my hand drifts to my neck. My fin­gers trace over the places where he
gripped—the ten­der­ness in my throat. My jaw­line. My bot­tom lip, be­fore it
re­treats be­tween my teeth.
I look down at my­self and shiver. My skirt is back in place, but the panties
he sliced off me got lost to the for­est when I stum­bled back to my car af­ter
he left. My blouse is still ru­ined; I drove home wear­ing a suit jacket I keep
in the trunk in­stead.
My heels are dirty and smudged. My hair is a mess.
I’m still shak­ing. From fear? Ex­cite­ment?
Some­thing’s wrong with me.
My pref­er­ence in kinks and fan­tasies are one thing. I’m not sure any­one can
help what they’re into. Some­times I won­der if those dark de­sires have al­‐
ways been there in my head, or if they man­i­fested be­cause of some­thing
that hap­pened to me dur­ing the times I don’t re­mem­ber.
I read about that when try­ing to re­search my own fucked-up thoughts and
urges. The brain is in­sanely com­plex, and ex­pe­ri­en­tial trauma can man­i­fest
as a fetish to a sur­vivor.
The idea that some­thing like that might have hap­pened to me, be­fore the ac­‐
ci­dent, is ter­ri­fy­ing. At times, it used to creep up on me in the mid­dle of the
night to claw at me and ren­der me frozen in my bed. But I don’t re­ally get
like that any­more thanks to the men­tal ex­er­cises Dr. Jes­nick taught me.
The beauty of ret­ro­grade am­ne­sia is that you don’t re­mem­ber the past.
Un­for­tu­nately, that’s the curse of ret­ro­grade am­ne­sia, too.
Ei­ther way, you can’t change what hap­pened in the past. So I choose to live
life look­ing for­ward into the fu­ture.
Yeah, a fu­ture like the one you won’t have if you in­sist on meet­ing strange
men with knives and a pri­mal fetish in the fuck­ing woods, you weirdo.
Shud­der­ing, I pull my­self from the door and head down the hall to the bath­‐
room. I shed my ru­ined clothes as I wait for the wa­ter to warm up, drop­ping
my eyes to my body’s re­flec­tion in the mir­ror.
For a sec­ond, my eyes land on the bruises by my throat and on my in­ner
thighs. My cheeks flush, re­mem­ber­ing his pow­er­ful grip. His strength when
he yanked me to the ground and pinned me there. How even though I work
out six days a week, in­clud­ing a se­ri­ous lift­ing rou­tine, the man who came
for me out of the shad­ows tonight held me fast like my strength was noth­‐
ing.
And god­dammit, that’s hot.
I give my­self one more hon­est once-over as I pull my long red hair out of
the pony­tail I’ve had it in since the drive home. I’m thirty-three, not twenty-
three any­more. But still—cute face, per­fect smile…thank you very much,
In­visalign…slen­der frame, ath­letic build, tall and leggy. And great tits, if I
do say so my­self.
And sin­gle.
Again.
I’m about to walk into the shower be­hind me, when my gaze lands on my
hip, in the small curve where the skin delves down to­ward the apex of my
thighs.
A soar­ing bird—a hawk, maybe—with wings out­stretched, hold­ing an ar­‐
row in its talons, sur­rounded by a thin, cir­cu­lar bor­der.
The whole thing is barely larger than a quar­ter, and I haven’t the slight­est
fuck­ing idea what it means, or when I got it.
Go­ing back­ward, my mem­o­ries lit­er­ally stop at eigh­teen. That’s when the
drunk driver plowed into the side of the car I was in with my par­ents,
killing them and hit­ting the re­set but­ton in my brain.
I’ve tried it all: med­i­ca­tion, elec­tro-ther­apy, rapid-light ther­apy, MDMA,
coun­selling—so much coun­selling—sup­port groups…you name it, I’ve
tried it to bring my mem­ory back. But fif­teen years later, I’ve given up.
If it hasn’t hap­pened yet, it’s not go­ing to. And there’s a beauty in the whole
“ig­no­rance is bliss” thing.
I like the life that I’ve built, and the friends I have. I don’t need to know
what lurks in the shad­ows of that past I can’t re­mem­ber.
Af­ter my shower, I change into comfy clothes and head into the liv­ing room
to go over notes for some meet­ings I have to­mor­row. But the sec­ond my
eyes land on that god­damn white couch, I’m in­stantly flooded with mem­o­‐
ries of its de­file­ment.
Again, I’m not an­gry. I mean, we’re ob­vi­ously over, but I don’t re­ally give a
shit about Steven cheat­ing on me.
But still: there’s no fuck­ing way I’m stay­ing here tonight.
“G ood morn ­i ng , M s . C rown !” Amelia, my kick-ass sec­re­tary, smiles and
fol­lows me into my of­fice.
“Morn­ing, Amelia,” I say ab­sently. I’m putting on a brave face, but in­side,
I’m ex­hausted. I mean I went to bed three hours later than usual—in the
room I booked late at the Soho Grand Ho­tel.
…Where I screamed into my pil­low with my hands be­tween my legs, re­liv­‐
ing ev­ery sin­gle in­sane, bru­tal sec­ond of my de­praved en­counter in the
woods.
“You’re look­ing amaz­ing this morn­ing.”
Amelia is a to­tal kiss-ass some­times, and I love her for it. Even if she’s to­‐
tally full of shit this morn­ing. I em­phat­i­cally do not look any­thing ap­‐
proach­ing “amaz­ing” right now, and we both know it.
“Thanks,” I smile dryly. “New Pi­lates in­struc­tor this morn­ing.”
“Well, damn, lady,” she grins. “Go get it.” She clears her throat, drop­ping
right into busi­ness mode. “So, pretty packed sched­ule to­day. You’ve got a
meet­ing with Thomas Kop­pel­man at ten to go over strat­egy for his cor­po­‐
rate takeover. Then lunch with the team from Cop­per­Line Biotech—I got
you reser­va­tions at At­era, or you could do your usual Per Se⁠—”
“At­era is great, thanks, Amelia.”
She nods, barely look­ing up from her tablet as she taps away. “You wanted
to sit in on the Whit­lock de­po­si­tion at one-thirty. Oh, and Ga­van Tsarenko
and his peo­ple will be in at four to sit down with you and Al­is­tair to talk
tran­si­tion with Gabriel be­ing gone now.”
I gri­mace. Yeah, that’s go­ing to take some get­ting used to. But be­fore I can
delve too deeply into my own thoughts con­cern­ing one of my best friends
and firm part­ners leav­ing Crown and Black, some­thing pings in my head.
“Oh, shit, that re­minds me. I need you to cre­ate an an­al­yt­ics break­down of
these…”
I turn to grab the file folder I pur­pose­fully left in the mid­dle of my desk
yes­ter­day. But when my eyes land on empty space, my brow fur­rows.
“Did you…” I glance back at Amelia. “There was a folder on my desk…”
She blinks. “I didn’t see any­thing this morn­ing when I un­locked your of­fice.
No one’s been in here, ei­ther, ob­vi­ously.”
I frown. “You sure? Blue folder with the very pro­fes­sional ‘Gabriel’s bull­‐
shit’ writ­ten on the cover?”
She smirks briefly, then shakes her head. “Noth­ing I saw, Ms. Crown.
Maybe you moved them last night?”
My brow cocks. “No, I def­i­nitely left it on my desk yes­ter­day be­fore Fumi
and I went to that meet­ing.”
Aka: cock­tails.
“Oh, I mean later. When you came in late last night.”
My eyes snap to hers in con­fu­sion.
“Sorry, what?”
Amelia’s brow fur­rows. “You… You were here, Ms. Crown. In the of­fice.
Maybe that’s when⁠—”
“No, I wasn’t.”
I def­i­nitely wasn’t. I was in the woods let­ting a stranger rub my pussy with a
fuck­ing knife, be­cause I’m god­damn crazy.
And af­ter that I was show­er­ing at my apart­ment, and then book­ing a suite at
the Soho Grand.
Amelia gives me an odd look. “You def­i­nitely key-carded in. It was on the
log this morn­ing when I clocked in.” She smiles a slightly con­fused smile.
“It was late, too! One-thirty, or some­thing. I can check if you want.”
I slowly shake my head, a hor­ri­ble feel­ing set­tling over me.
“No… That’s okay,” I say qui­etly.
“Oh, you left your file cab­i­net un­locked, too. I made sure to lock it when I
came in this morn­ing, though.”
“Thanks,” I re­ply ab­sently, turn­ing away from her. “Ac­tu­ally, you know
what?” I turn back and smile ra­di­antly. “To­tal brain fart. Wow,” I force a
laugh. “That was last night, wasn’t it?”
“You need to take more va­ca­tions!” she laughs.
“Se­ri­ously. Thanks, Amelia.”
“No prob­lem!” she chirps brightly. “I’ll be at my desk!”
When she steps out, I swal­low ner­vously.
Fuck.
This is bad. This…what­ever this is…has been hap­pen­ing more and more.
These episodes. Dr. Jes­nick calls it “phys­i­cal in­vol­un­tary dis­cor­dance”.
It’s sleep­walk­ing, ba­si­cally. One minute I’m asleep, the next I’m “awake”
and mov­ing around, even per­form­ing tasks. The kicker is, I have no mem­‐
ory of it later af­ter I ac­tu­ally wake up.
But holy shit, I came here late last night? The episodes I’ve had be­fore have
in­volved things like leav­ing the TV on or mak­ing my­self a snack and not
clean­ing up the sink af­ter­ward. I tried to re­or­ga­nize my fi­nan­cial records
and tax re­turns one night.
But I’ve never left my apart­ment be­fore dur­ing one of the episodes. At least,
I don’t think I have, but how would I know?
Maybe be­ing in a new place last night fucked me up.
Or maybe what you did BE­FORE bed…
I flush.
Fuck—I didn’t drive, did I?
I’m still star­ing at Man­hat­tan out the win­dows of my of­fice with a dazed
feel­ing when there’s a knock on my door. It opens be­fore I can even re­‐
spond and Fumi walks in.
“You do get that knock­ing first is like ask­ing per­mis­sion to en­ter some­one
else’s space, right?”
She arches a brow with a cu­ri­ous smile on her lips. “Okay. Is this the part
where you tell me I need to wait un­til such per­mis­sion is gra­ciously
granted?”
I frown, ex­hal­ing. “Sorry, I’m tired and cranky.”
She shuts the door and walks over to my desk as I slump into my chair.
Fumi sits across from me in a gor­geous jade green knee-length pen­cil skirt
and a su­per-cute black top, her long black hair wrapped up in a top­knot.
“So…” She smirks. “You’re tired, huh?”
I start to roll my eyes. “Fumi⁠—”
“Does this mean you went through with it?!” she shrieks, grin­ning widely at
me. “Did you go to Venom?!”
My face burns. “Fumi, we’re at work.”
My friend sighs heav­ily. “We need a neon sign above your head to let me
know when you’re my boss-Tay­lor, and when you’re my friend-Tay­lor.”
I snort. “What if we just say that while we’re at work, I’m boss-Tay­lor and
we stick to pro­fes­sional con­ver­sa­tions that don’t in­volve ei­ther your sex life
with Gabriel, or my lack of sex life with any­one.”
Fumi grins. “Nor­mal pro­fes­sional con­ver­sa­tions like the one we had in the
con­fer­ence room yes­ter­day when you were telling me what a shitty fuck
Steven was, the like two times or what­ever you slept to­gether? I think there
was also some­thing about the diminu­tive size of his⁠—”
“Okay, that was in­ap­pro­pri­ate, and I apol­o­gize,” I say hastily.
Fumi laughs. “Apol­ogy ac­cepted. Now tell me what the fuck sort of trou­ble
you got into last night.”
You wouldn’t be­lieve me…
“Noth­ing,” I blurt, ly­ing through my teeth. “I was go­ing to meet up with
some­one and then chick­ened out.” I sigh. “There, happy?”
Fumi smiles wryly as she reaches over the desk and squeezes my hand.
“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to push any­thing. Or maybe, just go on a
nor­mal dat­ing site? Tin­der or Bum­ble or some­thing? They kinda seem like
less pres­sure and not as in­tense as Venom.”
I sigh. “Yeah, ex­cept… I don’t know. Those fuck­ing apps…” I cringe.
“They’re aw­ful.”
“T,” she drawls. “You’re a boss bitch. You know that, right? I mean, you’re
thirty-three and you run a law firm. And not a strip mall one ei­ther. One of
the big­gest and most pres­ti­gious firms in New York. You’re rich, you’re in
charge, you’re hot…” She shrugs. “Plus you drive a sexy as fuck car.” She
eyes me. “Let them come to you. Let them come beg­ging to take you out.”
“Yeah, no, solid ad­vice,” I re­ply on au­topi­lot as my brain starts to drift.
Ex­cept, I don’t want them to come to me.
I want them to chase me.
And hunt me.
And hurt me.
Pag­ing Dr. Jes­nick…
“Can I ask you some­thing?”
I lift my eyes to Fumi. “Sure.”
“You said you chick­ened out last night on some­one you were go­ing to
meet?”
I nod. Fumi peers at me.
“Why?”
My brows fur­row. “Why…?”
“Why do you think you chick­ened out?”
Be­cause I’m afraid of what I am. Be­cause I’m ter­ri­fied of set­ting free the
dark­ness that lurks in­side me, want­ing things I shouldn’t want and giv­ing
me urges to go into the fuck­ing woods at night…
I shrug non­com­mit­tally. “I don’t know.”
“Pros­ec­ u­tion asks to ap­proach the bench, your honor.”
I snort, rolling my eyes. “Go ahead, say it.”
“Say what?” she smirks.
“What­ever sagely lit­tle pearl of wis­dom you’re dy­ing to throw at me.”
“Well,” Fumi sighs. “Be­ing one of your best friends, I think it’s fair to say I
know you pretty well. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s a whole
part of you that you keep hid­den and never want to talk about.”
I scowl. “There is not!”
“Tay­lor.”
I ex­hale, drum­ming my fin­gers on the desk. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”
“Yeah, be­cause I’m right,” she snick­ers. “Any­way. With­out know­ing the
de­tails of this date that didn’t hap­pen, since I’m guess­ing there’s a zero per­‐
cent chance of you shar­ing those…”
“Cor­rect.”
She grins. “Then my guess is, you walked away be­cause you have a hard
time do­ing things not on your terms.”
My mouth twists.
“I’m right, aren’t I? Say I’m right.”
I sigh. “Fine. You…may be right. Sort of. Par­tially.”
Fumi holds out an imag­i­nary mi­cro­phone. “Could you re­peat that a lit­tle
louder for the folks in the back?”
“Surely you have work to do?”
She laughs as she stands. “Okay, okay, I can take a hint. Oh, Eloise and
Tem­pest and I are get­ting drinks af­ter work. What are my odds of get­ting
you out two nights in a row?”
I roll my eyes. “Slim to none. Your hus­band is se­ri­ously fuck­ing my work­‐
load up with that whole ‘get­ting elected to Gov­er­nor’ thing.”
Fumi smiles. “If you change your mind, text me.”
When she’s gone, I pull out my phone and open the Club Venom app again.
I hate the dis­ap­pointed feel­ing that washes over me when I pull up my
convo with NapoleonInEx­ile and see that he hasn’t sent me any­thing since
our pre-chase ex­change.
Last night may have been ter­ror­iz­ing, and about a thou­sand miles past any­‐
thing I ever ex­pected for re­al­ity. That’s why I flipped out and used the safe
word, shut­ting it all down.
Now, I wish I hadn’t. Now, I’m crav­ing that touch of dark­ness I got with
him.
Now…I want more.
My lip twists be­tween my teeth as I tap out a quick mes­sage.
SE­CRET­S LUT
Sorry I freaked out last night. I didn’t mean to just end it like
that

I wait, but there’s no re­ply. The icon next to his user­name stays dark, in­di­‐
cat­ing he’s not even on­line.
SE­CRET­S LUT
I shouldn’t have used the word. I don’t even know why I did

I keep wait­ing, but there’s still noth­ing.

SE­CRET­S LUT
I’d love to give this an­other try

The mes­sage stays un­read. He’s still not on­line.

Fuck.

“W ell , I think that went well .”

Al­is­tair makes straight for the bar cart by the huge win­dows in his of­fice
when we walk in. It’s close to six, and most of the of­fice down in “the pit”
is gone or in the mid­dle of pack­ing up for the day. Well, not the in­terns and
par­ale­gals, but that’s par for the course.
Al­is­tair and I have just spent the last two hours in a meet­ing with Ga­van
Tsarenko, cur­rent co-head of the Reznikov Bratva, and a huge client of
Crown and Black. Up till now, it was Gabriel who mostly han­dled all of
Ga­van’s le­gal needs. But the jerk had the gall to go off and run for Gov­er­‐
nor of New York a few months ago, and the elec­torate had the nerve to go
ahead and vote for him.
I mean, the guy is go­ing to do a fan­tas­tic job of run­ning the state. But it also
means Al­is­tair and I have a cu­bic fuck­ton of work to do try­ing to fig­ure out
how to divvy up his work­load when he steps down as man­ag­ing part­ner of
the firm to ful­fill his du­ties as Gov­er­nor.
“Usual?” Al­is­tair grunts from the bar cart.
“Please.”
He turns and passes me a Laphroaig eigh­teen-year-old with a sin­gle ice
cube. What can I say? I’m a scotch girl. The smok­ier, the bet­ter.
“Cheers,” he mut­ters, clink­ing his glass to mine.
“Cheers.”
Some­one wise prob­ab­ ly once said “don’t mix busi­ness with fam­ily”. But
per­son­ally, I’ve never found that a prob­lem. I mean, Al­is­tair and Gabriel
aren’t my lit­eral blood fam­ily. But they may as well be my broth­ers, and
we’ve been as close as sib­lings—yes, in­clud­ing the bick­er­ing at times—
since we first met.
Af­ter the crash, when I woke up in the hos­pi­tal with­out liv­ing par­ents, any
mem­o­ries, or even know­ing who I was, I came here to New York to live
with my great-aunt Flo­rence. She’s the one that “got me up to speed” with
life: learn­ing how to read again, how to dress my­self. How to live. That
sum­mer spent with her is pretty hazy, be­cause my brain was still re­pair­ing
it­self and reteach­ing it­self how to think. I re­mem­ber be­ing so thank­ful that I
wasn’t to­tally alone in the uni­verse for that.
Then I went to col­lege, and two weeks into my first se­mes­ter, Flo­rence had
a stroke and passed away. Then I re­ally was alone.
But two years of push­ing my­self hard later, I grad­u­ated un­der­grad early,
passed the LSATs, and man­aged to get my­self into Har­vard Law. I was flat
broke and didn’t want to rack up mas­sive stu­dent debt, so I got a job bar­‐
tend­ing at this crappy dive bar in Har­vard Square.
That’s where I met the Black broth­ers.
Al­is­tair’s debit card was de­clined on a three-dol­lar beer. Gabriel tried to ar­‐
gue with me that, pur­suant to Mass­ac­ hu­setts com­merce law, and ac­cord­ing
to Witt vs the State of Mary­land, it was on the ven­dor to prove that a de­‐
clined card was the re­sult of in­suf­fi­cient funds, and not faulty ma­chin­ery for
col­lect­ing pay­ment.
I tossed back Ve­lasquez vs Cardiff, which ruled pre­sent­ing a means of pay­‐
ment proves rea­son­able in­ten­tion to pay, thereby putting the onus on the
cus­tomer, not the ven­dor.
I won that round. Then the two ass­holes pre­tended to go to the bath­room
and ran out on their whop­ping six-dol­lar bar tab.
Two weeks later, I found a twenty-dol­lar bill taped to my dorm door, along
with a highly cov­eted in­vi­ta­tion to the in­sanely ex­clu­sive study group one
of the most in­flu­en­tial pro­fes­sors on cam­pus hosted ev­ery now and then.
One of those study groups that’s less about study­ing and more about “if
you’re here, con­grats, you’ve made it”.
Turns out, Al­is­tair and Gabriel used their con­sid­er­able pow­ers of per­sua­sion
to coax the pro­fes­sor who ran the group into invit­ing me in.
And the rest, as they say, is his­tory. We be­came fast friends. We all got in­‐
tern­ships at the same firm in Bos­ton. Then we all found jobs in New York.
Five gru­el­ing years later, we poached the best clients we could, walked
from our re­spec­tive firms, and hung up our own shin­gle. Crown and Black
was born.
I have to say, though: it’s felt weird these last two months, with Gabriel
mak­ing his exit from the firm to the Gov­er­nor’s man­sion. He tech­ni­cally
could stay on at Crown and Black. But it would be an ethics com­plaint
wait­ing to hap­pen, which would suck for both his rep­u­ta­tion and ours.
Al­is­tair ex­hales slowly. “There is one more thing we need to start dis­‐
cussing.”
I sigh. “The new third man­ag­ing part­ner.”
“Bingo.”
Again, we’re like sib­lings. My close­ness with Al­is­tair and Gabriel is what
made Crown and Black the em­pire it is. But the bal­ance re­ally only works
when there’s three of us.
If it’s just Al­is­tair and I run­ning things, we’re go­ing to throt­tle each other at
some point. I mean, lov­ingly. But still.
“Any thoughts?”
I lift a shoul­der. “You know I’m go­ing to say Fumi.”
He smirks. “Fig­ured. I’m not against it, for the record. But I’d counter with
Elsa. She’s been an eq­uity part­ner for a lit­tle longer. And she’s re­ally good.
Plus, clients love her.”
“They also love that she mar­ried into the Drakos fam­ily.”
Al­is­tair grins. “Hey, you play the cards you’re dealt.” He glances at his
watch groans. “Shit, I need to cut this short. I for­got I had a meet­ing.”
I drain my scotch and set the glass down on the edge of his desk—not on a
coaster, which I know drives Al­is­tair crazy.
“For fuck’s sake,” he mut­ters, march­ing over and snatch­ing the glass up like
a wor­ried house­wife. “Re­spect the wood.”
“Please tell me that’s your bed­room talk with Eloise?”
He snorts. “I swear, I’m go­ing to re­port you to HR one day.”
“I’ll take you down with me.”
“I hope I’m not in­ter­rupt­ing…”
I jolt when I hear the voice be­hind me. Whirling, I stiffen and flush a lit­tle
when I see the man stand­ing tall, fill­ing the door­way of Al­is­tair’s of­fice
with both his im­pos­ing size and his raw power.
Drazen Krylov is a rel­at­ively new client of ours. I rarely in­ter­act with him,
since Al­is­tair and his team han­dle most of his af­fairs. But I know his rep­u­ta­‐
tion. And his his­tory.
Both are fuck­ing ter­ri­fy­ing.
The phys­i­cally im­pos­ing Ser­bian is the head of the—newly re­con­sti­tuted, I
hear—Krylov Bratva. He also was al­legedly a child sol­dier in the Balkan
con­flicts in for­mer Yu­goslavia in the 90s.
I have no idea if that sec­ond part is true, but the man ra­di­ates a dark power
that swal­lows the light of ev­ery room he walks into.
He’s also freak­ing gor­geous.
Tall, broad-shoul­dered and mus­cled, with a Henry Cav­ill jaw­line, pierc­ing
blue eyes, and dark black hair. Since he re­ally does look like dear Henry,
and given his im­pos­ing, fierce look, Fumi and I have joked that he’s “evil
Su­per­man” on sev­eral oc­ca­sions.
Tall, pow­er­ful, in­sanely wealthy, gor­geous—and pos­si­bly a mass mur­derer
and com­mit­ter of war crimes.
So, pretty much the king of Sexy Walk­ing Red Flag-land.
Al­is­tair clears his throat as he pushes past me to shake Drazen’s hand
firmly, the back of which is cov­ered in what is pretty ob­vi­ously Bratva ink.
“Not at all, Mr. Krylov. Please, have a seat. May I get you a drink?”
“Vodka, straight up, thank you.”
When Al­is­tair walks back over to the bar cart, Drazen pulls his icy blue
gaze to me. I stay per­fectly still, never drop­ping the calm, pro­fes­sional
smile.
On the in­side, I’m with­er­ing.
I mean the man is in­sanely hot, not to men­tion pow­er­ful and down­right dan­‐
ger­ous. I have at least a dozen clients just like him, of course, but there’s
some­thing dif­fer­ent about the Ser­bian.
Some­thing…more.
“Well,” I smile. “I’ll get out of your hair⁠—”
“You’re not stay­ing, Ms. Crown?”
“Oh, I don’t think we need her,” Al­is­tair chuck­les, pass­ing Drazen a tum­bler
of vodka. “You wanted to talk about zon­ing law, if I’m not mis­taken?”
“Well, I did. But I think there are more press­ing things to dis­cuss right now,
are there not?”
Al­is­tair glances at me. I glance at him.
“I’m afraid I don’t fol­low, Mr. Krylov,” I say cau­tiously.
His brows arch. “You haven’t heard, then?”
Al­is­tair frowns. “About…?”
“The hos­tile takeover at­tempt.”
Al­is­tair scowls deeper. “This is the first I’m hear­ing about it, I’m afraid.
Who ex­actly is try­ing to take over your⁠—”
Drazen chuck­les qui­etly, a low rum­bling sound that sucks all the oxy­gen out
of the room.
“You mis­un­der­stand, Mr. Black,” he growls. “I mean the hos­tile takeover
at­tempt of your busi­ness.”
My heart skips. My face goes numb.
Wait, what?
Al­is­tair is blink­ing like he’s try­ing to process what Drazen’s just said as the
Ser­bian strokes his jaw.
“One of your com­peti­tors is about to make a play for your firm.”
My head whips to stare at Al­is­tair just as his yanks to mine.
“And given that I’m your big­gest client in bill­able hours,” Drazen growls
qui­etly. “I was hop­ing we could talk about that.”
Holy fuck.

OceanofPDF.com
 4

TAY­L OR

“T his is fuck ­i ng in ­s ane !” Fumi spits vi­ciously, shak­ing her head and tak­‐
ing a hefty gulp of her cock­tail.
Eloise nods. “How in the hell did Drazen Krylov know be­fore you or Al­is­‐
tair and Gabriel?” she mut­ters in her mu­si­cal, French-ac­cented voice.
I shake my head. “He just men­tioned ‘con­nec­tions’. I don’t think we need
to pry too hard into that. Any­way, he’s not wrong.”
I take a big swig of wine and then chew on my lip.
The de­tails are still com­ing in. But the quick ver­sion is that Fairchild, Bris­‐
tol, and Lowe, a huge firm based out of Chicago with branches in Lon­don
and San Fran­cisco, is mak­ing a play for a takeover of Crown and Black.
An ex­cep­tion­ally hos­tile one, at that.
It’s not the first time Roger Fairchild has tried to sweep our firm un­der his
um­brella. Part of his an­i­mos­ity stems from how fast Crown and Black took
over New York. It could also be that the three of us are young. But a huge
part of his beef with us is that Crown and Black’s rise in the New York
scene ef­fec­tively blocked his at­tempt to open a branch here.
The clients we took with us from our re­spec­tive firms when we set up shop
were all clients he was ac­tively hunt­ing. The of­fice space we bought was
the same spot he was eye­ing. None of this was de­lib­er­ate, of course. It’s just
the way it hap­pened. But Roger is a petty lit­tle shit, and when his board ve­‐
toed branch­ing into New York be­cause of the busi­ness Crown and Black
was do­ing, it sat badly with him.
Since then, he’s made a half dozen at­tempts to try and bully us into sell­ing
to him or work­ing un­der him as a sub­sidiary firm.
Both are a hard no.
The broth­ers and I have worked way too hard to give that ass­hole a chunk.
Be­sides, we don’t need him. We thought he’d backed off in the last year.
But it turns out, he just de­cided in­stead to play dirty.
A few months ago, the three of us de­cided we wanted a branch in Chicago.
The mar­ket was right; we have New York clients that have a pres­ence there;
it just made sense. But in­stead of open­ing a whole new of­fice, we went
shop­ping for firms who were look­ing to sell.
That’s how we found Poul­ter and Lenz: a once great firm that was on the
de­cline. Their found­ing part­ner had re­cently passed, and a lot of their core
clients were jump­ing ship. They needed cash; we needed a foothold in
Chicago. So three months ago, we bought them out, with the stip­u­la­tion that
their em­ploy­ees would all keep their jobs, and we’d get their clients. Win-
win, right?
Or so we thought un­til Drazen’s bomb­shell ear­lier tonight. Be­cause now it
would ap­pear we’ve walked into a trap. And Roger Fairchild is the prick
who set it up.
“How the fuck did they hide that kind of debt?!” Fumi mut­ters.
“C’mon,” I hiss qui­etly, bring­ing a fin­ger to my lips and glanc­ing around.
“Not here.”
I mean, it’s a busy bar, and it’s loud. But who knows who’s lis­ten­ing. The
only rea­son I’m even talk­ing about it to ei­ther of them de­spite them not be­‐
ing man­ag­ing part­ners is that they hap­pen to be mar­ried to the other two
man­ag­ing part­ners.
“Sorry,” Fumi huffs.
I shake my head and take an­other big gulp of Caber­net.
It was a two-step trap. Step one was to lure us into buy­ing Poul­ter and Lenz.
On the books, they looked good: de­cent client base, just fall­ing rev­enue.
And their ask­ing price, given that we’d keep all their em­ploy­ees, was ex­‐
tremely rea­son­able.
What we just found out is that they were se­cretly had a lot of debt on the
books. Think four hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars’ worth.
It’s bad enough that the firm we bought is ba­si­cally a ce­ment ball on a chain
bound to our an­kles, and the tide is ris­ing. But to make it even worse, step
two of the trap just kicked in:
The debt Poul­ter and Lenz owes is owed—in its en­tirety—to Roger
Fairchild.
Which means we now owe that fuck four hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars, and he’s
just called to col­lect. Ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ately. But—shocker of all shock­ers—
he’s will­ing to drop the debt, so long as we sell him Crown and Black at
mar­ket rate.
“Al­is­tair and Gabriel and I are go­ing to have a meet­ing with the board to­‐
mor­row,” I mut­ter qui­etly. “But un­til then⁠—”
Eloise clears her throat, smil­ing past me. “They’re here,” she mur­murs un­‐
der her breath.
“Okay. No more shop talk, es­pe­cially about this.” I glance at her and Fumi.
They both nod be­fore I turn to smile as our friend Tem­pest makes her way
through the crowd to­ward us with Bianca in tow, along with two of her bal­‐
let friends, Milena and Naomi.
It’s funny. I’ve never been a “girl’s girl”. At least, not that I re­mem­ber. In
un­der­grad I was pretty much a loner, mostly be­cause I had no fam­ily, no
mem­o­ries, and barely any money. When I got to law school, I im­me­di­ately
made friends with Gabriel and Al­is­tair, and when did I have time to make
fe­male friends any­way?
So, it’s strange but not a bad thing that I’ve sud­denly found my­self with this
whole squad of ladies. Fumi and Eloise, of course. But also Gabriel and Al­‐
is­tair’s lit­tle sis­ter Tem­pest, who’s mar­ried to Dante Sar­torre, head of Club
Venom. Bianca, who re­cently mar­ried into the Drakos Greek Mafia fam­ily,
who are also Crown and Black clients, is Dante’s lit­tle sis­ter. She’s also an
ex­cep­tional dancer in the Za­kharova bal­let com­pany, which is how Milena
and Naomi joined the squad.
The fire alarm about what’s hap­pen­ing with work is still there. But I al­low
my­self to ex­hale and at least pre­tend to smile at the ladies around me as we
or­der an­other round of drinks and lapse into nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion.
“What about you, Tay­lor?”
I blink, re­al­iz­ing I’ve been con­jur­ing up ways to mur­der Roger Fairchild
with my bare hands while star­ing at the bar. I yank my at­ten­tion back to
find the rest of them grin­ning at me.
“Sorry, what?”
Bianca laughs. “These two”—she jerks a thumb at Milena and Naomi
—“were just com­plain­ing about be­ing chron­i­cally sin­gle. I said sin­gle
doesn’t sound that bad. I mean, you’re on your own and you’re fuck­ing
killing it.”
I roll my eyes. “Ah, yes,” I say, turn­ing to nod sagely at the two much-
younger-than-me girls. “Model your life choices on the thirty-three-year-old
fu­ture cat lady who’s mar­ried to her ca­reer. Def­i­nite goals.”
Milena snorts, push­ing a strand of blonde be­hind her ear. “Yeah, but, I
mean, you’re a fuck­ing boss. Cor­ner of­fice? Your name on the build­ing?
That sexy ass car?”
I smirk. “Cars don’t give you or­gasms.”
The rest of them crack up.
“I don’t know,” Tem­pest sing-songs. “I’ve seen your car, and I’m not con­‐
vinced it doesn’t.”
“And hey, you’re not nec­es­sar­ily sin­gle,” Fumi adds with a grin.
I shoot her a look.
“Oh?” Tem­pest perks up. “Do tell!”
“Noth­ing,” I mut­ter, glar­ing at Fumi with a “shut it” ex­pres­sion that she ei­‐
ther misses or more likely ig­nores.
“Tay­lor was go­ing to go on a date last night, but she bailed.”
“I didn’t—” I purse my lips. “I didn’t bail. I had to resched­ule.”
“Oh yeah?” Fumi grins at me. “When did you resched­ule for?”
“Hi, yeah, still your boss, in case you for­got.”
She and the rest of them laugh as Tem­pest gives me a hug. “Hey, you’re all
of thirty-three. We’re not putting you out to pas­ture yet, you know.”
“Thanks. I feel so much bet­ter now.”
I roll my eyes, grin­ning. The rest of them lapse into a con­ver­sa­tion in­volv­‐
ing some dat­ing drama with an­other dancer at the bal­let. I pull out my
phone and flip to my group chat with Al­is­tair and Gabriel:
ME
I have a so­lu­tion
GABRIEL
?!?!
AL­IS­TAIR
I’m all fuck­ing ears
ME
Roger’s in love with that vin­tage Jaguar con­vert­ible he’s al­ways
fawn­ing over, right? We find out his usual week­end drive route
and string high ten­sion wire across the road at neck height.
Boom. In­stant de­cap­it­a­tion.
AL­IS­TAIR
Sav­age. I love it.
GABRIEL
You two do un­der­stand the con­cept of pre­med­it­ated mur­der
and ad­mis­si­ble dig­it­al ev­id
­ ence, right?
AL­IS­TAIR
Reach be­hind your­self, Gabriel. That long pointy stick you feel?
Grab it and give it a good tug, see if it’ll come out of your ass.
 ME
lol
GABRIEL
Yeah, you’re to­tally right. I see no rea­son I should be con­‐
cerned at all about be­ing Gov­er­nor and on a thread dis­cussing
de­cap­it­at­ing a busi­ness ri­val. You should ab­so­lutely con­sider
pol­it­ics, Al­is­tair
AL­IS­TAIR
I’d fuck­ing kill it and we both know it
ME
Dic­ta­tor­ships are slightly out of vogue, Al­is­tair
AL­IS­TAIR
What about ab­so­lute monar­chies?
GABRIEL
I touched base with Hart­man, Li, Pritchard, and Fanelli from the
board. Pretty sure we can count on all of them not to cave to
that fucker’s de­mands. But we need to start talk­ing to the other
mem­bers as fast as pos­si­ble. Higher num­bers of vot­ing shares,
in­cen­tive pack­ages. What­ever. Lit­er­ally any­thing to make sure
no one starts sid­ing with Roger to push for this.
ME
Agreed. I’ll reach out to Elaine Iver­son and Carl Bouchard first
thing to­mor­row.

The three of us chat a lit­tle longer about nail­ing down the loy­al­ties of the
Crown and Black board of di­rec­tors while I feign con­ver­sa­tion with the
squad.
I ig­nore the lit­tle icon for the Venom app. At least, I try to. But af­ter an­other
glass of wine, I set my jaw and tap on it.
I hate how dis­ap­pointed I am still to have no re­ply from him to my last
mes­sages.
I slug back an­other mouth­ful of wine, pre­tend­ing to re­join the con­ver­sa­tion
around me. In­side, I’m still fix­at­ing on the man in the mask from the
woods.
The one who chased me and pinned me to the dirty ground. Who made me
wet with a knife against my pussy. The man I freaked out on and blurted a
safe word to, who then faded away, leav­ing me alone in the dark.
In the mo­ment, yes, it was too much. Too in­sane, too dark, too dan­ger­ous.
Too ev­ery­thing.
But now, I’m sit­ting here supremely pissed at my­self for hav­ing chick­ened
out and end­ing it be­fore I could find out how deep I was will­ing to go.
How far I was pre­pared to peer into that dark­ness in­side my­self.
By now, he’s ob­vi­ously lost in­ter­est. Which means the more times I flip
back to my mes­sage ex­change with him, the more pa­thetic I look, or at least
the more pa­thetic I feel.
Yeah, it’s time to move on. And the next time, I swear I won’t be blurt­ing
out any safe words too soon.
The next time, I’ll have the courage to ex­plore the inky dark­ness hid­ing in­‐
side me.
Switch­ing back to NapoleonInEx­ile’s pro­file, I scowl as I tap the three dots
at the top of his pro­file and click “block”.
In­stantly, our chat van­ishes.
Then, I switch to my own pro­file and click the lit­tle tog­gle back to “ac­tively
seek­ing part­ner”. I’d turned it off be­fore, af­ter con­nect­ing with my stranger
from the woods. But with it back on, other prospec­tive part­ners from the
app will be able find my pro­file and maybe con­nect.
Screw the psy­cho in the woods. Like, maybe give some­one a heads up
when you’re di­rect­ing them an hour from home into the fuck­ing for­est?
Maybe men­tion your knife play kink?
Yeah, be­cause you re­ally minded both of those…
Oh, shut up, self.
I mean, dip­ping a toe into my slightly south of vanilla fetishes is one thing.
What hap­pened last night was div­ing head-first into the deep end and only
then dis­cov­er­ing I only half-knew how to swim. The next time, when I con­‐
nect with some­one, I’m go­ing to dial it back a lit­tle so I can ex­plore⁠—
My phone buzzes in my hand. I blink, shak­ing away my thoughts and pre­‐
tend­ing to laugh at some­thing Tem­pest’s just said, even though I wasn’t re­‐
ally lis­ten­ing. I ea­gerly glance at my phone, thumb­ing back to the Venom
app.

Dear Se­cret­Slut,
A match has been made for you with an­other mem­ber. You have
both been no­ti­fied. Please use this link to open a pri­vate chat
with your po­ten­tial part­ner. Like at the Club it­self, we en­cour­age
the use of anonymity, as well as open and hon­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion.
Both par­ties should dis­cuss hard lim­its and safe words be­fore
meet­ing. Please be safe and en­joy your ex­pe­ri­ence.

My pulse thuds. The same sort of ner­vous, giddy, slightly scared and very
ex­cited spike of adren­al­ine I got the last time teases through my veins. I
click the link, feel­ing a ball of some­thing clench in my core.
It’s not un­til I read his mes­sage that the mean­ing of his user­name stabs into
me, mak­ing me freeze as my mouth falls open.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
I was very clear. The safe word “vault” ends it.

A lit­tle siren in the back of my head be­gins to whine in my ears. Goose­‐

bumps break out over my skin as a cold shiver snaps my spine up­right.
Holy shit.
It’s him.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
You chose to walk away. You don’t get to come back.

I stare at the screen, my hands shak­ing.

YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Cat got your tongue, my lit­tle fuck toy?

Heat ex­plodes across my cheeks.

 SE­CRET­S LUT
You’re cheat­ing. You can’t cre­ate a new user pro­file.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Says the one who ended our game and is now back look­ing for
an­other round.
SE­CRET­S LUT
Or maybe just an­other play­mate. Has it ever oc­curred to you
that maybe I just wasn’t in­ter­ested?

The spike of adren­al­ine that stabs through me is as vi­cious as it is ex­cit­ing.

It’s like taunt­ing a wild an­i­mal through the bars of its cage at the zoo.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Not once
SE­CRET­S LUT
That’s one hell of an ego
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
My thought process has more to do with how fuck­ing messy
your greedy lit­tle cunt was for me

My jaw drops, my face throb­bing with heat.

YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Tell me…ex­actly how many times did you rub that soak­ing
pussy last night af­ter you went home, imag­in­ing all the things I
could have done to you

Holy shit. Holy shit.

I feign an­other smile at my friends be­fore glanc­ing back at my phone, my
pulse rac­ing.
SE­CRET­S LUT
Sorry to burst your bub­ble. I went straight to bed.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Do you know what hap­pens to ly­ing lit­tle sluts?

Je­sus fuck­ing Christ.

I take a deep breath and swal­low.
 SE­CRET­S LUT
No, what?
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
They get their faces and their asses fucked. If they do a very
good job, they get Daddy’s cum down their throats as a re­ward

Holy. Fuck­ing. FUCK.

It’s like dirty talk on fuck­ing steroids. A ther­monu­clear level Dom. It would
al­most be com­i­cally over-the-top, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m soaked.
My pulse is ham­mer­ing in my ears, mak­ing my skin tin­gle. My nip­ples have
tight­ened, and a needy ache throbs in my core.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
If mak­ing a new user­name af­ter you blocked my other one is
cheat­ing, I don’t give a fuck. I play to win, baby girl. And win­‐
ning jus­ti­fies any means.
SE­CRET­S LUT
And if I’m not into that?
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Nice try. I might even be­lieve you, ex­cept what you crave is
bla­tantly ob­vi­ous.

I trem­ble, my thighs clench­ing to­gether on my bar stool as I stare wide-eyed

at my screen.
SE­CRET­S LUT
What it is you think I crave?
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
To be com­pletely dom­in ­ ated. The fancy car, the busi­ness
clothes, the heels. You’re some­one who prides her­self on al­‐
ways be­ing in con­trol. You want me to rip that away from you.
That’s why you met a stranger in the fuck­ing woods. Be­cause
you wanted me to be in con­trol of you.

I don’t re­al­ize I’m breath­ing heav­ily or that my face is frozen as I stare at

the phone un­til Fumi asks me if ev­ery­thing’s okay. Star­tled, I pull my eyes
away from the screen, mum­bling out some lame ex­cuse about tex­ting busi­‐
ness stuff with Gabriel and Al­is­tair.
 YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
You get one more chance, baby girl. And this time if we’re go­‐
ing to play, we’re go­ing to play for real.

A low siren be­gins to whine in my ears as my blood turns to molten lead

and my core clenches over and over, with an em­bar­rass­ing slick­ness coat­ing
my thighs.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
This app has a “find me” func­tion. Top right-hand cor­ner. Turn
on Lo­ca­tion Mode.

My eyes bulge.
Holy shit.
I tap on the set­tings wheel, and then stare at the tog­gle for “lo­ca­tion mode”,
my skin tin­gling.
This is in­sane. Sign­ing up at all was crazy. Driv­ing out to the woods last
night was dan­ger­ous and reck­less.
But this? Shar­ing my fuck­ing lo­ca­tion with this psy­chopath twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week?
Lu­nacy.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
You like pri­mal play? You want to prove you’re not just some
cute lit­tle tourist? Be a good girl and turn it on. Turn it on and
LEAVE IT on.

My breath comes in panted, stac­cato gasps. My skin feels like it’s be­ing
elec­tri­fied, and the fric­tion of my panties against my slick core as I shift in
my seat is ag­o­niz­ing.
SE­CRET­S LUT
And then what?
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Then you wait
SE­CRET­S LUT
For?
 YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
For me to find you, baby girl
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
And trap you
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
And fuck you
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Even af­ter you tell me to stop

Holy fuck­ing shit.

YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
If we play again, there IS no back­ing out. There’s no stop­ping
it, or me. Now, turn that fuck­ing ac­count back to not look­ing.
Be­cause you’re not.

I just stare at the screen, my tongue dart­ing out to wet my lips as my pulse
roars.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Tick tock, lit­tle slut. Are we go­ing to play or not?

Be­fore I can over­think it, I let my fin­ger tog­gle on the lo­ca­tion set­ting.
SE­CRET­S LUT
Yes.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
Good girl.
YOU­C AN­RUN­BU­TY­OU­CAN­THIDE
See you when you least ex­pect it.

His on­line sta­tus goes dark, and the black, vi­cious thoughts in my head
swal­low me whole.

OceanofPDF.com
 5

TAY­L OR

T wo days af­ter learn­ing that Roger Fairchild has de­clared war on Crown
and Black, we’ve mar­shaled our de­fenses. The board, with a few ex­cep­‐
tions, seems to be on our side and op­posed to sell­ing to him. But while it’s
good to have a mostly united front, it doesn’t do squat against the hard truth
that we just bought a com­pany that se­cretly owes al­most a half a bil­lion dol­‐
lars to our big­gest com­peti­tor.
Not ex­actly money we have ly­ing around.
Gabriel, Al­is­tair, and I aren’t in any sort of fi­nan­cial dire straits or any­thing:
we do re­ally well with Crown and Black. But there’s “great apart­ment, car,
and fan­tas­tic re­tire­ment sav­ings” wealthy and then there’s “half a bil­lion in
my Scrooge Mc­Duck vault” wealthy. Suf­fice it to say, none of us is the lat­‐
ter.
It puts us in a scary spot.
Now… I wish I could say that the cur­rent in­san­ity in my pro­fes­sional life
over­shad­ows the lurk­ing, sul­try dark­ness in my pri­vate one.
Spoiler: it doesn’t. Not. Even. A. Lit­tle. Bit.
Just the sight of my phone, or feel­ing its weight in a jacket pocket or my
bag, sends a lit­tle creep­ing re­minder fin­ger-walk­ing its way up my spine.
My lo­ca­tion is on.
He knows where I am.
I’m still not stay­ing in my own apart­ment, but that means noth­ing. I ac­tu­ally
mes­saged Tech Sup­port for the Venom app—which swears it only sees your
user­name, not your real name—to ask them about that lo­ca­tion set­ting.
It’s not just “kind of” ac­cu­rate, like some­one would know what build­ing
you’re in. It’s pin­pointed to within a foot.
He knows ex­actly where I am. Al­ways.
So, even as crazy as my real life has be­come, the shiv­er­ing dark fan­tasy is
still there, lurk­ing in the shad­owy places of my mind, oc­cu­py­ing my
thoughts when­ever they start to stray.
I think what twists me up the most and makes my skin tin­gle ev­ery minute
of ev­ery day is not even the knowl­edge that I’m be­ing hunted. It’s the no­‐
tion that I don’t know who he is.
I don’t have a clue what he looks like, aside from those pierc­ing, icy-blue
eyes and huge build. And it’s that lin­ger­ing, not-know­ing, tug­ging lit­tle sen­‐
sa­tion at base of my skull re­mind­ing me that he could be any­where at any
time that has my pulse pound­ing.
“Feel like join­ing us to­day, Tay­lor?”
Shit.
Guiltily, I wrench my­self out of my own head and fo­cus on Al­is­tair lean­ing
against his desk with his arms folded over his chest. Gabriel’s in an al­most
iden­ti­cal pose against the glass of the win­dows. They arch their brows at me
as I clear my throat.
“Sorry, is this lit­tle dis­cus­sion about the state of our busi­ness and liveli­hood
bor­ing you, T?” Al­is­tair mut­ters.
I give him a mid­dle fin­ger, which makes him grin.
“Easy, man,” Gabriel growls, shoot­ing his brother a glare. “We’re all on the
same side here. We’re just try­ing to fig­ure out a so­lu­tion.” He sighs, pinch­‐
ing the bridge of his nose.
“What about the idea of re­struc­tur­ing the debt?” I frown. “Have Eloise and
the fi­nan­cial wiz­ards found any­thing there?”
Gabriel shakes his head. “Roger’s not fuck­ing around. The ac­tual debt
amount is three hun­dred and ninety-nine mil­lion, nine-hun­dred and ninety-
nine thou­sand⁠—”
“And nine-hun­dred and ninety-nine dol­lars, isn’t it,” I groan.
“And ninety-nine moth­er­fuck­ing cents,” Gabriel spits.
Al­is­tair’s brow fur­rows. “And the rel­ev­ ancy of that is…?”
“Roger’s LLC is based in Switzer­land.”
Al­is­tair scowls. “So?”
“You can only re­struc­ture cor­po­rate debt to a for­eign com­pany once it’s
over four hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars,” I groan. “Moth­er­fucker knew what he
was do­ing.”
“Je­sus,” Al­is­tair hisses. “Okay, what about nuk­ing the deal it­self? We only
fi­nal­ized the ac­tual pur­chase of Poul­ter and Lenz sixty days ago. If I’m not
mis­taken, there’s a ninety-day win­dow for us to ter­mi­nate the sale and walk
away. We’d take a bath on the down pay­ment, but we’d get back the rest af­‐
ter set­tle­ment.” He shrugs. “It’s still bet­ter than sell­ing to that fuck­head.”
I shake my head. “With a unan­i­mous board, that’s fea­si­ble. But we don’t
have that. Jen­nifer Quan and Ter­ence De Hoef aren’t budg­ing. I think
Roger’s got­ten into their pock­ets some­how.”
Gabriel shrugs. “Ter­ence, maybe. I think Jen­nifer is just spooked by my de­‐
par­ture. She’s one of the long­est-serv­ing mem­bers of the board. I think
she’s wor­ried about us go­ing down to two man­ag­ing part­ners.”
“Well,” Al­is­tair grunts. “The fuck are we wait­ing for, then? Let’s pull the
trig­ger. I’m for ei­ther Fumi or Elsa.” He glances to me. “Guess­ing you vote
for Fumi?”
“Well…” My lips twist as I turn to Gabriel. “Look, I want to, but⁠—”
“It can’t be Fumi,” Gabriel sighs. “Yes, she’s ex­tremely qual­if­ ied, and bi­‐
ased as I am, I think she’d kill it. But ig­nor­ing the fact that Elsa has longer
ten­ure, higher bill­able hours, and more time in gen­eral sunk into this firm, it
can­not be my wife.”
“You mean our new­est man­ag­ing part­ner bang­ing the Gov­er­nor might be
per­ceived as a slight con­flict of in­ter­est?” Al­is­tair says dryly.
His brother shoots him a with­er­ing look but then rolls his eyes.
“To say the least—yes. It’ll hurt the firm, un­nerve the board⁠—”
“Hurt you po­lit­i­cally,” I add.
He nods. “Well, that too. But I’m think­ing about my wife,” Gabriel growls.
“It has the po­ten­tial to make Fumi look like she fucked her way into the
job.”
I ex­hale. “Un­for­tu­nately, I agree.”
“Not to men­tion cer­tain…fam­ily con­nec­tions that might come to light,”
Gabriel adds.
Yeah. A few months ago, Fumi dis­cov­ered that her fam­ily has deep roots in
the Ja­pa­nese Yakuza out of Ky­oto. It came hand-in-hand with grad­u­ally re­‐
con­nect­ing with her enig­matic half-brother, Kenzo.
Al­is­tair frowns. “I hear you, but Elsa’s mar­ried to Hades fuck­ing Drakos…”
I nod. “True, but the Drakos fam­ily has sig­nif­i­cant ties to ev­ery­day peo­ple
and the vot­ers of New York. They ba­si­cally run a third of the con­struc­tion
projects in the city, which rep­re­sents a shit­load of jobs. Plus Dim­i­tra Drakos
sits on like ten dif­fer­ent boards for im­mi­grant rights and fair hous­ing. That’s
not nec­es­sar­ily a bad PR im­age. Mean­while, the Mori-kai Yakuza?” I gri­‐
mace. “Well, they don’t have a pres­ence in New York at all, good or bad.
But ‘Yakuza princess’ might get some PR blow­back.” I ex­hale. “In any
case, even though she’s my friend, I agree with Gabriel. Fumi’s one of the
best at­tor­neys I’ve ever worked with, but so is Elsa, and I think she’s the
bet­ter choice for man­ag­ing part­ner.”
Al­is­tair smirks. “Are we gonna keep ig­nor­ing the preg­nant ele­phant in the
room?”
“Yes, let’s dive head-first into em­ploy­ment prej­u­dice against preg­nant
women. That should do won­ders for our pub­lic im­age,” Gabriel says dryly.
“She’s due, like, to­mor­row, ass­hole,” Al­is­tair sighs.
I grin. “Then she’ll take ma­ter­nity leave. As long as we’ve got her nailed
down as our third man­ag­ing part­ner, that should do a lot to soothe Jen
Quan’s board­room nerves. Be­sides, you know Elsa. If we can get her to
take twenty-four whole hours off af­ter giv­ing birth, it’ll be a mir­ac­ le.”
“Okay. In the mean­time, I’ll work on Ter­ence De Hoef.”
“How the hell do you sup­pose you’ll do that if he’s al­ready in Roger’s
pocket?” Al­is­tair mut­ters.
“Ap­peal to the an­gels of his bet­ter na­ture?” Gabriel shrugs. “Or there’s al­‐
ways mur­der him in a dark al­ley.”
Al­is­tair snorts. Gabriel smiles one of his trade­mark slightly mask-like
smiles that have a way of freak­ing me out just a lit­tle. Like, maybe I’m not
the only one of the three of us that doesn’t al­low the other two to see all of
the real me…
“So, are we in agree­ment, then?” I say briskly, chang­ing the sub­ject. “Pend­‐
ing an of­fi­cial board vote, Elsa Guin will be the new man­ag­ing part­ner for
Crown and Black?”
“Yea,” Gabriel growls. “I can’t imag­ine bet­ter or safer hands to have at the
helm of this firm while I’m gone.”
“It’s a yea for me, too,” Al­is­tair nods. “I mean, at least un­til some­one im­‐
peaches this fucker and he needs his day job back,” he grins, jerk­ing a
thumb at his brother.
I roll my eyes. “Ob­vi­ously a yea from me.” I clasp my hands. “Shall we
bring her in?”
“Sure, let’s roll the preg­nant ele­phant in here.”
Gabriel shakes his head. “I swear to fuck, Al­is­tair, you are a walk­ing HR
train­ing video of what not to do.”

T here ’ s a rea­son there’s an age-old say­ing about “the best-laid plans”.

Af­ter all that, Elsa ends up be­ing a big honk­ing “maybe”. It turns out she
does have plans to take a chunk of time off af­ter her and Hades’ daugh­ter is
born. Plus, she’s got her own reser­va­tions about her mar­riage to Hades af­‐
fect­ing the firm’s rep­u­ta­tion.
“Where I am now as an eq­uity part­ner al­lows me cer­tain…lat­it­ude,” she
said ear­lier. “It gives me the free­dom to do my work for the firm, but also to
take on more…off the books sort of work for the Drakos and Kil­dare fam­i­‐
lies. Be­ing a man­ag­ing part­ner would prob­ab­ ly put an end to that.”
I mean, she has a point. But hey, it’s not a “no”. So we’re mov­ing in the
right di­rec­tion.
Hours later, af­ter tak­ing her out any­way for cel­eb­ ra­tory drinks—a Man­hat­‐
tan for me, a vir­gin Mo­jito for her—I’m trudg­ing back to the Soho Grand.
I re­ally need to fig­ure out what I’m do­ing with my fuck­ing apart­ment. The
couch is be­ing taken out in a few days, at least, and I think that might help
me purge the men­tal im­age of lit­tle miss Delta-Beta-Skank blow­ing my
boyfriend with her ass up in the air.
I gig­gle to my­self as I open the door to my suite, re­play­ing the im­age of
Steven’s OH FUCK face while his TA was earn­ing an Acad­emy Award pre­‐
tend­ing to “deep throat” his un­com­fort­ably small dick.
I hap­haz­ardly drop my stuff onto a side ta­ble. I ended up hav­ing two Man­‐
hat­tans just now with Elsa, so I’m feel­ing a lit­tle tipsy as I kick off my heels
and walk across the dark liv­ing room to­ward the bed­room.
I don’t even make it half­way there.
A huge, gloved hand wraps tight around my mouth. A mas­sive hulk­ing body
crashes into me from be­hind, shov­ing me for­ward and slam­ming me against
the win­dows. Adren­al­ine and pure fear flood ev­ery nerve in my body as my
spine snaps tight and my skin elec­tri­fies.
The low, mas­cu­line chuckle in my ear sends cold liq­uid fear drip­ping down
my back like blood from the tip of a knife as he holds me firm.
“Should have locked your door, baby girl…”
OceanofPDF.com
 6

TAY­L OR

T his can ’ t be hap ­p en ­i ng .

This isn’t real.

But none of the lies I scream at my­self through the roar­ing in my ears has
any ef­fect what­so­ever. Pure, undi­luted, naked fear rips its claws through my
very soul. My chest con­stricts, my lungs and throat burn­ing, as I scream
into the big hand clamped over my mouth.
I try and kick my heel back, but my at­tacker eas­ily dodges it. Then, when he
slams his weight into me, pin­ning my body to the glass in front of me, my
face ex­plodes with heat.
He’s hard.
My blood turns to liq­uid fire as I feel the thick, throb­bing bulge in his pants
press­ing and puls­ing against my ass. His thigh pushes be­tween mine, mak­‐
ing me choke on my breath as he roughly shoves my legs apart. He keeps
grind­ing against me as a sec­ond strong hand gets be­tween me and the glass
win­dows. I moan, shud­der­ing as he roughly mauls my breasts and bru­tally
pinches and twists a nip­ple through my blouse.
“Pa­tience may be a virtue, my lit­tle slut,” the man rasps darkly into my ear,
grind­ing his fat erec­tion against me. “But it’s not one of mine.”
His hand leaves my breast, pulling away for a minute. When I hear the un­‐
mis­tak­able sound of a knife open­ing, my blood runs cold.
“You don’t get to say no this time,” he snarls.
I whim­per as the blade touches my throat.
“In fact, you don’t get to say any­thing at all. I’m go­ing to take my hand
away from this mouth now. If you scream, or say any­thing at all with­out my
per­mis­sion, I’m go­ing to fill it with my cock un­til you choke. Nod if you
fuck­ing un­der­stand.”
I nod quickly, trem­bling as adren­al­ine ex­plodes through my sys­tem. His
gloved hand slips from my mouth, and the heat of his breath on my neck
makes me shud­der.
“Say the fuck­ing safe word, and I’ll stop.”
Ev­ery­thing goes still as it hits me.
Holy. Fuck­ing. Hell.
It’s him.
The man from the woods.
I ac­tu­ally did man­age to for­get with the chaos in my pro­fes­sional life that
my lo­ca­tion is on and eas­ily vis­i­ble to him.
…And he’s fi­nally de­cided to use that knowl­edge.
It’s then that the raw fear in­side of me starts to morph into some­thing else.
Some­thing fucked up and wicked. Vi­ciously ad­dic­tive, and un­nerv­ingly
hun­gry.
Be­ing ac­costed in my ho­tel room, man­han­dled, and slammed into the win­‐
dows with a knife to my neck and an erec­tion dig­ging into my ass should
hor­rify me.
It doesn’t.
Be­cause when the lights go out and my thoughts take over, this is where
they take me.
These are the sorts of twisted, fucked-up, de­praved fan­tasies that make me
gasp into the sheets at night.
The vi­o­lence. The com­plete loss of con­trol.
Some­one much big­ger and stronger than me do­ing what they want with or
with­out my per­mis­sion.
Yes, it’s com­pletely ter­ri­fy­ing that my stranger has tracked me to a ho­tel
room, jumped from the shad­ows, and placed a knife at my throat as he puts
his hands wher­ever he wants on me. It’s also my ul­ti­mate fan­tasy.
My ev­ery whim­pered, whis­pered de­sire.
Take con­trol. Take any­thing you want.
Chase me. Catch me. Hurt me. Fuck me….
The sec­ond he growls those words into my ear, any and all hor­ri­fied re­‐
straint goes out the win­dow. I shame­fully re­al­ize I’m al­ready wet, and my
nip­ple that he twisted is al­ready tin­gling and swollen with achey need. In­‐
stantly, I’m melt­ing against the glass, the skin of my throat throb­bing un­der
his blade.
“Say the fuck­ing word, my lit­tle slut,” he rasps darkly. “And I’ll stop.”
I cry out as he bites my ear­lobe hard. His mouth drops, and I whim­per and
moan as his teeth bite into the side of my throat, send­ing bolts of pow­er­ful
light­ning crack­ling through my core. I look up, and my heart lurches as I re­‐
al­ize I can vaguely make out his re­flec­tion loom­ing be­hind me in the glass.
He’s all in black, same as be­fore.
Black t-shirt. Black jeans. Black boots.
A black devil’s mask over the top half of his face, leer­ing at me with pure
mal­ice.
“Or maybe I won’t,” he growls slowly. “Maybe you’ll say your pre­cious
safe word, blithely think­ing that will save you, and I still. Won’t. Fuck­ing.
Stop.”
A dark, twisted, de­vi­ous sort of need throbs and pulls at my core. Heat
pools be­tween my thighs, and I whim­per as he sud­denly spanks my ass bru­‐
tally through my skirt.
“But that’s a die you’ll have roll your­self, isn’t it?”
I nod quickly as my breath quick­ens. My chest heaves, and I squeal as he
sud­denly grabs a fist of my hair close to the scalp. He twists and pushes,
pin­ning my cheek to the dark glass over­look­ing the neon lights of New
York. The blade at my throat slowly trails lower, the tip drag­ging lightly
over my skin and leav­ing a throb­bing, shiv­er­ing quiver in its wake.
He notches the tip against the top but­ton of my blouse.
Flick.
The but­ton slices away. The knife slides lower.
Flick.
With an­other quick twist of his wrist, that but­ton also gets cut away. He
keeps go­ing, slowly slash­ing off ev­ery but­ton of my blouse un­til the whole
thing falls open. I shud­der as he slips the blade into the front of my black
lace bra. Deftly, his wrist flicks again, and I gasp sharply as he cuts my bra
away, free­ing my breasts against the chilly glass.
He roughly cups one of them, his weight still pin­ning me to the win­dow.
The blade in his other hand teases over my ribs, flut­ter­ing just off my skin
enough not to cut me. The thrill of the im­mi­nent dan­ger of that knife danc­‐
ing over my skin makes my blood roar and my head swim. I move to plant
my hands against the glass. But in one mo­tion, he’s yank­ing them both
around to the small of my back and pin­ning them there with one hand.
My pulse jan­gles as my breath fogs the glass in front of me. He yanks my
ripped blouse and bra down my arms and twists and wraps them tight
around my wrists, ty­ing my hands at the small of my back. I feel the knife
slide lower, danc­ing over my skirt be­fore it slips un­der the hem, and I
whim­per when he lifts the fab­ric with the blade’s edge.
The knife twists in his hands, push­ing up be­tween my thigh and the fab­ric
of my Chanel skirt. I jolt as he sud­denly brings the blade for­ward, his mus­‐
cled fore­arm rip­pling in the glint­ing lights of the city as he slices clean
through my skirt.
The fab­ric drops to my feet. His hand twists my hair at the scalp again, pin­‐
ning me harder to the glass as his blade teases over the lacy waist of my
thong.
The tip pushes un­der the front. My eyes bulge, my breath hitch­ing and my
skin erupt­ing into goose­bumps as he slowly pushes the knife down into my
panties. It’s sharp as fuck, but he an­gles it so it doesn’t cut me. It’s just the
hard flat width of it that pushes lower and lower, teas­ing so dan­ger­ously
close to my pussy that for a sec­ond, I truly con­sider how fuck­ing un­hinged
all this is.
I don’t ac­tu­ally know this man. At all. And I’ve let him fol­low me to a se­‐
cluded dark room, where he’s al­ready said he might not even stop if I use
the safe word.
Vault.
Say the word, girl. Say the FUCK­ING WORD be­fore this in­san­ity goes any
fur­ther.
But even as I men­tally try to scream some sense into my­self as he inches
the huge knife closer and closer to my most in­ti­mate area, it’s like I’ve gone
into a trance.
My pulse races. My body tin­gles and throbs and aches in ways I’ve never
felt be­fore. A warm, en­velop­ing dark­ness pulls me un­der, mak­ing my eyes
roll back and my mouth go slack against the glass as the mon­ster be­hind me
shat­ters the line be­tween ex­cite­ment and fear, plea­sure and pain, to
smithereens.
At the very last sec­ond, his wrist twists. The knife turns ninety de­grees, and
when the metal drags over my throb­bing clit, it’s the dull edge at the back,
not the sharp, honed blade, that touches my body.
My mouth falls open, and a haunted, aching moan falls from my lips as he
rubs the dull edge of the knife over my swollen clit.
He hears it, too.
The man rum­bles a dark, sin­is­ter laugh. I cry out as he roughly pinches my
nip­ple again, grind­ing his erec­tion against my ass as he be­gins to rub the
back of the knife back and forth over my clit.
“I didn’t re­al­ize what a lit­tle whore I’d found,” he rasps darkly, the hint of
that Eu­ro­pean ac­cent I still can’t quite place send­ing shiv­ers through my
core. “Tell me,” he growls. “Is it the thrill of dan­ger that makes this slutty
lit­tle pussy so fuck­ing drippy and messy?”
He deftly twists the blade, let­ting the tip push down to just barely scratch
my in­ner thigh.
“Or is it the pain that makes you such an ea­ger lit­tle fuck toy for me?”
My breath is ragged and gasp­ing as he twists the blade back again, let­ting
the flat side roll back and forth, back and forth across my aching clit.
His fin­ger roughly twists my nip­ple. Then, with­out warn­ing, he sud­denly
slaps it—not ul­tra vi­o­lently, but enough to send ex­plo­sions of pain and plea­‐
sure sear­ing through ev­ery nerve end­ing in my body. I cry out, chok­ing on
the heady rush of both feel­ings—the good and the bad—as they keep me in
their grip.
“An­swer me, slut,” he rasps darkly into my ear.
“B-b-both,” I mewl out with a breathy choke. My voice doesn’t even sound
like me—the con­fi­dent, poised, boss-lady Tay­lor helm­ing a board meet­ing
or com­mand­ing a court room.
That’s not who’s speak­ing right now. The voice that whim­pers from my
throat is sub­mis­sion per­son­i­fied.
Breathy and scared.
Ea­ger and des­per­ate.
Needy and sub­servient.
His wrist rolls back and forth. The back of the knife rubs over my throb­bing
clit again and again. My face burns with shame at the wet, slick, sticky
sounds of my ea­ger­ness against the steel as delir­ium rolls over me.
I’m fuck­ing drip­ping. I’m so wet I can feel it leak­ing down my thighs and
turn­ing my thong to a soaked mess.
The man chuck­les darkly at my back, lean­ing around to let his teeth bite
down hard on the hol­low of my throat.
“What a des­per­ate lit­tle whore I’ve found. What a filthy lit­tle pain slut I’ve
un­cov­ered, get­ting so fuck­ing wet from a com­plete fuck­ing stranger rub­bing
her greedy cunt with a knife.”
I shud­der as his teeth drag over the bite mark he’s just given me.
“I can’t wait to watch you scream when I take ev­ery greedy hole you have,
my pretty lit­tle slut.”
Sud­denly, I gasp as his arm yanks hard. The blade cuts through the front of
my thong with the rip­ping sound of lace against steel. In one mo­tion, he
flips the blade, and I in­hale sharply as he drives it hard right into the pa­‐
pered wall next to the huge win­dow I’m pinned against.
My panties are dan­gling from the blade, pinned in place barely a foot from
me. He growls as he grabs a hand­ful of my hair, twist­ing my head to force
me to look right at the ripped lace dan­gling from his knife.
“Look how fuck­ing wet you got for me, lit­tle toy,” he rasps darkly. “Just in
case there’s still a tiny part deep in­side you re­belling against this, try­ing to
tell you that you don’t en­joy it, that you didn’t like it when my lethal blade
made your pussy al­most come for me, like the filthy lit­tle cum slut that you
are,” he snarls. “Look how fuck­ing messy you got for me.”
It’s al­most too much. It’s so…real. So en­gulf­ing. So ev­ery­thing. Like stand­‐
ing too close to a bon­fire, un­til the heat is singe­ing the ends of your hair and
dry­ing out your lips.
Like look­ing di­rectly at the sun.
There’s a small part of me that al­most wants to say—no, scream—the one
word that will end all of this. And yet, even as I try and tell my­self this has
gone far enough… He’s right.
There is a re­bel­lious part in­side of me. But it doesn’t want me to stop. It’s
not whis­per­ing that I don’t want this.
It’s scream­ing for more.
So the word never comes. And all I can do is shud­der, and gasp, and whim­‐
per against the glass of the win­dow­pane in front of me as his hand slides
down my stom­ach and be­tween my thighs. I moan, my teeth clamp­ing
down on my bot­tom lip as he pushes two fin­gers over my clit and be­tween
my pussy lips. They curl in­ward, and a gaps chokes from my throat as he
sud­denly rams both fin­gers deep in­side me.
His hands are big, veined, and pow­er­ful. His fin­gers thick and strong. And
when they drive up into me and in­stantly find that spot in­side, I see stars.
His palm grinds into my clit roughly, his other hand pinch­ing and maul­ing
my swollen, ten­der nip­ples be­fore it wraps around my throat.
And squeezes.
In­stantly, my body re­sponds. It’s like send­ing an elec­tri­cal cur­rent zap­ping
through my core. My skin prick­les and shiv­ers. My toes curl against the
floor. My walls tighten around his mas­sive fin­gers, and my eyes roll back.
“Yes, just like that, my greedy lit­tle cum slut. I can feel your ea­ger lit­tle
pussy try­ing to milk my fin­gers when I squeeze your throat.”
He does it again. And again, my gasp­ing moan chokes in my throat even as
my pussy clamps down around his fin­gers.
He chuck­les darkly.
“Such. A. Greedy. Whore.”
I’ve al­ways craved vi­o­lence and to­tal sub­mis­sion. The ut­ter dom­i­na­tion and
the com­plete loss of my con­trol. The thrill of be­ing hunted, stalked, and
chased. The dan­ger of a stranger loom­ing from the dark­ness.
But the way he’s talk­ing to me…
That’s new.
And I don’t hate it.
At. All.
His hand tight­ens around my throat again, mak­ing my pussy squeeze his
fin­gers over and over. I whim­per as he starts to drive them in and out, hard;
stroking against my g-spot with ev­ery deep thrust. I whine qui­etly in the
back of my throat when he slips his fin­gers free. But then he raises his hand,
and I watch with wide eyes in the re­flec­tion of the win­dow as he brings
them to his mouth and sucks them clean with a sat­is­fied groan.
“Your fear tastes like fuck­ing candy, slut,” he growls.
I watch him bring his hand back down be­tween my thighs. I gasp as he
sinks his fin­gers back into me, stroking and pump­ing against my g-spot and
my clit as I whim­per and moan.
His fin­gers slip out again. His hand lifts. This time, his glis­ten­ing fin­gers
ap­proach my mouth.
“Open wide,” he growls. “Open that mouth and tastes how messy your cunt
is for me.”
I do, with­out hes­i­ta­tion. With­out even think­ing about it. I’m so lost in the
con­trol he has over me that my lips part with­out ques­tion. His slick fin­gers
glide over them, slip­ping over my tongue.
“Suck.”
My lips wrap around his fin­ger, and I do as he says.
Heat floods my face as my tongue swirls around his thick fin­ger.
I taste sweet.
His fin­ger slides in and out of my lips, and I can feel my­self moan as my
face throbs with heat, my tongue suck­ing and danc­ing around his fin­ger as
he fucks my mouth with it.
His hand pulls free, in­stantly delv­ing back be­tween my legs. Two fin­gers
sink back into me, stroking my g-spot as his palm grinds hard into my clit.
Oh fuck.
My legs start to shake as his fin­gers ram into me over and over. Lewd, loud
squelch­ing sounds fill the room along with my choked whim­pers and des­‐
per­ate moans. I flush, feel­ing him pin me harder to the glass, grind­ing his
huge erec­tion against my ass as my thighs grow slick with need.
I feel him reach be­tween us and un­zip his fly.
Oh God…
His fore­arm rip­ples against my back as he pulls him­self free. My eyes
bulge.
Holy. Fuck.
I feel the hot, thick, huge throb of his cock press­ing against my ass. He’s so
fuck­ing warm, and I swear I can feel his pulse thud­ding as his rock-hard
dick pulses against me.
He feels enor­mous.
“You know what comes next,” he growls, fin­ger­ing me harder and faster,
fill­ing the room with filthy sounds that turn my face bright red.
“Your greedy lit­tle cunt is go­ing to swal­low ev­ery fuck­ing inch of my cock.
You’re go­ing to be a good lit­tle slut and take it all. You’re go­ing to feel this
fuck­ing cock in places no other man has ever dreamed of reach­ing. I’m go­‐
ing to tear into you and fuck you un­til your legs give out.”
His teeth drag up my neck and bite down hard on my ear­lobe.
“I’m go­ing to ruin your pretty pussy.”
My eyes bulge when I feel his knee jam be­tween my thighs, shov­ing them
wider. I can feel him stroke his huge, fat cock against my ass, send­ing shiv­‐
ers of ner­vous fear and ea­ger an­tic­i­pa­tion rip­pling up my spine.
“You made me wait, slut,” he growls. “And now my balls are so full of
cum, I’ll be drip­ping out of your well-fucked hole un­til next week.”
For one brief sec­ond, re­al­ity pierces my brain.
“W-wait…” I whim­per, shak­ing all over.
He just chuck­les, shov­ing my legs a lit­tle wider apart as he rubs the slick,
swollen head of his cock over my ass.
“I don’t think so.”
“I…” I suck in a breath of ragged air. “I’m n-not on birth con­trol…” I
whim­per softly.
“You say that as if I give a fuck,” he snarls, not even stop­ping as he pushes
the enor­mous crown of his cock be­tween my thighs.
“W-w-wait! Please!”
My arms strain as I try and free them from the torn blouse still wrapped
around my wrists. He chuck­les darkly as I try and strug­gle and squirm.
Even if I wasn’t tied, it would be fu­tile.
He’s huge. And pow­er­ful. Rip­pling with mus­cles as he tow­ers over me, pin­‐
ning me to the glass.
There’s no es­cape from this.
There’s no es­cape from him.
I shiver as his fin­gers slide out of my pussy. His hand slides up to pinch and
roll my nip­ples mer­ci­lessly, bring­ing a tor­tured cry of plea­sure from my
lips.
“Ei­ther I fuck this pussy right now,” he growls, “or I take your tight ass. I’m
com­ing in one of your holes tonight, my lit­tle slut. Pick one.”
That’s when I know I’m a lost cause. Be­yond re­demp­tion or the help of Dr.
Jes­nick.
Be­cause when he says that, I don’t re­coil, or get hor­ri­fied or turned off.
I get wet­ter.
He rum­bles a dark, ma­li­cious laugh, his mus­cled torso vi­brat­ing against my
back.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you. You’d en­joy be­ing my three-holed lit­tle slut,
tak­ing my cum ev­ery­where.”
His teeth nip at my neck again.
“I’ll have to re­mem­ber that.”
My eyes flare as he pushes his big cock be­tween my thighs. His hips roll
for­ward, and I whim­per as I feel the thick girth of it rub­bing across my lips
as he rams for­ward. I moan as I look down to see the swollen head of him
emerge from be­tween my thighs.
My eyes bulge.
Holy. Fuck.
His hips rock back, eas­ing his mas­sive dick back be­tween my thighs as the
swollen head drags back over my pussy. Then he rocks for­ward again, and I
watch it thrust back out from be­tween my legs.
He’s. So. Fuck­ing. Big.
“Tick fuck­ing tock, slut,” he growls. “Am I bury­ing my cock in your messy
lit­tle pussy?”
I shiver as he glides the head be­tween my lips, back and forth.
“Or am I claim­ing this tight hole back here.”
He slides back­ward and cen­ters the head against my ass­hole.
Not a fuck­ing chance.
I’ve never done that, and there’s no way in hell he of all peo­ple is fit­ting.
“M-my pussy,” I whim­per, shame ex­plod­ing across my face.
“You can ask nicer than that, surely.”
My cheeks throb.
“Please…”
“Please what,” he snarls into my ear.
“Please fuck my pussy!”
“Are you go­ing to be a good lit­tle slut, and take ev­ery inch?”
I whim­per, shak­ing all over. “Yes!”
“Say it.”
My face throbs with heat, my nip­ples tight­en­ing as I trem­ble with ex­cite­‐
ment, shame, and de­sire.
“I’ll be a good lit­tle slut!” I blurt as the pure in­san­ity of this mo­ment con­‐
sumes me.
“I know you will.”
With­out warn­ing, he spins us around. I choke on my breath as he grabs a
fist­ful of my hair, half push­ing and half lead­ing me across the dark­ened liv­‐
ing room to the couch, then whim­per when he shoves me down face-first
across it. His palm comes down hard on my ass, mak­ing me yelp as he
spanks me once, twice. Heat siz­zles through my core, and a raw, aching
need un­like any­thing I’ve ever known be­fore burns in my core.
I want this. More than any­thing.
I need it.
I feel him move be­hind me and shiver when I feel the hot pulse of his
swollen cock stroking against my thigh and then him slap­ping the head
against my pussy.
He grabs my hip and quickly rolls me over. My hands are still bound be­hind
my back, and I shud­der as I roll onto them, help­less, my legs spread as he
looms over me.
Fuck.
I could see his mask be­fore, in the re­flec­tion in the glass. But now it’s so
much more. He stands over me, that dark, matte black devil’s mask leer­ing
down at me with his icy blue eyes pierc­ing into mine. His huge bi­cep bulges
slightly, his fore­arm mus­cles rip­pling as he wraps a veined hand around,
with­out ques­tion, the big­gest cock I’ve ever seen, in­clud­ing in any porn.
My jaw drops and my eyes bulge as I stare at his hand stroking up and
down his fat, swollen shaft. White pre­cum beads at the tip and is run­ning in
lit­tle rivulets down his veined cock as he leers at me.
“I’m go­ing to en­joy break­ing this lit­tle pussy,” he snarls. “I’m go­ing to en­‐
joy fuck­ing ru­ini⁠—”
It hap­pens so abruptly my brain al­most can’t process it. One sec­ond, he’s
leer­ing down at me, full of an­i­mal need and pri­mal lust. And the next, that
look has be­come one of pure ha­tred and mal­ice.
He’s not look­ing into my eyes any­more.
He’s star­ing at my lit­tle tat­too.
It’s as if the en­tire en­ergy of the room shifts. The air gets colder. The throb­‐
bing lust that’s per­me­ated the at­mos­phere dis­ap­pears.
All that re­mains is pure fear and pal­pa­ble rage on his face.
“I—”
“You.”
The word scrapes from his throat like iron be­ing dragged across stone. His
eyes move from the ink on my hip up to my face. And when his eyes stab
into mine, my heart turns to ice.
He doesn’t look like he wants to “ruin” me any­more. Or “break” me. Or
even touch me. The smol­der­ing mal­ice on his face from be­fore has turned
ma­lig­nant and poi­sonous.
He hon­estly looks like he wants to kill me.
“YOU,” he rasps vi­ciously.
My eyes widen when he sud­denly lunges for me.
“W-wait!! Don’t⁠—”
“Just try and run from me this time, wife.”
My brain goes numb. My face freezes in a mask of shock and hor­ror, not
even blink­ing when he roughly yanks me off the couch and throws me as if
I weigh noth­ing at all, still naked, over his shoul­der.
Hous­ton, we have a fuck­ing prob­lem.
I go ut­terly numb and still, like my brain is short-cir­cuit­ing. Like I’m a ro­‐
bot toy and some­one’s just yanked out my bat­ter­ies. Re­al­ity doesn’t feel
real. I’m dream­ing or imag­in­ing this. I don’t even feel it when he yanks a
throw blan­ket off the couch and tosses it over me.
Sud­denly, he’s march­ing me out the door of my ho­tel suite.
“W-wait,” I choke out. “I—I don’t know⁠—”
“Shut. The. FUCK. UP,” he hisses ven­omously as kicks open the door to
the stair­case and starts jog­ging down them, with me thrown over his shoul­‐
der like a sack of pota­toes.
“P-please!” I whim­per help­lessly. “Please! I have money! You don’t have
to⁠—”
“Stop. Fuck­ing. Talk­ing.”
He spits the words out like poi­son. I can lit­er­ally feel the rage throb­bing un­‐
der his skin as I bounce against his shoul­der mus­cles as he takes the stairs
two at a time. He kicks open an­other door and we step into a main­te­nance
hall­way. At the end of it, he kicks open yet an­other door, and sud­denly
we’re out­side, in a back al­ley be­hind the ho­tel.
And the spell is bro­ken.
Maybe it’s the cool night air. Or the re­al­ity that this man is tak­ing me some­‐
where. But as we step out­side, and I glance back and see the traf­fic on the
main street at the mouth of the al­ley­way, I lurch back to life.
“HELP!!” I scream as loudly as I can. “SOME­BODY HELP! FIRE! FI⁠—”
The breath is slammed from my lungs as he whips me vi­o­lently off his
shoul­der, hurls me against the wall be­hind me, and snarls close to my face,
his hand around my throat and his eyes full of pure mal­ice.
“Stop. Fuck­ing. Talk­ing, An­nika.”
Some­thing short cir­cuits in my brain. Lights flash. A spasm tears through
my body and wrenches my spine. More bright lights flicker in my field of
vi­sion, turn­ing ev­ery­thing dark.
The sun shines down. The flow­ers smell like heaven. A man laughs deeply,
and a beau­ti­ful red-haired woman smiles warmly. A lit­tle girl gig­gles in de­‐
light.
“Come play, An­nika! Come throw the ball!”
Jerk­ing back out of it is like wak­ing up and re­al­iz­ing you’re drown­ing. I
choke, star­tling the man as I lurch away from the wall with a manic frenzy
and ter­ror claw­ing at my heart.
He lets go of me, and the speed with which I re­act al­most scares me.
In a flash, I jerk my knee up hard and catch him in the balls. The man
grunts, his face twist­ing in pain as I kick him as hard as I can in the shin.
He drops to one knee, hiss­ing in pain.
And I run.
An­nika! An­nika! Come play, An­nika…
Who the fuck is An­nika?
And… Why did he just call me his wife?

OceanofPDF.com
 7

DRAZEN

T here ’ s a cer­tain irony in be­ing re­ferred to as a ghost, when you don’t

your­self be­lieve in them.
That’s what most call me: a ghost. A devil from hell. Some­thing wicked this
way comes, as they say.
That’s me.
I am the thing that goes bump in the night. The black­ness that even fierce,
hard­ened grown men fear.
Over the years, I’ve been—and been called—many things. A sol­dier. A free­‐
dom-fighter, and de­fender of my home.
A killer. A ter­ror­ist. A war crim­i­nal.
A mon­ster. A de­mon. “The heads­man”, or Baba Yaga. The boogey­man. A
force of mal­ice, and vengeance.
But here and there along the way I was other things, too.
A brother. A son.
A hus­band.
My gaze pierces the dark­ness, stab­bing through the bul­let-proof win­dows of
my sky-high lair and look­ing out over the en­tirety of Man­hat­tan sprawled
sub­mis­sively be­neath me.
In the be­gin­ning, I had none of this. I had noth­ing but the charred, scorched
re­mains of an em­pire I might have one day led in an­other life and an­other
re­al­ity.
Be­cause that em­pire was taken from me. Taken from my fa­ther. Taken from
his fa­ther. And that made me a king of ash. An em­peror of dust and bones.
A de­mon hell-bent on his re­venge.
In the very be­gin­ning, there was Ioaan Vasi­lyev, my great-great-grand­fa­ther.
The fa­vorite body­guard of Tsa­rina Alexan­dra, the last em­press of Rus­sia,
Ioaan was given a price­less gift that would have lifted our fam­ily to breathe
the rar­i­fied air of kings.
Im­per­skaya gvardiya. The Im­pe­rial Shield Fabergé Egg.
Alexan­dra com­mis­sioned it per­son­ally as a gift to my great-great-grand­fa­‐
ther. And when the Bol­she­viks were march­ing on the royal palace, she had
him go to Paris to ar­range for a safe place for her and her fam­ily to stay af­‐
ter they fled Rus­sia.
That never hap­pened. De­spite the many myths and leg­ends sur­round­ing
Anas­ta­sia, the re­al­ity is that the en­tire Ro­manov fam­ily was ex­ec­ uted in the
woods out­side Yeka­ter­in­burg and buried in shal­low graves.
They never met up with my great-great-grand­fa­ther. And while he awaited
news from Rus­sia, Ioaan him­self was mur­dered in his sleep, and the Im­pe­‐
rial Shield Fabergé Egg was lost.
Ioaan was not with­out an heir, how­ever. His son Mikhail, my great-grand­fa­‐
ther, fled the blood-soaked rev­o­lu­tion of his home­land and landed in Ser­bia.
There, even with­out the egg and the price­less trea­sure it con­tained, he be­‐
gan work on the foun­da­tions of his own em­pire: one built not upon the pro­‐
tec­tion of a royal monar­chy, but on sim­ply tak­ing what he wanted.
An em­pire built on blood and vi­o­lence, tak­ing the life skills he’d learned in
his na­tive Rus­sia and meld­ing them with the cut­throat street smarts nec­es­‐
sary for sur­vival in war-torn Ser­bia af­ter World War One.
Mikhail never used his fa­ther’s name. He saw “Vasi­lyev” as a re­minder of
the servi­tude to an em­peror that got Ioaan killed, as well as the prom­ise of a
fu­ture and riches in France that was never kept.
In­stead, he adopted my great-great-grand­mother’s maiden name for the
brand of his new crim­i­nal Ser­bian em­pire.
Krylov.
Mikhail had three sons—three heirs to help him make the Krylov Bratva
into some­thing pow­er­ful and feared. To­gether, that’s what they did, tak­ing
over ev­ery small out­fit around him un­til his mod­est crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tion
be­came a force to be reck­oned with.
The Krylov name in­spired fear and re­spect. Peo­ple bowed their heads when
my great-grand­fa­ther Mikhail and his sons passed by.
My great-un­cle Ioaan, named af­ter his grand­fa­ther, was due to be mar­ried to
a beau­ti­ful girl named Aly­ona. They were young and in love, and the
Krylov fam­ily was on the brink of be­com­ing one of the great­est Bratva fam­‐
i­lies in East­ern Eu­rope.
But then tragedy struck.
An ag­grieved ri­val fam­ily chose the day of the wed­ding to at­tack. It was a
blood­bath, and though the Krylov name lived on and ul­ti­mately claimed
vic­tory over their ri­vals that day, the “em­pire” was no more.
Mikhail was killed that day. So were my two great-un­cles, Ioaan and
Matvey, along with al­most three quar­ters of my great-grand­fa­ther’s sol­diers.
The fam­ily home that Mikhail had built was burned to the ground. So were
his ware­houses full of mer­chan­dise to be sold.
Af­ter that, the Krylov name with­ered and al­most died.
The con­nec­tions my great-grand­fa­ther had built van­ished. His trade routes
col­lapsed, and his con­tacts found new busi­ness part­ners. Now sig­nif­i­cantly
weak­ened, the Krylov name was hunted by em­bold­ened lo­cal po­lit­i­cal pow­‐
ers and the po­lice and chased into the shad­ows.
But I come from a long, proud line of sur­vivors.
In hid­ing, my grand­fa­ther Lev ended up mar­ry­ing his brother’s in­tended,
Aly­ona. To­gether, they had a son, Miroslav. Lev didn’t have much in the
wake of the wed­ding mas­sacre, but he kept the Krylov name go­ing and re­‐
built where he could. Miroslav be­came a man, got mar­ried, and brought his
own son into the world.
Me.
But hard­ship seems to have trou­ble stay­ing away from my fam­ily.
The prob­lem was, the Krylov fam­ily was nei­ther Rus­sian nor Ser­bian. Tech­‐
ni­cally, it was both, since Aly­ona was Ser­bian-born, mix­ing the blood­lines
when she and Lev had my fa­ther. But to the Ser­bians, par­tic­u­larly the Ser­‐
bian mafia, we were Rus­sians. And to the Bratva and the Rus­sians, we were
“tainted”: di­luted blood, and not truly Bratva.
It was dur­ing the Yu­goslav wars and the blood­shed that was Kosovo in the
nineties that things erupted. In a non-sanc­tioned gun bat­tle be­tween the
Krylov Bratva and our big­gest ri­val, the Ser­bian Bran­covich fam­ily, stray
bul­lets al­most took the lives of two in­no­cents: my grand­mother, Aly­ona,
and Mi­ha­jlo Bran­covich’s young daugh­ter, An­nika.
Af­ter that, things clearly had to change. As the Balkan war wound down, it
was ob­vi­ous there was go­ing to be a power grab by any­one who had the
means. In Kosovo at the time, that was my fam­ily, and Mi­ha­jlo Bran­‐
covich’s fam­ily.
An agree­ment was made: al­though she and I were both still chil­dren, I only
a few years older, An­nika Bran­covich and I were be­trothed to marry when
she turned eigh­teen. Our fam­i­lies ceased hos­til­i­ties and started work­ing to­‐
gether to seize what­ever we could in the af­ter­math of the Balkan War. Both
fam­i­lies grew pow­er­ful and wealthy, and al­though we were es­sen­tially
strangers, let alone “in love”, An­nika and I were mar­ried when she turned
eigh­teen.
A month later, she and the rest of her fam­ily be­trayed mine.
In his rise to re­stored power, my fa­ther and my grand­fa­ther had both
amassed more than a few en­em ­ ies: some Ser­bian, but mostly Rus­sian—
Bratva fam­i­lies who were jeal­ous of the power, in­flu­ence, and wealth the
Krylovs had carved out for them­selves with­out even hav­ing to play games
with Mos­cow or St. Pe­ters­burg. They schemed against us, pool­ing their re­‐
sources to help Mi­ha­jlo.
A month af­ter the wed­ding, An­nika let as­sas­sins in through the back door of
our sum­mer is­land es­tate in Italy.
I watched as my en­tire fam­ily was slaugh­tered that night. My grand­fa­ther
and grand­mother. My fa­ther and mother. My aunt and two cousins. My sis­‐
ter, her hus­band, and my new­born nephew.
All dead.
Af­ter that, the mon­sters torched the house and left me to die in the fire and
blood they left be­hind.
Ex­cept I didn’t die.
I lived.
When I climbed out of the wreck­age of my life the next morn­ing, I had
noth­ing. The Krylov Bratva had been erad­i­cated overnight. All our as­sets
stolen or de­stroyed. All our gov­ern­ment con­nec­tions paid to turn their
backs. All our al­lies dead, or no longer friendly.
My only so­lace that day was learn­ing that An­nika hadn’t made it ei­ther. One
of our men, in his last mo­ments, had blown up the only bridge con­nect­ing
our is­land to the main­land just as the car car­ry­ing that treach­er­ous bitch was
driv­ing over it.
I found her charred re­mains in the wreck­age of the car on the rocks be­low,
spit on her corpse, and set my re­solve.
I’ve spent the last fif­teen years since that fate­ful day claw­ing back my em­‐
pire and ut­terly de­stroy­ing any­one and ev­ery­one who had any part in the
mas­sacre of my fam­ily.
I em­braced my her­itage. I be­came an aveng­ing an­gel of death. I even lo­‐
cated the Im­per­skaya gvardiya—the Im­pe­rial Shield Fabergé Egg—and
used its hid­den riches to storm back into the light un­der a new ban­ner.
But now, there’s this.
Fif­teen years ago, she be­trayed me and de­stroyed my world. Fif­teen years
ago, I thought she died, deny­ing me my vengeance.
Tonight, I found her ghost.
Tonight, I fuck­ing found An­nika. And this time, noth­ing will cheat me of
my ret­ri­bu­tion.
You can run, lit­tle An­nika. In fact, I want you to. And this time, I’m go­ing
to chase you. I’m go­ing to find you. And when I do, I’ll fuck­ing de­stroy
you, An­nika.
Or should I say, Tay­lor…

OceanofPDF.com
 8

TAY­L OR

T here ’ s a mo­ment of com­plete con­fu­sion when I wake up in dark­ness to

the beep­ing of an alarm clock. But then ev­ery­thing rushes back.
It’s like wak­ing up un­der ice.
I sit bolt up­right. In­stantly I wince as the move­ment trig­gers in­sanely bright
white lights to stream down on me. My eyes squeeze shut, winc­ing as the
blind­ing light stabs through my eye­lids and the alarm con­tin­ues to blare into
my ear.
Good fuck­ing morn­ing to you, too.
Bleary-eyed, I roll off the lit­tle fold­ing cot and slam my hand down on my
backup phone, si­lenc­ing the alarm. My hands run over my face and up into
my hair, push­ing it back from my face as I take a breath and ex­hale slowly.
Sud­denly, the events that led me to wak­ing up in the locked con­fi­den­tial
doc­u­ments vault at the of­fice come scream­ing back in vi­o­lent flashes
through my head.
I re­mem­ber knee­ing him in the balls and kick­ing him in the shin be­fore
flee­ing. I re­mem­ber bolt­ing down the al­ley, naked and wrapped in a throw
blan­ket, and then div­ing be­hind a dump­ster, shrink­ing against the brick wall
be­hind me.
Wait­ing to see if the mon­ster would chase me.
When the min­utes ticked by and he didn’t, I cau­tiously stepped from my
hid­ing place to find the al­ley­way empty. Af­ter that, I sprinted to my car
parked in the garage un­der the Soho Grand, pulled on the ex­tra of­fice out­fit
I keep in the trunk, and drove di­rectly to work.
This is the only place I could think of where I’d be to­tally safe from him:
locked in the key­pad-en­try-only doc­u­ments locker.
My pri­mary phone is still back at the ho­tel room in my bag. So it’s not like
he could track me via the app or any­thing else on my phone.
I shiver in the chilly air-con­di­tion­ing.
Ex­cept he also saw my face. And he did come to my ho­tel room, which
means he can eas­ily get my name.
I trem­ble again as my arms tighten around me.
An­nika.
“Come play, An­nika! Come throw the ball!”
“Stop. Fuck­ing. Talk­ing, An­nika.”
My throat works, swal­low­ing back the lump in the back of it. My eyes
close, and sud­denly, I get an­other flash of the same scene: the warm sun and
the smell of cut grass. The laugh­ing, hand­some man. The beau­ti­ful, smil­ing
woman with the red hair.
“Come play, An­nika…”
I flinch as I snap out of it. My eyes drift to my backup phone, and I frown at
the time.
Amelia will be in soon. Prob­ab­ ly best not to be sit­ting on a cot in a locked
win­dow­less room in my un­der­wear.
I change back into the emer­gency out­fit from my car and slide into my
backup Louboutins. Peek­ing out of the doc­u­ments locker, I see the of­fice is
still com­pletely empty. I fold up my cot, tidy up the area, and head to my
of­fice to stow away the ev­i­dence of my work­place sleep­over.
In my en­suite ex­ec­u­tive bath­room, I wash my face, do my makeup, comb
my hair, brush my teeth, and gen­er­ally try to make it look like I didn’t just
spend the night in a glo­ri­fied closet. Then I’m at my desk, some Van Mor­ri­‐
son—which I love—play­ing on the desk­top speaker, try­ing to fo­cus on the
le­gal pa­pers in front of me.
“Oh!”
I smile and look up as Amelia stops short in the door­way, look­ing sur­prised.
I mean, I’m usu­ally here early. But I’m not sure there’s ever been a day
where I’ve beaten her in.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Crown,” she frowns. “Is my clock off⁠—”
“Nope, not at all, Amelia,” I smile. “Just here ex­tra early to get crack­ing on
some of this.”
“Ah, per­fect!” Amelia beams. “Can I get you a cof­fee?”
“That’d be great, thank you, Amelia.”
She grins and scur­ries off. The sec­ond she’s out of sight, my smile drops. I
ex­hale, shud­der­ing a lit­tle as I reach for my land­line and buzz the front
desk. I ask George, the head morn­ing se­cu­rity of­fi­cer, to be sure to screen
any un­sched­uled guests for the firm, and to be on the look­out for any es­pe­‐
cially tall and built dark-haired men who may have Eu­ro­pean or maybe
even East­ern Eu­ro­pean ac­cents.
“Some­one in par­tic­u­lar you’re wor­ried about, Ms. Crown?” George asks in
a voice laden with con­cern.
“No, no,” I try and laugh it off. “It’s…”
George clears his throat. “I don’t mean to pry, Ms. Crown. But is this, uh,
maybe a date who isn’t get­ting a sec­ond chance and might be up­set about
it?”
That times one mil­lion, yes.
I could lie, but why not just bend the truth a lit­tle in­stead?
I’m a lawyer, af­ter all.
“Ac­tu­ally… Yeah,” I sigh. “That’s ba­si­cally it.”
George clears his throat again, sound­ing ex­tra of­fi­cial. “Any­thing we should
call the au­thor­i­ties about, Ms. Crown?”
“No, noth­ing like that, George. I sin­cerely doubt he’d come here any­way. I
just…you know.”
“Bet­ter safe than sorry, that’s what I al­ways tell my daugh­ters, Ms. Crown,”
George says fiercely. “How big we talkin’?”
I shiver as I re­mem­ber last night. I’m fairly tall for a woman, at five foot
ten. But he still tow­ered over me by…nearly a foot, it felt like.
“Maybe six-seven or eight?”
George whis­tles. “He play for the Knicks or some­thin’?”
I grin. “Un­for­tu­nately, no. And again, I don’t think he’s dan­ger­ous or any­‐
thing, and I doubt he’ll⁠—”
“We’ll keep an eye out, Ms. Crown. Don’t worry.”
“Thanks, George,” I say qui­etly. “I ap­pre­ci­ate it.”
Af­ter Amelia brings cof­fee, she shuts the door and leaves me to it. But in­‐
stead of div­ing into the frankly in­sane amount of work I need to get through
with Gabriel leav­ing, I can’t fo­cus on any of it.
There’s some­thing else on my mind.
Someone else.
My face burns with heat. A dirty, de­viant sen­sa­tion slith­ers through my psy­‐
che, elec­tri­fy­ing my skin. A needy pulse tugs at my core as my thighs
clench.
All fur­ther proof that I’m in­sane, as if I needed more con­vinc­ing.
Last night, a mon­ster broke into my ho­tel room. A mon­ster who pinned me
to the wall, cut away my clothes, and ran a fuck­ing knife over my body.
…A mon­ster who al­most made me come with that very knife rub­bing my
clit.
I’m not in­sane. I’m de­ranged.
Bro­ken. Un­hinged. Un­well.
Be­cause even af­ter ev­ery­thing that hap­pened later, just think­ing about that
first part of the night has my pulse quick­en­ing and my nip­ples tight­en­ing.
My panties grow­ing damp.
I didn’t just let him do those things.
I liked it.
Or at least, I did un­til it all went wrong. Un­til some­thing shifted be­hind his
eyes, and his look turned from malev­o­lent to down­right ma­li­cious. From
dan­ger­ous to fu­ri­ous.
Un­til he called me An­nika, called me his fuck­ing wife, and tried to abduct
me.
My skin prick­les.
The one sav­ing grace in all this Venom shit has been me telling my­self that
none of it is “real”. I’ve con­vinced my­self of the “fan­tasy” as­pect in all of
this: that these men I could the­o­ret­i­cally con­nect with on the app aren’t ac­‐
tual psy­chopaths who want to hurt me or mur­der me. They’re rich, pow­er­‐
ful, vet­ted men who hap­pen to have the same slightly south of the bor­der
kinks that I do.
Ex­cept as I re­play last night, es­pe­cially the later parts, I’m sud­denly not so
sure.
That wasn’t a game to him. He looked at me like I was his worst en­emy. For
real.
A knock on my of­fice door star­tles me from my haunt­ing thoughts. I yank
my eyes up, spot­ting Al­is­tair through the glass walls just be­fore he lets him­‐
self in.
“Heard you were here bright and early,” he grunts, bear­ing a cof­fee mug
that says Cap­tain Sun­shine! and is cov­ered with grin­ning, cheer­ful an­thro­‐
po­mor­phic rain­bows and suns.
“Yeah, I—” My brows knit. “What the fuck is with the mug?”
Al­is­tair, who might be the least likely can­di­date for the ti­tle of “Cap­tain
Sun­shine” in the his­tory of the world, rolls his eyes. “Eloise got it for me.”
“I love that woman,” I sigh. “Maybe try to keep her this time around?”
“Har fuck­ing har,” he mut­ters. He nods at the stack of le­gal doc­u­ments on
my desk. “Gabriel shit?”
“Gabriel shit,” I re­ply grimly.
Al­is­tair sighs. “I can’t be­lieve Elsa only said ‘maybe’. It would make all our
lives way eas­ier if she’d just take the damn job.” He makes a face. “Stupid
baby.”
I snort. “What, you and Eloise not think­ing about kids?”
He scowls. “I mean…not this sec­ond, no.” A smirk tugs at his lips. “You?
Any baby thoughts?”
I bite back the heat that is threat­en­ing to spread up my neck into my face as
I re­play part of last night.
“I… I’m n-not on birth con­trol…”
“You say that as if I give a fuck.”
I smile at Al­is­tair through the throb deep in my core as I force a wry smile
to my face.
“Yeah, still sin­gle as fuck, thanks.”
Al­is­tair shrugs. “Hey, I could to­tally see you as one of those sin­gle fifty-
year-old ladies with a sur­ro­gate…or do­ing some sort of su­per­woman in-
vitro thing. Freez­ing your eggs is a thing, right?”
I glare at him. “Yeah, my big take­away from that is how eas­ily you imag­‐
ined me as still sin­gle at fifty. Thanks, dick­head.”
He grins. “Hey, true love might be walk­ing in your door any sec⁠—”
“Ms. Crown?” Amelia blurts as she all but falls into the of­fice. Her face is
stricken as she glances be­tween Al­is­tair and me. “Sorry to in­ter­rupt, Mr.
Black⁠—”
“It’s fine,” I cut her off with a frown when I see the se­ri­ously con­cerned
look on her face. “What’s go­ing on?”
“The, uh…the…”
“One word, three syl­la­bles,” Al­is­tair says dryly. “First syl­la­ble sounds
like⁠—”
“Ms. Crown, the po­lice are on their way up. The front desk just rang me.”
The smirk drops from Al­is­tair’s face, and we both leave my of­fice and go
out onto the wrap­around walk­way when we hear the com­mo­tion rum­bling
from down on the main floor. Two uni­formed NYPD of­fi­cers—a man and a
woman—are com­pletely ig­nor­ing the shocked looks on the Crown and
Black em­ployee faces as they thread their way through the main floor pit to
the stair­case up to the ex­ec­u­tive level that rings the lower of­fices.
Al­is­tair, Amelia, and I watch in con­fu­sion as the two of­fi­cers reach our
floor, look at each other, then glance our way be­fore walk­ing over. The
male of­fi­cer clears his throat as they come to a stop in front of us.
“Ms. Crown?” he says with an of­fi­cial tone.
My brows fur­row. “Yes?”
“Would you like to step into your of­fice with us so that we can talk pri­‐
vately?”
“No, she wouldn’t,” Al­is­tair growls, butting in. “I’m Al­is­tair Black, and not
only is this my firm, but Ms. Crown is my client. I’ll be present if you wish
to speak with her.”
I roll my eyes slightly as I glance at him. “Thank you, Al­is­tair,” I say qui­‐
etly. “But I’m sure they’re not here to talk about me.” I glance back at the
two of­fi­cers and grin.
Nei­ther of them grins back.
“Shall we?” The fe­male of­fi­cer, with a name tag that says “Of­fi­cer Hor­ton”,
ges­tures past me to my of­fice door.
“Uh…sure… Yeah, of course,” I frown, turn­ing and glanc­ing at Al­is­tair be­‐
fore step­ping in­side. “Amelia, would you hold my calls, please?”
“Of course, Ms. Crown.”
Al­is­tair and I step into my of­fice, and I hold the door for Of­fi­cer Hor­ton and
the guy, ap­par­ently “Of­fi­cer Ra­mone”, as they fol­low us in­side.
“Please,” I ges­ture at the two couches to one side of my of­fice. “Why don’t
you have a seat⁠—”
“Ms. Crown,” Of­fi­cer Ra­mone says in a terse, of­fi­cial voice. “Can you tell
us where you were last night?”
Some­thing in­side of me tenses. My lips pull tight as my eyes snap to his.
What the fuck.
As weird as it is for the po­lice to just show up unan­nounced, I sort of was
un­der the im­pres­sion they wanted to ask me in­ap­pro­pri­ately lead­ing ques­‐
tions about a client or a cur­rent case.
Not ask about me.
“Ex­cuse me?”
“You don’t have to an­swer that,” Al­is­tair mut­ters, glar­ing at them.
“Ac­tu­ally, Mr. Black,” Of­fi­cer Hor­ton says, her chin dip­ping, “she does.”
Al­is­tair’s tone turns vi­cious. “How about you tell us why the fuck you’re
here wast­ing our⁠—”
“Al­is­tair.” I glance at him and raise my hand slightly. “It’s okay.” I clear my
throat and turn to smile at the of­fi­cers. “I was at the Soho Grand last night.”
I see Al­is­tair frown out of the cor­ner of my eye, prob­ab­ ly cu­ri­ous why the
hell I was at a fancy ho­tel and not my own apart­ment.
“I had a small roach prob­lem at my apart­ment,” I say glibly. “So I’ve been
spend­ing a few nights at the Soho while the chem­i­cal spray stuff does its
thing.” I smile af­fa­bly, shrug­ging. “New York, am I right?”
It’s not the first time I’ve …fibbed…to the po­lice. I’ve bent the truth or lied
by omis­sion here and there to help a client, or to push back on of­fi­cers try­‐
ing to push too hard past their own le­gal lim­its.
But I’m not en­tirely sure why I’m ly­ing right now. I guess I don’t want to
men­tion Club Venom, and I cer­tainly don’t want to men­tion the fact that I
asked a man from the club’s app to track me and hunt me, and to act out pri­‐
mal kinks with me.
Al­though af­ter what hap­pened last night, I re­ally don’t un­der­stand why I’m
not just telling them ev­ery­thing. Or at least the part where that lu­natic called
me some­one else’s name, said I was his fuck­ing wife, and then tried to
abduct me.
Be­cause you’re in­sane, that’s why.
I smile again at the of­fi­cers when they don’t laugh at my weak joke. “So,
yes, that’s where I was last night. I’m sure the ho­tel can give you a record
of my stay. I haven’t checked out yet.”
The two of them glance at each other, then at Al­is­tair.
“Ms. Crown,” Of­fi­cer Hor­ton mur­murs. “Per­haps your part­ner would like to
step out­side with mine?”
I frown. “Ex­cuse me?”
She lifts up a phone and clears her throat. “I have some­thing to show you,
and it’s a bit…sen­si­tive.”
My brow fur­rows. “What­ever it is, I’m sure it’s fine if Mr. Black is here.”
“Also, Mr. Black in­sists on be­ing here as con­sti­tu­tion­ally man­dated le­gal
rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” Al­is­tair spits with a glare.
“I’m sorry, but I have a se­ri­ously packed sched­ule to­day,” I mut­ter. “What
ex­actly is all of this about?”
Of­fi­cer Hor­ton glances at her part­ner. He nods and drifts away to the door
as she taps some­thing on her phone.
“It’s about this, Ms. Crown.”
She turns the phone to­ward me.
In­stantly, my blood turns to ice, and my stom­ach drops through the floor.
“Shit,” Al­is­tair mum­bles, turn­ing away.
I’m will­ing to bet it’s not soon enough that he didn’t just see the same thing
I just did: se­cu­rity video of a naked woman with wild red hair run­ning
through a park­ing garage with a throw blan­ket barely around her waist.
It’s footage of me last night, af­ter I es­caped from the lu­natic.
“That’s enough,” Al­is­tair snaps, still look­ing away. “Turn that shit off.
Now.”
Of­fi­cer Hor­ton nods, look­ing un­com­fort­able her­self as she swipes away
from the video and tucks the phone into a pocket in her vest.
“Ms. Crown, you can deny who that is on the tape. But I think this will go
eas­ier⁠—”
“No, it’s me,” I sigh, my face crim­son. I ex­hale slowly. “Look, I had a few
too many drinks last night.” I shake my head. “And some­times, I take a pill
to help me sleep. Ob­vi­ously, I had more to drink than I should have, which
I’m not proud of, and it didn’t re­act well with the Am­bien. I…” I wet my
lips. “I sleep­walk some­times.”
“Or sleep run,” Of­fi­cer Hor­ton quips with­out smil­ing.
I glare at her. “Yes. Or sleep run.”
Of­fi­cer Ra­mone walks back over. “Your car is cur­rently in the park­ing
garage un­der this build­ing, Ms. Crown. Did you drive last night?”
“Don’t an­swer that,” Al­is­tair grunts.
Of­fi­cer Hor­ton sighs. “We can check the logs in the park­ing garage to see
for our­selves.”
“You can if you have a fuck­ing war­rant on you,” Al­is­tair fires back. “If not,
if you go any­where near that park­ing garage of­fice, I’ll slap you both with
the big­gest abuse of power law­suit you’ve ever seen.”
The two of them look amused, but they don’t take the bait.
“So, Ms. Crown,” Of­fi­cer Hor­ton ven­tures. “We’re clear that that’s you,
run­ning naked through a park­ing garage last night, yes?”
I level a cool glare at her.
“If you’re try­ing to push in­de­cent ex­po­sure, the video only shows”…my
face burns…“a brief flash of my breasts, not full nu­dity. Go­ing top­less is le­‐
gal in New York. So, what­ever this is, I think it’s time that you both were
leav­ing⁠—”
“Ms. Crown,” Of­fi­cer Hor­ton says qui­etly, her tone shift­ing as she gives me
an odd look. “We’re ac­tu­ally not here about you bar­ing your breasts in a
park­ing garage.”
Of­fi­cer Ra­mone pulls out a pair of hand­cuffs.
“Ex­actly what the ac­tual fuck do you think you’re do­ing,” Al­is­tair snarls,
step­ping closer to the of­fi­cer.
“We’re here, Ms. Crown,” Of­fi­cer Hor­ton says, “about the car you stole last
night. We need you to come with us, please.”

OceanofPDF.com
 9

DRAZEN

R e ­v enge is a com ­p lex thing .

At times, it’s been all that’s sus­tained me. My sin­gle mo­ti­va­tion. My sole
pur­pose in this world. Those were—still are—my darker days. The days
where the demons of my past scream at me from the shad­ows. When the
ghosts of those I lost beg for their lives over and over, as I’m held down and
forced to watch, pow­er­less to stop it.
Luck­ily, there’s an an­ti­dote when it gets that bad. A balm to soothe the stab­‐
bing, burn­ing sen­sa­tion that cur­dles and snarls in­side of me.
Vi­o­lence.
Un­bri­dled, unchecked, un­hinged vi­o­lence.
Those are the days I live for: when a hunt has paid off. When it fi­nally all
comes to­gether.
What was done to me and mine was mon­strous. And so, when I latch onto
an­other of the ver­min who be­trayed us, or schemed against us, and at last
get to de­stroy them the way they had a part in de­stroy­ing me, there’s noth­‐
ing sur­gi­cal or pre­cise about it.
It takes a beast to fight beasts. And I thrive when I let mine out to play.
I know I should be in New York right now. I should be walk­ing into An­‐
nika’s—sorry, Tay­lor’s—of­fice and slit­ting her throat right there on her
fancy car­pet, or tak­ing her some­where else by force so that I can spend
more time on her.
The oth­ers have all paid in blood and tears for what they did to my fam­ily.
They’ve watched as I’ve metic­u­lously de­stroyed their en­tire lives and ex­is­‐
tences be­fore they beg me in the end to take their last breaths.
She’ll be my mag­num opus. My great­est sym­phonic work of vi­cious ret­ri­‐
bu­tion.
Right now, though, I’m busy fin­ish­ing an­other, less im­por­tant, mas­ter­piece.
In the base­ment un­der the bar in Mex­ico City, the man with just one eye left
and no teeth looks up at me with a piti­ful, hol­low ex­pres­sion. Yet, through
the ruin of his face, the tor­ment of his soul, and the ut­ter hope­less­ness in his
heart, I can tell.
He knows.
And he re­mem­bers.
The man wal­low­ing in a pud­dle of his own blood, piss, and ex­cre­ment is
Daniil Gorav, a mid-tier Bratva strong­man with a pa­thetic lit­tle fief­dom of
“power” in St. Pe­ters­burg. He’s a no­body. A shit­stain the big­ger Bratva fam­‐
i­lies in Rus­sia would wipe off the sole of their shoe with­out a sec­ond
thought.
But I’ve given Daniil plenty of sec­ond thoughts. And third, and fourth, and
fifth thoughts.
It’s hard to for­get one of the men who held you down, laugh­ing and forc­ing
you to watch, as your mother’s throat was slit in front of you.
Fif­teen years ago, Daniil thought his star was on the rise. He was two tiers
down from the Iron Ta­ble and might have even­tu­ally risen to the higher
ranks, along­side the Bratva kings he idol­ized and worked for.
But then he made the gravest mis­take of his life: he helped those larger
Bratva fam­i­lies be­tray and mur­der my fam­ily.
Since then, I know he’s wo­ken up plenty of nights wor­ry­ing if it’s me he’s
just heard out­side his bed­room win­dow. Won­der­ing if his wife is late get­ting
home from her shop­ping be­cause I’ve got­ten my hands on her.
There’s a rea­son I’ve left him alone for more than a few years, even af­ter
track­ing him down and dis­cov­er­ing ev­ery sin­gle thing about his life, his
sched­ule, his hopes, dreams, and fam­ily.
I’ve wanted him to fear this day for as long as pos­si­ble.
I’d have let the hor­ror his life has be­come over the last four years go on for
an­other decade, if I could. He wouldn’t be the first of my prey to throw
them­selves off a build­ing or swal­low the bar­rel of their own gun to end the
suf­fer­ing. Of course, I do ev­ery­thing in my power not to let it come to that.
That’s cheat­ing. And I hate be­ing cheated out of my prize. My vengeance.
Un­for­tu­nately, Daniil’s just forced my hand. I got wind late last night, back
home ic­ing my fuck­ing balls af­ter she kneed me, that he was en­route to
Mex­ico City to un­dergo ma­jor re­con­struc­tive fa­cial surgery.
The pussy couldn’t even take his own life af­ter I ru­ined it. He thought he
could es­cape me by chang­ing who he was.
He was wrong.
“Re­mind me, Daniil,” I growl qui­etly, pac­ing around him, care­ful to avoid
the stink­ing, spread­ing pud­dle of filth. “Which hand was it you used to hold
me down that night?”
His one re­main­ing eye widens just a lit­tle bit. I smile widely, in­hal­ing the
in­tox­i­cat­ing scent of fear em­an­ at­ing from his man­gled body.
“Was it the left?” I muse, con­tin­u­ing my slow walk. “Or, no, it was the
right, wasn’t it?”
“P-p-p-please…” he bur­bles. “Please, Drazen…”
“Beg­ging will get you nowhere,” I smile icily. “Beg­ging got me nowhere
fif­teen years ago. But I do so en­joy the sound of your blub­ber­ing. So,
please: con­tinue.”
He shud­ders.
“Drazen,” Daniil chokes. “I—I have money⁠—”
I laugh up­roar­i­ously.
I don’t want what­ever pa­thetic ta­ble scraps this fuck could scrounge to­‐
gether. It could be all the gold in the world, and it still wouldn’t bring my
fam­ily back.
Daniil seems to im­me­di­ately re­al­ize what a lu­di­crous ges­ture that was. So
he de­cides to ap­peal to my emo­tional side.
“Please, Drazen,” he whim­pers. “I—I have a son…”
Too bad I don’t have an emo­tional side to ap­peal to.
Oh, and he’s mis­taken about his sta­tus as a fa­ther.
“Not any­more, you don’t.”
The look of pure hor­ror on his face is the sweet­est thing in the world. It’s
not a bluff, and it’s the ic­ing on the cake to see in his eyes that he knows it’s
not.
Daniil’s only son and heir, Pey­tor, “ac­ci­den­tally” fell out of the win­dow of
his Mi­lan pent­house on the for­ti­eth floor ear­lier to­day. Clumsy, clumsy.
“But…if you’d like…” I ven­ture qui­etly. “I can call the street clean­ers and
see if they can scrape up a few bits of Pey­tor to mail to you.”
Daniil crum­bles. What­ever spirit or soul he has left breaks and shat­ters,
right there in front of me.
My smile splits my face. Christ, I’m al­most hard I’m so pleased.
Not that it mat­ters—Pey­tor could have been cur­ing can­cer and I’d have still
erased his ex­is­tence just to make Daniil suf­fer—but as it hap­pens, I’ve ac­tu­‐
ally done the world a fa­vor by wip­ing a known child preda­tor and traf­ficker
off the face of the planet.
You’re wel­come, ev­ery­one.
“But, enough about your dead son,” I say chat­tily. “I be­lieve we were try­ing
to re­call which of your hands you used to hold me down.”
Daniil’s not even present any­more. He’s sob­bing, bro­ken, his spirit and I’d
bet even his will to live ut­terly de­stroyed.
Over the past few years, I’ve taken it all from him. His busi­ness hold­ings,
one by one. I’ve bribed away his most trusted ad­vi­sors and lieu­tenants, or
paid them to stay with him and sub­tly be­tray him or sow doubt in the ranks.
I had his piece of shit fa­ther killed. His un­cle. His three cousins. I had his
fam­ily home­stead on the Black Sea burned to the ground, and the prized,
six-gen­er­at­ion vine­yard sowed with salt.
I had ev­ery cor­rupt cop and politi­cian on his pay­roll ei­ther mur­dered or
jailed. I bought the land used as the ceme­tery where his fore­fa­thers were
buried and had the en­tire thing paved over and turned into a slaugh­ter­house
for pigs.
Now, with his only son gone, Daniil is of­fi­cially bro­ken—spir­i­tu­ally and
emo­tion­ally, that is.
I’m not done with him phys­i­cally yet.
“Wait, wait…” I muse, rub­bing my chin as I walk over to the small fold­ing
ta­ble near the wall and lift the gi­ant ma­chete. I half-turn to­ward Daniil,
snap­ping my fin­gers. “You know what? I’ve just re­mem­bered.”
I glance at two of my men stand­ing guard by the door and nod, smil­ing
widely.
“It was both hands.”
They move in­stantly. One of my men drags a heavy wooden chop­ping block
across the floor un­til it’s right in front of Daniil. Then the two of them grab
hold of Daniil’s filthy, bloody hands and yank hard, lay­ing his arms across
the wood. His one eye bulges as he re­al­izes what’s hap­pen­ing.
“No…” he man­ages to bur­ble out.
“You don’t get a vote, you fucker.” I let my gaze level on his. “I hope you
had fun the last time you jerked off. Be­cause it’ll be the last time.”
I raise the ma­chete as Daniil screams.
He’s still scream­ing when he’s in three pieces.

“E n ­j oy your ­s elf ?”

For a mo­ment, when I hear the voice in my ear as I step out of the base­ment
un­der the cantina, I freeze. It takes skill to get past my men like he clearly
has. It takes even more skill to sneak up on me and get this close with­out
my be­ing aware of it.
In fact, there may only be one man on Earth who’s ca­pa­ble of it.
Luck­ily, we’re…well, I wouldn’t say friends. But we’re not en­em
­ ies, ei­ther
—for the present.
“I did, in fact.”
Kenzo Mori doesn’t even blink at my ap­pear­ance—half-drenched as I am in
Daniil’s blood. I wouldn’t ex­pect him to. Again, we’re not friends. But at
times, we’ve had “aligned in­ter­ests and goals”. We’re also not dis­sim­i­lar.
Both of us live for the taste of sweet re­venge. Both of us toil to re­build em­‐
pires and lives that were taken from us.
Kenzo eyes me coolly. His mix of Ja­pa­nese and what I as­sume is North­ern
Eu­ro­pean an­ces­try al­ways gives him this cold, dark, zen-like aura, as well
as an ap­pear­ance some­where be­tween a samu­rai and a Viking berserker.
Plus, his height and broad shoul­ders sort of put us on equal foot­ing, phys­i­‐
cally speak­ing.
“I as­sume con­grat­u­la­tions are in or­der? On a suc­cess­ful hunt?”
I glance down at my suit. “What gave it away?”
Kenzo’s lips curl al­most im­per­cep­ti­bly at the cor­ners…which is the clos­est
thing to a smile he’s prob­ab­ ly ca­pa­ble of…but he doesn’t say any­thing. He
just folds his mus­cled arms over his chest and rolls his neck. The sleeves of
his black dress shirt pull up, giv­ing a flash of his irezumi style sleeve tat­too
on one corded arm, near the wrist.
“What are you do­ing here, Kenzo,” I growl, the ban­ter­ing tone gone from
my voice.
“We’ve known each other for some time, Drazen,” he mur­murs. “And I’d
like to think that the times when we’ve col­lab­o­rated have been mu­tu­ally
prof­itable and ad­van­ta­geous.”
“If you feel a hug com­ing on, I’d ask that you kindly re­strain your­self,” I
mut­ter.
“I heard a ru­mor, Drazen. One in­volv­ing you re­cently find­ing a tar­get that’s
evaded you for some time.” His eye­brows raise. “A woman.”
My face stays neu­tral. But in­side, some­thing vi­cious snarls deep in my
chest.
“And where might you have heard such a ru­mor, Mr. Mori,” I say qui­etly.
Kenzo lifts a sin­gle shoul­der. “I have many lit­tle birds who sing all sorts of
songs into my ears.”
My ex­pres­sion hard­ens. “Well, please tell your lit­tle birds that if they con­‐
tinue to fly into my yard, and I hap­pen to catch them, I’ll tear their wings
off and grind them into Chicken Mc­Nuggets.” I keep my gaze steady.
“We’re not en­em­ ies, Kenzo, be­cause I’ve al­ways kept my nose out of your
shit, and you’ve kept yours out of mine. Should the lat­ter change, I can
prom­ise you, the for­mer will as well.”
“Who’s the woman, Drazen.”
My jaw tight­ens. “Just walk away, Kenzo.”
“Was that a fi­nal warn­ing?”
I shake my head. “No. Your fi­nal warn­ing was thirty sec­onds ago. That was
a di­rect or­der.”
“I don’t work for you.”
“No, you don’t. Which is the only rea­son he hasn’t blown your head off
yet.”
I nod past him to where Mi­los, my un­of­fi­cial num­ber two, is lev­el­ing a gun
at the back of Kenzo’s skull.
Kenzo doesn’t even blink or flinch.
“I’m not so sure that’s the only rea­son.” He rolls his neck again. “We’re still
not en­em
­ ies, Drazen. Let’s make sure it stays that way.”
With a fi­nal curt nod, he turns and strolls past Mi­los. “You might want to
check your weapon.”
Mi­los scowls in con­fu­sion. I watch as Kenzo dis­ap­pears down the al­ley and
then van­ishes from sight.
“The fuck is that sup­posed to mean?” Mi­los mut­ters.
“Check your mag­az­ ine.”
Mi­los’ brow fur­rows as he slides out the clip of his gun. “Mother fucker,”
he mut­ters. It’s empty.
He goes to empty the cham­ber. Noth­ing ejects.
“How the fuck?” Mi­los growls. “This has been on my hip for the last two
hours, and I loaded it my­self.”
“Kenzo,” I mut­ter dryly. “That’s how.”
Mi­los turns to fol­low my gaze down the now-empty al­ley­way. “You want
me to have some­one fol­low him?”
“I can prob­ab­ ly think of big­ger wastes of our time, but it would take me a
minute,” I mut­ter, shak­ing my head. My eyes slide from the end of the al­ley
to Mi­los. “No. But find out what he’s up to. I want to know why he’s sniff­‐
ing around.”
“On it,” Mi­los grunts, pulling his phone out.
Again, Kenzo and I aren’t en­em ­ ies. But we will be if he keeps ask­ing ques­‐
tions like the one he just did.
“I heard a ru­mor, Drazen. One in­volv­ing you re­cently find­ing a tar­get that’s
evaded you for some time. A woman.”
Not “a woman”. A thief. A de­stroyer of worlds. A phony, who’s es­caped my
wrath by liv­ing a lie as some­one else.
And I hate how close I’ve been to her with­out ever re­al­iz­ing it.
I haven’t been a client of Crown and Black for long. And Gabriel Black
him­self typ­i­cally han­dles my af­fairs. But I’ve crossed “Tay­lor’s” path be­‐
fore. We’ve been in meet­ings to­gether. On group Zoom calls.
I’ve looked her in the eye, and never once imag­ined she was An­nika.
My eyes draw to slits, my jaw clench­ing.
I never dreamed An­nika was even alive. I saw the wreck­age of the car the
morn­ing af­ter the car­nage. I saw her charred, burned body half melted into
the front seat.
On top of that, An­nika had dark hair, and per­fect eye­sight. “Tay­lor” has
flam­ing gin­ger red hair, and wears glasses. I’d say she’s dye­ing her hair,
but… I saw her naked the other night.
The red hair is def­i­nitely real. Which means she was dye­ing it brunette fif­‐
teen years ago. Need­less to say, I never cared to check to see if the dark
locks were her nat­u­ral color back then.
It was a mar­riage nei­ther of us wanted. The Bran­covich fam­ily and mine
were mor­tal en­em
­ ies, and we’d been taught that since child­hood. Forc­ing us
to­gether was like Romeo and Juliet with­out a sin­gle line of the love story.
It was the tat­too that gave her away. It was a bit of a sur­prise when I jumped
“Se­cret­Slut” in her ho­tel room and re­al­ized it was “Tay­lor Crown”, name
part­ner at Crown and Black. But then again, that was a side of her I’ll bet
none of her clients or co­work­ers ever see.
I’d seen and tasted the dirty girl un­der­neath the smooth, pol­ished lawyer.
The subby lit­tle slut with crav­ings as dark and fucked up as my own. At
least, nearly as fucked up as mine. It’s a rare, rare thing for me to find a
woman will­ing, let alone want­ing, to in­dulge in my level of dark kinks.
And by “rare” I mean “vir­tu­ally im­pos­si­ble”.
I’m an in­vest­ing part­ner in Club Venom these days. I’m also a bil­lion­aire
with more power in his hands than most elected of­fi­cials. So it’s not ex­actly
dif­fi­cult for me to meet women. What’s dif­fi­cult is telling them what I’m ac­‐
tu­ally look­ing for, and then com­ing up with a dol­lar fig­ure to go along with
the NDA af­ter they in­evitably freak out.
Women think they want a mon­ster. They think they want to get choked, or
fear fucked, or slapped around a lit­tle. To “play rough” or “be my sub”.
They have no idea the depths of my de­praved tastes.
But “Se­cret­Slut” did. I told her, and then showed her all my cards. At least,
nearly all of them. More than I’ve shown most. And she didn’t run away
scream­ing. Well, not out­side of the con­text of our planned, twisted games.
She didn’t shut down or dis­ap­pear.
She showed up. She came to the woods. She let me run that blade over her
skin, never once even whim­per­ing her safe word.
She turned on her lo­ca­tion fea­ture in the app.
And all of that is…fuck­ing with me, and my plans for her, which don’t—or
at least didn’t—in­clude play­ing de­viant games with her.
And then that tat­too gave her away.
That’s when I knew who I had in my clutches.
My fuck­ing wife.
I’d never seen An­nika naked be­fore the other night. But I have seen that ink
on her.
I’ve seen it on some­one else, too.
On her, it was two days be­fore our wed­ding. My fa­ther drove the two of us,
fol­lowed by a num­ber of his men, to the Bran­covich com­pound. Mi­ha­jlo
Bran­covich was a no­to­ri­ously para­noid man when it came to threats on his
and his fam­ily’s lives. He, his wife and daugh­ter rarely went out­side the
perime­ter wall of their es­tate grounds. It was a rar­ity even to see them out­‐
side the house it­self.
But that day, when my fa­ther and I ar­rived, Mi­ha­jlo met us out­side in the
drive­way. He shook our hands, smil­ing, and then took us to the back of the
sprawl­ing old cas­tle-like man­sion where the pool was.
An­nika, who I’d only met a hand­ful of times be­fore, was now a chest­nut
brunette as op­posed to her usual fiery red. The al­most per­pet­ual glare when­‐
ever she looked at me hadn’t changed, though.
That day, she was swim­ming in a mod­est one-piece bathing suit you’d see
on a com­pet­i­tive swim­mer. The suit was cut high in the leg, and I re­mem­ber
clearly see­ing that lit­tle speck of ink, hardly big­ger than a coin, on her hip,
just peek­ing out.
Mi­ha­jlo in­vited us to swim our­selves as he took off his shirt, re­veal­ing the
same tat­too, much big­ger, on his shoul­der.
“The fam­ily crest,” he’d ex­plained when he saw me look­ing at it.
My fa­ther and I de­clined his in­vi­ta­tion to swim, and An­nika glared at me
from the side of the pool for an­other few min­utes be­fore dis­ap­pear­ing into
the house.
So, yes, I re­mem­ber that tat­too. And that’s how I know who “Tay­lor” or
“Se­cret­Slut” or what­ever the fuck she wants to call her­self re­ally is.
I ex­hale slowly, my teeth grind­ing. It’s been years since I touched a cig­a­‐
rette. But it’s mo­ments like this that make me crave one. My fin­gers twitch,
flick­ing an imag­i­nary lighter as my black thoughts set­tle on the ghost from
the past.
But for once I’m not imag­in­ing ways of tor­tur­ing or dis­mem­ber­ing her. I’m
not en­vi­sion­ing An­nika aka Tay­lor dead, and my dick isn’t get­ting hard—
mer­ci­fully—from imag­in­ing her face turn­ing pur­ple as I choke the life from
her body.
But it does stiffen when I think about the other night—both nights, ac­tu­ally.
The chase through the woods. The rush of adren­al­ine as I hunted down her
scent. The throb in my cock when I grabbed her and took her down to the
ground, squirm­ing and writhing against me. Scream­ing and plead­ing.
Never once us­ing her safe word.
The same thing hap­pened in her ho­tel room. Maybe at first I scared the ab­‐
so­lute hell out of her by sur­pris­ing her in the dark­ness. But then she wanted
my rough­ness. She goaded my mon­ster.
She asked for it.
My jaw grinds as I re­play the feel of her skin. The soft wet heat be­tween her
thighs. Her moans as she begged for more.
…The fact that my dick is still hard makes for an awk­ward tran­si­tion when
I try to force my­self to re­mem­ber the ways in which I’d like to de­stroy her.
Mi­los turns back to me, low­er­ing his phone from his ear.
“The plane’s ready, Drazen. Where⁠—”
“Back to New York,” I growl as my lips curl darkly. “I have some loose
ends I need to tie up.”

OceanofPDF.com
 10

TAY­L OR

G od ­d ammit .

I groan when I walk out of the 17 th Precinct and see a fa­mil­iar fig­ure lean­‐
ing against the side of his As­ton Mar­tin, with two black SUVs and half a
dozen se­cu­rity de­tail camped out a few yards away.
“Je­sus, Gabriel!” I hiss as I march over to him. “Do not tell me⁠—”
“Tay­lor—”
“Gabriel, you can’t do shit like this as fuck­ing Gov⁠—”
“Will you re­lax?” He holds up his hands. “I’m just your ride, T. No string
pulling on my end, I prom­ise.”
It’s shitty of me to be an­gry with him, to ac­cuse him of us­ing his in­flu­ence
to get them to let me go. It’s not just “let­ting me go”, ei­ther. They’re drop­‐
ping all charges, even af­ter they showed me un­nerv­ing se­cu­rity cam­era
footage and still im­ages of me be­hind the wheel of a yel­low Lam­borgh­ini
driv­ing down 5 th Av­enue last night.
Right around the time I was sleep­ing locked in the se­cure doc­u­ments room
at the of­fice. At least, when I thought I was. Af­ter see­ing the video and
those pic­tures, though, it clearly hap­pened again.
Phys­i­cal in­vol­un­tary dis­cor­dance. Aka sleep­walk­ing. Or, last night case,
sleep-driv­ing a stolen fuck­ing car.
And yet here I am, walk­ing out a free woman with all charges dropped and
the record wiped, as a very an­noyed Of­fi­cer Hor­ton told me when she un­‐
locked my hold­ing cell twenty min­utes ago.
I’m tired. I’m hun­gry. I’m freaked out. I des­per­ately need a shower af­ter
spend­ing most of the day in that god­damn hold­ing cell. And I still don’t be­‐
lieve that this wasn’t Gabriel pulling strings as the freak­ing Gov­er­nor.
“So, they just let me walk af­ter ac­cus­ing me of grand theft auto?” I snap,
ey­ing him.
“Don’t for­get in­de­cent ex­po­sure,” he smirks.
“I’m al­lowed to have my fuck­ing tits out! It’s New York!!”
“Yeeaaah baby!” a ran­dom guy on the street yells. “Let ’em loose!”
“Fuck off,” Gabriel snarls, send­ing the man scur­ry­ing away.
I grin at my friend. “Prob­ab­ ly shouldn’t tell your con­stituents to fuck off
when you’re Gov­er­nor.”
“It’s called a learn­ing curve,” he mut­ters. “C’mon, get in.”
I slide into the pas­sen­ger seat and shove my hair into a messy pony­tail as he
climbs in next to me.
“They dropped it all. To­tally clean slate, record erased.”
Gabriel says noth­ing as he starts the en­gine and pulls away from the curb
with his se­cu­rity de­tail fol­low­ing. I turn to eye him sus­pi­ciously, and he
laughs.
“Tay­lor, I swear it wasn’t me.”
“Would you have?”
“Ob­vi­ously.”
I glare at him. “That’s cor­rup­tion.”
“You’re fam­ily. It doesn’t count.”
I roll my eyes. “I think it counts ex­tra when it’s fam­ily.”
Gabriel chuck­les and guns the en­gine, head­ing down­town. My lip re­treats
be­tween my teeth as I stare out the pas­sen­ger win­dow.
“They have a video of me driv­ing⁠—”
“Not any­more, they don’t.”
I whip my gaze to him. “What?”
“They’re gone. Both videos: the car and the”…he clears his throat…“park­‐
ing garage, uh, in­ci­dent.”
I turn to glare out the win­dow, blush­ing.
“Did you see it?”
“You in the Lambo⁠—?”
“The park­ing garage, Gabriel,” I mut­ter, my teeth clenched.
“I averted my eyes, don’t worry.” He reaches over and pats my arm. “T,
you’re ba­si­cally my sis­ter. No of­fense, but I have less than zero in­ter­est in
see­ing that.”
I smirk as I glance at him. “Well… Thanks, I guess.” My brow fur­rows.
“Wait—what do you mean, the videos are gone?”
“I mean they both lit­er­ally don’t ex­ist any­more. Gone. Wiped. The po­lice
gave Al­is­tair and I a link to look at them on a se­cure po­lice server un­til such
time as they gave out ac­tual copies dur­ing dis­cov­ery if we went to trial. So,
yeah, we saw them once. Then when we went to look at the link again,
noth­ing came up. I called the Com­mis­sioner’s of­fice ready to rain down fire
and brim­stone, and he told me they’d had a ‘breach’ of some kind. That
whole sec­tion of the drive on that server was erased.”
What the hell?
Gabriel glances over at me, his brow lined with worry.
“What’s go­ing on, Tay­lor?”
I blink. “How should I know?”
“Not the server thing,” he sighs. “I mean with you.”
I swal­low. “W-what do you mean?”
“I mean I averted my fuck­ing eyes but I still saw the video. You wanna tell
me why you felt like streak­ing through the park­ing garage of the Soho
Grand last night?”
I look away in em­bar­rass­ment.
“I told Al­is­tair, I took an Am­bien⁠—”
“First of all, you don’t take sleep­ing pills.”
“How do you know?”
He rolls his eyes. “More im­por­tantly, Al­is­tair said you didn’t bat an eye
when they said you stole a fuck­ing car.”
“Which I didn’t!”
“But you weren’t shocked at the al­le­ga­tion. Or, not shocked enough. Talk
to me, Tay­lor. C’mon.”
I take a deep breath and then ex­hale. “Fine. I’ve been…” I shrug. “Sleep­‐
walk­ing, okay?”
Gabriel cocks a brow, glanc­ing at me as we stop at a light. “Sleep­walk­ing.”
I nod.
“Just small stuff mostly. Re­or­ga­niz­ing my tax re­turns, mak­ing a snack and
not clean­ing up. Crap like that.”
I don’t men­tion go­ing into the of­fice the other night. And I def­i­nitely don’t
tell him that I know what I saw on that video that seems to have dis­ap­‐
peared.
It was me.
No bull­shit. No looka­like. I mean, sure, the video is grainy. But that was me
driv­ing a fuck­ing stolen Lambo last night. A stolen Lambo that was ap­par­‐
ently found neatly parked out­side the Lin­coln Tun­nel with­out a sin­gle fin­‐
ger­print in or on it. Any­where.
Gabriel frowns as he ac­cel­er­ates through the green light. “Work stress?”
“Who knows.”
He sucks on his teeth as he glares at the road. “Look, I know you don’t like
to talk about your per­sonal life⁠—”
“Gabriel…”
“Are you still see­ing Steven?”
He’s not wrong. I never, ever talk about my per­sonal life. Maybe I touch on
it with Fumi; she’s my gal pal. But I hardly ever go there with Al­is­tair and
Gabriel.
“Nope,” I say tersely. “Steven’s gone.”
He clears his throat. “May I ask…”
“Yeah, but I won’t tell.”
“Did he hurt you?” he asks qui­etly, with a slightly dis­turb­ing edge to his
voice.
I shake my head. “No. And I’m over it.”
Well, that part is true.
“It’s just stress, Gabriel. I’ve been talk­ing it through with Dr. Jes­nick.”
“Ahh, the fa­mous shrink,” he grins.
I roll my eyes. “You know, you of all peo­ple are at the top of my list of peo­‐
ple who would ben­ef­ it from ther­apy.”
“I’m good.”
“Wouldn’t you like a pro­fes­sional opin­ion con­firm­ing that?”
“Nope.” He grins as he turns to me. “Se­ri­ously, though, you’re okay?”
I nod be­fore my face turns glum. “How bad is the gos­sip mill at the of­fice?”
When Of­fi­cer Ra­mone pulled out his hand­cuffs ear­lier, Al­is­tair made them
take me down­stairs to the park­ing garage via the ex­ec­u­tive el­ev­ a­tor. So, no
one be­sides him and Amelia saw the ac­tual ar­rest. Still…ru­mors…of­fices…
enough said.
Gabriel just shakes his head. “To­tal lock­down on that. Al­is­tair and Amelia
ob­vi­ously aren’t say­ing shit. Fumi and Eloise know…” He gives me an
apolo­getic look. “I mean, they do. Sorry.”
I sigh.
“But they’re also ob­vi­ously not say­ing a word.”
“And the fact that two po­lice of­fi­cers walked through the firm and straight
to my of­fice?”
He shrugs. “You were dis­cussing a con­fi­den­tial case with them. Tay­lor, no
one in the of­fice is talk­ing about a thing. You’re all good, okay?”
I nod, ex­hal­ing as he pulls up out­side the Soho Grand.
“You want to tell me why you’re re­ally stay­ing here? Be­cause there’s no
fuck­ing way a five-mil­lion-dol­lar apart­ment has a roach prob­lem. Even in
New York.”
Fuck it. Pick your bat­tles.
“I walked in on Steven screw­ing one of his TAs.”
Gabriel’s face goes livid. “In your fuck­ing apart­ment?!”
I nod. His mouth turns grim.
“I think Steven and I need to have a lit­tle⁠—”
“No, you don’t.” I shake my head firmly. “I’m fine. I was over it long be­‐
fore that hap­pened. I just had to…get out of my place for a few days af­ter
see­ing it.”
Gabriel scowls. “Tay­lor⁠—”
“I prom­ise you, I’m fine, okay? But I am go­ing to take the rest of the day
off. I’ll be in to­mor­row, and…” I trail off when I see him wince. “Okay,
what.”
He ex­hales. “Take the day, sure. Un­for­tu­nately, you’ve been re­quested for a
meet­ing tonight.”
Fuck. “With whom?”
“Drazen Krylov.”
My brow lifts. “Um, why? Al­is­tair is tak­ing over all his busi­ness.”
Gabriel shrugs. “All I know is, you’ve been specif­i­cally re­quested. You’re
hav­ing din­ner with him at D’Atella at nine.”
I groan. “C’mon, se­ri­ously? Af­ter the day I’ve had, I want to be in bed at
nine. Chances of get­ting out of it?”
“Zero. Sorry. He specif­i­cally wanted you, and you alone.”
I grum­ble, but then take a breath, pull up my big-girl pants, and re­luc­tantly
slip into busi­ness-Tay­lor mode.
“Okay, fine. Do we know what the meet­ing is about?”
“All he told Al­is­tair was that it was con­cern­ing some new busi­ness stuff.”
I roll my eyes. “Le­gal or not-so-much?”
“Lit­tle of col­umn A, lit­tle of col­umn B, I’m guess­ing.”
“Even though I’m not his at­tor­ney.”
Gabriel flashes me a grin. “Well, you never know. Maybe he likes you more
now that you’ve got a rap sheet.”
I flip him off and slide out of the car.

I’ ve been to hold­ing tanks and jails be­fore, to see clients, but I’ve never ac­‐
tu­ally been in a prison cell. I have to say, spend­ing eight hours in one is a…
cleans­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, in a weird way. It gives you a re­set, and high­lights
pri­or­i­ties.
Hon­estly, it’s a great mo­ti­va­tor to clear all the bag­gage out of your life.
For in­stance, af­ter get­ting back to my ho­tel room, I plugged in my phone,
turned off the lo­ca­tion shar­ing set­ting on the Venom app, and then deleted
said app.
I con­sid­ered go­ing full on scorched earth and get­ting a new apart­ment—not
be­cause of Steven, but be­cause the stranger from Venom might very well
know who the hell I am. I mean, he came to my ho­tel. He knew what room I
was in. Surely that means he got my in­for­ma­tion from the front desk some­‐
how.
But af­ter grilling the man­ager at the Soho Grand, I’ve been as­sured that
noth­ing of the kind hap­pened.
And yes, the stranger did see my face with­out my mask. But that doesn’t
mean he knows who I am. I’ve checked with George at the front desk of the
Crown and Black build­ing again, and he’s also as­sured me that no tall, dark,
and sin­is­ter look­ing men with vaguely Eu­ro­pean ac­cents have come look­ing
for me.
So, a few hours later, af­ter a much-needed shower and an out­fit change into
a black de la Renta num­ber back home, the maître d’ at D’Atella in­forms
me as he leads me to a ta­ble in the cen­ter of the lav­ish din­ing room that my
guest will be ar­riv­ing soon.
I’m check­ing my work email on my phone when I feel it.
A pres­ence, like a dark shadow. Cold air com­ing from the open cel­lar door.
Some­thing al­most ma­li­cious.
…Some­thing freak­ishly fa­mil­iar.
“I hope I haven’t kept you wait­ing.”
I shiver at his voice. I’ve briefly met Drazen be­fore, a few times, and ob­vi­‐
ously I’m aware that he’s a lu­di­crously at­trac­tive man. But that voice…
Down, girl.
It’s the mix of slight ac­cent and dark, un­ques­tion­able power. A lit­tle rough
and grav­elly, yet smooth and cul­tured. The voice, like the way he wears his
clearly top-of-the-line cus­tom suits, sug­gests a hum­ble up­bring­ing that was
then in­tro­duced to cul­ture and re­fine­ment. Like the im­pov­er­ished peas­ant
boy who’s gifted en­roll­ment at a pres­ti­gious board­ing school.
His voice has a pol­ish to it, but you can still hear the rough­ness un­der the
shine. And the suits, in­sanely ex­pen­sive and per­fectly tai­lored though they
might be, are worn with just enough dis­dain to high­light that he wears them
be­cause he knows he is ex­pected to.
I clear my throat as I go to stand. “No, not at all, Mr. Kry⁠—”
“Please, don’t get up,” he mur­murs in that hon­eyed bari­tone that I’m sure
drives the le­gions of women he must have at his beck and call wild. He
smiles a cool, charm­ing smile as he sits across from me. Still, if you look,
you can see it.
A lit­tle bit of…some­thing…be­hind that smile.
Cold­ness. Dark­ness. Raw power.
I shake the thoughts away. If the sto­ries are to be be­lieved, the man grew up
in a fuck­ing war zone wit­ness­ing geno­cide, for fuck’s sake. And here I am
telling my­self I see mal­ice and dark­ness be­hind his smile?
Fuck you, you in­sen­si­tive bitch.
“So!” I say brightly. “What did you want to dis­cuss, Mr.—”
“Why don’t we eat first, and then dis­cuss busi­ness, Ms. Crown,” he mur­‐
murs qui­etly, ex­ud­ing that raw power as he raises a hand to a waiter. “A bot­‐
tle of the⁠—”
“Oh, I’m ac­tu­ally okay with­out wine.”
Drazen lev­els a charm­ing, down­right lethally at­trac­tive smile at me. “I in­‐
sist, Ms. Crown.” He turns back to the waiter. “A bot­tle of the ‘59 Château
Lafite. Thank you, Mar­tin.”
I only just stop my jaw from hit­ting the ta­ble at the last sec­ond.
I make fan­tas­tic money. And a lot of our clients are in­sanely wealthy. But
Drazen Krylov is be­yond “wealthy”. I mean, the man is a lit­eral bil­lion­aire,
af­ter…al­legedly…work­ing out a deal with Ga­van Tsarenko and re-ac­quir­‐
ing some Krylov fam­ily heir­loom.
So, yeah, I guess I could be per­suaded to have a glass of twelve-thou­sand-
dol­lar-a-bot­tle wine.
I mean, twist a girl’s arm.
“Gabriel’s brought me up to speed on the work our firm is cur­rently do­ing
for⁠—”
“I thought we said we’d dis­cuss busi­ness af­ter we eat,” he purrs in that
deep, smooth bari­tone.
Right.
“Well, Mr. Krylov,” I smile. “What shall we talk about, then?”
“Tell me a bit about your­self, Ms. Crown.”
I re­sist the urge to ask him tartly if this is a busi­ness meet­ing or a date.
“Since we’re go­ing to be work­ing to­gether go­ing for­ward, and yet I know
so lit­tle about you.”
My lips twist. “I be­lieve Al­is­tair and his team are go­ing to be work­ing with
you go­ing for­ward…”
“I’m not sure I’ve fi­nal­ized that.” Drazen smiles with a hint of dark­ness as
he sits back in his chair, drum­ming the tat­tooed fin­gers of one hand on the
white table­cloth. ‘Which is why I’d like to know more about you, Ms.
Crown.”
I nod. “Okay. Well…” I lift a shoul­der. “What would you like to know, Mr.
Krylov?”
“Are you sin­gle?”
I blink, thrown by the wildly per­sonal ques­tion way out of left field.
“I…” I shake my head. “Apolo­gies, I’m not sure that’s rel­ev­ ant to our
work­ing to­gether.”
Drazen tilts his head, a neu­tral ex­pres­sion on his face. His eyes don’t move
from mine, nor does he blink.
“As I said, Ms. Crown, I know next to noth­ing about you, and I’d like to
change that be­ing that we may be work­ing closely to­gether.”
Our waiter Mar­tin sud­denly reap­pears with the ob­scenely ex­pen­sive bot­tle
of wine, pre­sent­ing it to Drazen, who nods and merely ges­tures for him to
pour both glasses rather than giv­ing him a taste first. When the waiter is
gone, Drazen raises his eyes back to mine.
“Well?”
I swal­low, feel­ing out of sorts and un­der the gun. I never get like this. I
mean, I deal with hos­tile coun­sel, bored judges, and clue­less ju­ries all the
damn time.
Why the hell is this man throw­ing me off?
“I’ve re­cently ended a re­la­tion­ship.”
God­dammit. A sim­ple “yes, I’m sin­gle” would have suf­ficed.
“I see,” Drazen smiles po­litely. “Who broke up with whom?”
My brow arches. “Mr. Krylov…”
“Too per­sonal?”
I tilt my head. “Per­haps.”
“You’re more than wel­come to ask me any­thing at all, too.”
I smirk. “You’ll an­swer any­thing I ask?”
“I don’t think I said that.”
My cheeks flush as I drop my eyes and reach for the wine.
Why the fuck does this feel like a date?
Maybe be­cause you’re ask­ing each other per­sonal ques­tions. Maybe be­‐
cause you’re FLIRT­ING with the Bratva king­pin.
…Am not.
…Are too.
“How about you, Mr. Krylov?” I throw him a sharp look. “Are you sin­gle?”
“Yes.”
Oh.
Of course he is.
I take a sip of wine. I al­most moan when it slides over my tongue.
“Not too shabby, is it,” he growls.
“That is…de­light­ful, ac­tu­ally.”
“I’m in­clined to agree.”
I take an­other sip, let­ting my eyes roll back as I swal­low.
“Are you a wine con­nois­seur, Mr. Krylov?”
He just looks at me, a small smile touch­ing his lips as he in­clines his head,
and smiles. “It was my turn for a ques­tion.”
“Well, in that case,” I laugh, “ask away.”
“My pre­vi­ous ques­tion is still on the ta­ble. Who broke up with whom?”
I stare at him cu­ri­ously, my brow fur­row­ing as if try­ing to fig­ure out if he’s
fuck­ing with me. And yet, some­thing tells me Drazen Krylov isn’t much of
a “fuck around” kind of man.
I take an­other sip of the in­cred­i­ble wine be­fore I sigh and shrug my shoul­‐
ders.
“Fine, if we’re get­ting per­sonal…”
“I in­sist upon it, Ms. Crown.”
“Tech­ni­cally, I broke up with him,” I blurt. “But that was af­ter I walked in
on him with his dick in some other girl’s mouth. In my apart­ment. On my
new sofa.”
The sec­ond all that tum­bles out, I balk, hor­ri­fied at my­self not just for shar­‐
ing all of that in­for­ma­tion, but shar­ing it such spec­tac­u­larly crude fash­ion to
the firm’s bil­lion­aire client.
Yet all Drazen does is curl his lips in slight amuse­ment.
“Well, I sup­posed that’s a de­cent enough rea­son to break up with some­one.”
“Amen to that,” I mut­ter, feel­ing flushed as I pick up my wine and take an­‐
other sip. Af­ter I swal­low, I frown when my gaze lands on his un­touched
glass.
“Why aren’t you drink­ing?”
Drazen smirks. “Is that your ques­tion?”
“Sure,” I shrug.
“Be­cause I’m en­joy­ing these ques­tions too much.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not sure how fas­ci­nat­ing my lack­lus­ter per­sonal life
is⁠—”
“Then per­haps you can change the sub­ject with your next ques­tion.”
I shrug. “Fine. Where⁠—”
“It’s not your turn, Ms. Crown.”
There’s a slight flex of power in his voice that should be off-putting. But for
some in­sane rea­son, it’s just com­mand­ing enough to…do some­thing to me.
I clear my throat, rais­ing my brows. “My mis­take,” I all but gig­gle.
Okay, maybe I should slow down on the wine.
“Have you ever had any ro­man­tic en­tan­gle­ments with ei­ther of your fel­low
man­ag­ing part­ners?”
Okay, what the fuck.
An­other ques­tion about my per­sonal love life? At least this one’s com­pletely
easy.
“No.” I shake my head. “Not even a lit­tle. Al­is­tair and Gabriel are, and al­‐
ways have been, like broth­ers to me. I don’t re­ally have…” I trail off and
shake my head. “Any­way.”
“No, fin­ish what you were go­ing to say.”
I sigh. “I was go­ing to say I don’t re­ally have any fam­ily. So they’re sort of
my un­of­fi­cial one, if that makes sense.”
“Per­fect sense.”
“My turn?”
He nods.
“Why are you so in­ter­ested in my per­sonal life?”
His eye­brow quirks up. “I be­lieve I al­ready told you: I’d like to get to know
you bet­ter, since we might be work­ing to­gether.”
“Well, there’s a lot of things you could ask that don’t in­volve my dat­ing his­‐
tory, or lack thereof, Mr. Krylov,” I al­most snap. “Like, my fa­vorite food?
Hob­bies? Sports team? Where I sum­mered grow­ing up?”
“Fine. What’s your fa­vorite food, Ms. Crown,” he growls.
“French fries,” I shrug.
“Hob­bies?”
“I’m too busy for hob­bies.”
“Sports team?”
“Yan­kees.”
His lips curl. “Where did you sum­mer⁠—”
“I have no idea. Where did you sum­mer grow­ing up,” I fire back.
“A POW camp in Kosovo.”
I wince.
Shit. Right.
The ta­ble goes quiet as I take an­other gulp of wine.
“Well,” Drazen smiles coldly. “I be­lieve that’s cov­ered enough bases for
now.”
I nod, feel­ing…se­ri­ously not my­self. I’m fail­ing this meet­ing, and I eat
meet­ings like this for break­fast.
Slow down on the wine, girl.
I set the glass down and push it away.
“So, what should we talk about now?”
Drazen’s pierc­ing blue eyes meet mine, un­blink­ing. Evis­cer­at­ing me.
“I think we can talk busi­ness now, Ms. Crown,” he rum­bles.
Thank God.
“Well,” I smile. “Which of your cur­rent ven­tures that we han­dle would you
like to⁠—”
“Oh, not that sort of busi­ness. The busi­ness you and I have.”
What the— A wave of dizzi­ness washes over me, and I quickly grab my
wa­ter glass and take a large sip.
“What busi­ness would that be?”
Drazen’s mouth is the thinnest of lines. “The sort that is…un­fin­ished.”
I take an­other gulp of wa­ter to wet my sud­denly dry, cot­tony mouth.
“Mr. Krylov, I’m afraid I don’t know what⁠—”
Just as I’m talk­ing, he reaches into his in­ner jacket pocket and pulls some­‐
thing out. With­out any fan­fare or flour­ish, his eyes still on mine, he de­posits
it on the ta­ble be­tween us.
My gaze drops to it.
My pulse races. My en­tire thought process, my abil­ity to think, ev­ery­‐
thing… It all stops.
Be­cause there on the ta­ble be­tween us, is a sliced scrap of black lace.
Panties.
…My panties, that were cut from me the night I drove into the woods to
meet my stranger.
I can’t breathe.
I stare in hor­ror, re­al­ity it­self rip­ping and crack­ing around me. My mouth
opens and closes sound­lessly, only to do so again. My face throbs and ev­ery
square inch of my fuck­ing skin crawls with a creep­ing, gnaw­ing sen­sa­tion.
Sud­denly, Drazen claps his hands to­gether, loudly. So loudly that the en­tire
din­ing room of D’Atella falls silent.
“Ev­ery­one out.”
He barely even raises his voice when he says it. He sim­ply speaks the
words…
…And in­stantly ev­ery diner in the room sets down their glass or sil­ver­ware
and stands. The en­tire wait­staff puts what­ever they’re hold­ing down on the
near­est avail­able sur­face.
My vi­sion blurs a lit­tle as I watch ev­ery sin­gle per­son in the restau­rant,
from the pa­trons, to the wait­staff, to the chefs, all the way down to the dish­‐
wash­ers in the kitchen, file out, leav­ing us com­pletely and ut­terly alone at
our ta­ble in the cen­ter of the room.
What is hap­pen­ing.
I grip the ta­ble and at­tempt to stand. But my legs aren’t work­ing. My mouth
is painfully dry, and when I try to speak, my head spins again.
“The thing is, Tay­lor…” Drazen mur­murs qui­etly, his voice drip­ping with
mal­ice as he calmly watches me from across the ta­ble. All traces of his early
charm are gone, re­placed by a vi­cious­ness that ra­di­ates off him like a toxin.
“Ah, but you’re not Tay­lor at all, are you?”
I blink as my vi­sion swims. “Yes…I…”
The room spins.
Oh my God…
My foggy gaze sweeps across the ta­ble, first to his un­touched glass of wine,
then to my half-empty one.
Oh, fuck.
“No,” he sighs qui­etly, tak­ing a slow, mea­sured breath and drum­ming his
inked fin­gers on the linen table­cloth. “No, you’re not.”
My vi­sion swims again as I feel grav­ity keep me in my chair and tug my
head down to the way-too-soft table­cloth.
I’m only dimly aware of Drazen stand­ing and but­ton­ing his suit jacket, his
eyes lanc­ing into me as he comes around the ta­ble and taps his fin­gers on
the table­cloth right in front of my face.
“Your name is An­nika.”
Come play, An­nika!
Come throw the ball!
Come play, An­nika…
“Your name is An­nika Bran­covich, and you are my fuck­ing wife.”
In­side, I’m scream­ing. But not a sound es­capes my lips as the whole world
spins and starts to go dark.
“And now,” Drazen snarls from some­where very far away, “you’re go­ing to
pay for what you did.”
Strong hands grab my arms as I slip out of con­scious­ness.
“Time to play, An­nika…”

OceanofPDF.com
 11

DRAZEN

S he stirs slightly when the plane en­coun­ters some tur­bu­lence. But she
won’t be wak­ing any­time soon.
The serum Mar­tin coated her wine glass with put her to sleep for a few
hours. And the seda­tive I in­jected her with fif­teen min­utes ago will keep her
out un­til we’re home.
My home, that is. My se­cret strong­hold for the last ten years or so, from
which I’ve struck at my en­em
­ ies from the shad­ows, set­ting things in mo­tion
to de­stroy those who would have de­stroyed me.
Iron­i­cally, Elba, the Ital­ian is­land off the coast of Pi­om­bino in south­ern Tus­‐
cany, is the very is­land where Napoleon was once ex­iled, when the world
and his own gov­ern­ment feared his power.
My home is on a small is­land off Elba, a small piece of the world drift­ing
away into the Tyrrhe­nian Sea.
It’s where my fam­ily died.
There’ve been times when I’ve won­dered what drove me to re­build the seat
of my em­pire in a place over­look­ing the very graves of those who were
taken from me. Nos­tal­gia? Per­haps. An un­bro­ken love for my lost fam­ily?
Of course.
But also… Anger is a pow­er­ful mo­ti­va­tor. Rage fu­els vengeance like noth­‐
ing else.
I buried my fam­ily the morn­ing af­ter the mas­sacre, dig­ging in the dirt with
my bare hands and what­ever tools I could sal­vage from the charred wreck­‐
age to give my lost loved ones a sim­ple, mod­est burial.
But years af­ter­ward, when I fi­nally re­turned, I had the whole site of the for­‐
mer house cleared. The graves I’d dug were long gone by then, lost to re­‐
growth. In their place I planted a small, wooded glade, and sur­rounded the
whole thing with a high fence and a locked gate.
I had my new home built on the other side of the lit­tle is­land, turn­ing the
over­grown, crum­bling ru­ins of an old palazzo my sis­ter and I used to climb
on as chil­dren into a sprawl­ing new man­sion.
That’s where we’re head­ing now. That’s where I’ll keep her.
Bind her.
Ruin her.
I pull my gaze from the win­dow of the pri­vate plane back to the red­head
slumped in the seat across from me. A lock of fire drapes across her sleep­‐
ing cheek. My eyes trace the soft curve of her lips, the del­i­cate cleft lead­ing
up to a pe­tite, slen­der nose where her glasses are perched. The flush on her
slightly freck­led cheeks.
The flut­ter be­hind her closed eyes as she dreams, per­haps. The long lashes
and the soft, del­i­cate brows.
She’s beau­ti­ful.
In­stantly, my face sours as the thought en­ters my brain.
I cat­eg­ or­i­cally refuse to ac­knowl­edge the beauty of her face, the soft, ath­‐
letic curves of her slen­der frame. The swell of the breasts that I know first­‐
hand the feel of, re­mem­ber­ing the ea­ger way her pale pink nip­ples tight­ened
and peb­bled un­der my rough touch.
The slick­ness be­tween her thighs. The silken feel of her messy lit­tle pussy,
beg­ging me for more.
I rip my gaze away to stab it out the win­dow at the dark­ness of the At­lantic.
No. She’s not a po­ten­tial play­thing. She will not be an out­let for my de­‐
praved de­sires and my dark urges.
Even though she’s SUCH a will­ing part­ner.
Com­pli­ant. Ea­ger.
Hun­gry.
With a black­ness in­side that matches my own⁠—
No.
I haven’t gone to all the trou­ble of drug­ging her, kid­nap­ping her and bring­‐
ing her to my lair across the ocean to fuck her. I’ve done it to de­stroy her, as
she de­stroyed me. If my dick has other ideas, he can go fuck him­self.
I glance back at her sleep­ing form: at the strap of her dress slip­ping off one
creamy shoul­der. At the riot of red fall­ing down one side of her face and
onto the op­po­site shoul­der.
At the peb­bled points of her nip­ples through her gown. At the way it rides
up her smooth, long legs.
I stand and grab a blan­ket out of an over­head com­part­ment. With­out fan­‐
fare, I turn and toss it over her.
Not be­cause it’s cool in the plane and she’s only wear­ing a flimsy dress.
To stop the hun­gry part of me from look­ing at her that way. Be­cause I
refuse to.
I’ve just turned to the win­dow again when I sense move­ment. Turn­ing back,
I frown quizzi­cally as Mi­los comes down the aisle from where he’s been sit­‐
ting to­ward the front with two of my men. His brow fur­rows as he in­di­cates
his phone.
“I’ve just had an in­ter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion.”
“With?”
“Yeliza­veta Solovy­ova.”
In­ter­est­ing.
Yeliza­veta is the sole woman sit­ting at the Iron Ta­ble. In fact, she’s the lone
woman ever to have sat at that ta­ble of pow­er­ful, bru­tal men. Some might
make the mis­take of think­ing that as a woman she’s au­to­mat­i­cally weak.
They’d be dead wrong.
The very fact that Yeliza­veta has com­manded that seat for al­most thirty
years is tes­ta­ment to the fact that she’s even more bru­tal and ruth­less than
any of the men she sits with.
She’s also been one of the strong­est op­po­nents to my at­tempts to as­cend to
the Iron Ta­ble.
Tech­ni­cally, there are two un­of­fi­cial “gov­ern­ing bod­ies” of the Bratva
world. One is the Iron Ta­ble, which wields ab­so­lute and ex­clu­sive power in
Rus­sia. The other is the High Coun­cil, which holds sway pretty much ev­‐
ery­where else.
The lat­ter was an easy wall for me to breach. In that case, all it took were
threats, proof of trea­sonous in­ten­tions within their ranks, and small Machi­‐
avel­lian “nudges” here and there to as­sert my place at the ta­ble along­side
the Reznikov, Kashenko, Volkov, Ja­vanović, and Kalish­nik Bratva fam­i­lies.
The Iron Ta­ble has proven a harder nut to crack.
The High Coun­cil, rel­at­ively speak­ing, is a newer in­sti­tu­tion. A bit more ea­‐
ger to keep the peace in the name of busi­ness.
The Iron Ta­ble, how­ever, is a ma­chine of war, belch­ing black smoke and
stop­ping for noth­ing on its re­lent­less march for­ward. That col­lec­tive is be­‐
yond “old-school”, de­scended from pi­rates and smug­glers from the times of
kings, long be­fore the con­cept of a Bratva broth­er­hood even ex­isted.
They’re tightly knit, they ab­so­lutely do not have in­fight­ing, and they’re
seem­ingly im­per­vi­ous to threats.
And yet…and yet…
I want my seat at that ta­ble. It will ex­pand my em­pire in ways al­most too
mas­sive to com­pre­hend.
But more im­por­tantly, I need to rule it. Be­cause for all my cru­sades against
those who wronged me, there’s one man who re­mains ut­terly un­touch­able:
Vadik Belov, head of the Belov Bratva.
It’s taken me years to map the web of lies and treach­ery that de­stroyed my
life. Sure, the oth­ers I’ve put into graves, whose em­pires I’ve razed to the
smol­der­ing ground all played their roles. Even the woman sit­ting slumped
across from me had a hand in it.
But ev­ery web has a big, fat, juicy spi­der, and Vadik Belov is mine.
That, above all else, is why I seek a seat at the Iron Ta­ble. From the out­side,
not even I can touch him. Not when he sits united with four other in­sanely
pow­er­ful old-school Bratva fam­i­lies. But if I were at that ta­ble, in their
midst…or even bet­ter, lead­ing that ta­ble…I could bend them to my will.
I could, and I will, turn them against Vadik. And then, I will sit back and
drink his fuck­ing blood from a golden chal­ice as I watch the rest of them
tear him apart at my bid­ding.
I shake my head and re­fo­cus on Mi­los. “And what does the White Queen
say?”
Yeliza­veta Solovy­ova has al­binism, giv­ing her a ghostly white ap­pear­ance.
“White Queen” isn’t a slight, ei­ther. She came up with the name her­self.
“She wants to speak with you,” Mi­los growls. “In per­son.”
I raise a brow. “When?”
“She’s en­route now. I be­lieve she’ll be meet­ing us on the tar­mac when we
land.”
Well, now.
Color me cu­ri­ous.

“D razen .”
The plane’s en­gines are still cy­cling down as I leave the cabin and walk
down the stairs. The he­li­copter that will take us from the main­land across to
my is­land sits prepped and ready a few hun­dred feet away. An­other pri­vate
jet is parked nearby as well.
Wait­ing near the bot­tom of the stair­case is Yeliza­veta her­self, dressed all in
black and sur­rounded by ten of her elite guard—all very con­spic­u­ously
armed to the teeth.
The White Queen her­self smiles warmly as she purrs my name, but I’m
smart enough to see through that.
Yeliza­veta is as much a politi­cian as she is a ruth­less gang­ster. The smile
doesn’t mean we’re friends. It means “watch your back”.
“Yeliza­veta,” I say as I walk to­ward her. I stop a few feet away, and even al­‐
low the in­dig­nity of two of her men pat­ting me down.
“I’ve al­ways ap­pre­ci­ated your eye for cau­tion,” I con­tinue, a prac­ticed
politi­cian’s smile on my face.
“I have grand­chil­dren these days, Drazen,” she says grimly, her alto voice
heav­ily ac­cented as she speaks to me in Eng­lish. It could very well be in­‐
tended as a dig at my mixed, i.e., “not pure Rus­sian” blood. If it is, I choose
not to give her the sat­is­fac­tion of see­ing that it’s pissed me off.
Hon­estly? It didn’t.
“And I plan on see­ing them as­cend to the Ta­ble be­fore I’m dead.” She
smirks. “Cau­tion is part of the game.”
“True,” I re­ply. My brow fur­rows. “My sec­ond tells me you were ea­ger to
speak face to face.”
Yeliza­veta nods, tak­ing a slow, mea­sured breath and clasp­ing her hands in
front of her.
“This busi­ness with you seek­ing to join the Iron Ta­ble…” She frowns as she
dips her chin. “I think it’s time we put that aside.”
My jaw tight­ens. “Is that so.”
“Yes, Drazen,” she mur­murs. “And I think per­haps now is as good a time as
any to ex­plain why, so that you can stop wast­ing your time chas­ing smoke
you will never catch.”
Dark­ness throbs in­side me. But I hold it at bay, keep­ing my ex­pres­sion neu­‐
tral.
“I’m sure you’re aware that while you aren’t ex­actly pop­u­lar with any­one at
the ta­ble, I have been the main voice of op­po­si­tion to you join­ing.”
“Re­ally.”
She lev­els a with­er­ing look at me, her sil­very-white brows arch­ing as her al­‐
most pur­ple eyes bore into me.
“Let us not in­sult each other, Drazen.”
I smile faintly, tilt­ing my head.
“I think it’s only fair that you know why, so that you can fo­cus your ef­forts
else­where.” She clears her throat. “I was close with the Bran­covich fam­ily.”
Yeah, no shit. Which is how she and the rest of the Ta­ble prob­ab­ ly helped
that spi­der Vadik Belov weave his web and mur­der my en­tire fam­ily.
“I think I’ve heard as much,” I growl qui­etly.
“I doubt you’ve heard that we were so close that Mi­ha­jlo Bran­covich was
my god­son.”
Fuck.
Fuck­ing fuck. I had not, in fact, ever heard that. At all.
My eyes nar­row in­vol­un­tar­ily.
This is… se­ri­ously not ideal. I didn’t per­son­ally kill Mi­ha­jlo and his wife.
That priv­i­lege went to in­fight­ing or per­haps a mutiny within his ranks, if the
sto­ries are cor­rect.
Ex­cept, there are other sto­ries: ru­mors that I was be­hind their deaths. I was
not, but I’ll ad­mit to hav­ing let the ru­mor run with­out op­po­si­tion.
“Was he re­ally,” I mur­mur tightly.
Her lips curl. “In­deed.”
“We’re both in­tel­li­gent and busy peo­ple, Yeliza­veta,” I growl. “So per­haps
we should cut to the chase You’re an­gry be­cause of the sto­ries of my in­‐
volve­ment in his and his wife’s deaths.”
She tilts her head thought­fully. “I’ve heard the ru­mors. But I also don’t be­‐
lieve them.” She shakes her head. No, Drazen, it isn’t ru­mor that has me re­‐
solved never to al­low you even to glance at the Iron Ta­ble.” Her pur­plish
gaze glints at me. “Nor is it, as you might be think­ing, the fact that you’re
not pure Rus­sian.”
Just some ca­sual eth­no­cen­trism there. No big deal.
“As I said, Yeliza­veta,” I mut­ter. “We’re both busy, in­tel­li­gent peo­ple. So
why don’t we⁠—”
“I was quite fond of the girl, you know.”
I go still.
She means An­nika.
“I un­der­stand you be­lieve she played a part in the treach­ery that took your
fam­ily⁠—”
“She lit­er­ally let them into my home,” I snarl.
Yeliza­veta just smiles coldly. “All the same,” she says in a brit­tle voice. “I
cared deeply for her. And you took her from this world, and from me.”
My anger flares. “She was at­tempt­ing to flee across the only bridge off my
is­land, and one of my men blew that bridge while she was cross­ing. I didn’t
take⁠—”
“Your men, your is­land, your or­ders,” Yeliza­veta growls. “Save your breath,
be­cause noth­ing will change my mind.” She lev­els a with­er­ing look at me.
“That, Drazen, is why you will never sit at the Iron Ta­ble. Not ever. I
thought it was time you heard that in per­son.”
She nods at her guards. They form a cir­cle around her as she turns to walk
back to her plane.
For a sec­ond, I al­most let it go. Re­venge is right there, still se­dated on my
plane, ready for me to de­stroy at my leisure.
But I re­al­ize I’ve been pre­sented with a choice I never thought I’d have.
Vengeance on the tool that ul­ti­mately de­stroyed my world? Or vengeance
on the hand that wielded that tool?
An­nika ver­sus Vadik. Vadik ver­sus An­nika.
The wheels in my head are still turn­ing as Yeliza­veta walks away.
And then my choice is made.
“What if she were still alive?”
Yeliza­veta pauses, hold­ing up a hand to stop her men. She glances back at
me with a dry smirk.
“I’ve no in­ter­est in sick what-ifs. Good­bye, Drazen.”
She turns and starts to walk away again.
“I asked you a ques­tion.”
This time, there’s a fiery in­dig­nance when she stops. Yeliza­veta turns fully
to face me, her eyes blaz­ing.
“Don’t play dis­gust­ing games with me, Drazen,” she hisses. “They don’t
amuse me.”
“Just an­swer the ques­tion, Yeliza­veta,” I growl back. “If An­nika Bran­covich
were still alive, and still my wife, would you con­tinue to block my at­tempts
to join the Ta­ble.”
Her vi­o­let eyes nar­row, her sil­ver brows and al­most translu­cent fore­head
fur­row­ing.
“If you were able to raise the dead, Mr. Krylov,” she says ven­omously,
“then per­haps I could be per­suaded to stom­ach sit­ting across the Ta­ble from
you.”
I smile. “That’s all I needed to hear. Have a good flight back to Mos­cow,
Yeliza­veta.”
She gives me a long, cu­ri­ous look be­fore she turns again and marches back
to her plane.
My lips curl darkly at the cor­ners. A throb of mal­ice flick­ers in my heart.
Change of plans, An­nika…

OceanofPDF.com
 12

TAY­L OR

W here the fuck am I.

The ques­tion tears through my head as my eyes flut­ter open, wrench­ing me
up­right as my breath chokes in my throat. My pulse ham­mers in my ears as
I blink, my eyes dart­ing around my sur­round­ings. My head throbs, my
mouth and throat are bone dry.
I force an­other breath, winc­ing as I try to swal­low. As the oxy­gen fills my
lungs, my vi­sion clears a lit­tle.
No, but se­ri­ously… Where the fuck am I?
I’m in a bed of some kind, which is chill­ing in and of it­self. My brain jan­‐
gles as I quickly glance down at my­self. But I’m still dressed, in the de la
Renta I put on yes­ter­day, be­fore⁠—
It all hits me at once, mak­ing me phys­i­cally flinch as I scram­ble back on the
bed, into the head­board.
Be­fore I went to din­ner.
With him.
NapoleonInEx­ile is fuck­ing Drazen. That’s who I played de­praved games
with. Who I ran from in the dark.
Who made me come with his fuck­ing knife.
The man that even dan­ger­ous, scary men them­selves fear is the man I asked
to chase me, and catch me, and fuck me, “whether I say no or not.”
I mean, Je­sus…
The scene from din­ner flashes through my head, ar­rest­ing my pulse as I
clench the du­vet be­neath me, hold­ing on for dear life. The in­sanely per­sonal
ques­tions. His eyes evis­cer­at­ing me. The sud­den change of sub­ject. The
way my head swam just be­fore he dropped my lac­er­ated panties onto the ta­‐
ble, turn­ing my world up­side down.
Af­ter that, the mem­o­ries fade to noth­ing.
And now here I am.
…Wher­ever here may be.
I swal­low painfully again, glanc­ing around the op­u­lent bed­room. The walls
are sand-col­ored stone cov­ered with a light wash, giv­ing it a very Mediter­‐
ranean feel. Huge win­dows take up al­most an en­tire wall, though right now
they’re cov­ered by sweep­ing white cur­tains. Even still, I can see the white
glow of sun­light out­side through them.
Gor­geous leafy flow­er­ing plants in terra-cotta pots fill one cor­ner of the
room. Earthen-col­ored tiles cover the floor, with a huge al­most Mo­roc­can-
look­ing teal and burnt or­ange Per­sian rug laid over them. The bed is hewn
from weath­ered wood and black iron, with white gauze cur­tains hang­ing
from the four tall cor­ner posts.
Across the room, a curved door­frame, again, very Mediter­ranean or Mo­roc­‐
can in feel, leads to what ap­pears to be a huge, open bath­room, done in
white tiles. An­other sim­i­lar door re­veals what looks like a large chang­ing
room, or mas­sive walk-in closet.
The third door—heavy wood with bands of iron—is closed.
Swal­low­ing again, I gin­gerly swing my legs off the bed. My bare feet hit
the floor, and I sway a lit­tle as I stand, my head still swim­ming.
That moth­er­fucker drugged me, and I’m still feel­ing the ef­fects.
I slowly make my way to the closed door. Un­sur­pris­ingly, it’s locked. Just
the same, tug­ging on it and feel­ing the com­plete lack of give, and get­ting an
idea of how strong and thick the door it­self is, sends a shiver down my
spine.
Then the panic truly be­gins to mount.
I whirl, my pulse spik­ing as my eyes dart around the room. There’s ob­vi­‐
ously no sign of my phone, and when I run to the other doors, I con­firm
what I guessed from the bed: one leads to the bath­room, the other to a huge
dress­ing room.
I bolt to the win­dows and yank open the white linen cur­tains that fall to the
floor. I wince, shut­ting my eyes tight against the blind­ing sun. When I force
them back open, I shud­der when I take in the view.
I don’t think we’re in Kan­sas any­more, Toto…
Turquoise ocean stretches out to the hori­zon in front of me. Be­low the win­‐
dows, there are rocky cliffs and crash­ing surf. The win­dows open with
cranks, and even though there’s bars over them, I open them quickly and
squeeze my head be­tween the iron rods.
Where the hell…?
All I can see is rocky coast and the same sandy stone walls stretch­ing off to
ei­ther side of me, dot­ted with more barred win­dows.
Sud­denly, I hear the whine of metal. I jolt, bring­ing my head back through
the bars and whirling to see the knob of the closed wooden door twist­ing.
My pulse thun­ders as it opens, and a woman maybe a few years older than
me wear­ing a house­keeper’s uni­form steps in with a tray.
Weirdly, she doesn’t even flinch as I rush to­ward her, clearly with ev­ery in­‐
ten­tion of shov­ing her aside and bolt­ing out of this prison cell. Just as I get
to her, she deftly slides the tray onto the weath­ered, Mo­roc­can-style wooden
cre­denza be­side the door and turns to me.
In an in­stant, I go from charg­ing her to be­ing twisted around with both
hands pinned be­hind my back and an in­sanely strong arm wrapped around
my neck. My eyes bulge, and I try and scream as I fight her. Her arm just
tight­ens, chok­ing me as my bare feet kick and scrab­ble at the tiled floor.
“Easy, Yaelle,” a deep man’s voice rum­bles.
The house­keeper force-walks me back into the room a few steps be­fore
drop­ping her su­per­hu­man grip. I pull in a ragged breath, my head spin­ning
as I turn to­ward her. Then, my gaze goes past her to the huge man in dark
pants and a dark dress shirt, tie-less with his sleeves rolled up, show­ing
arms cov­ered in what looks like Bratva ink. His dark eyes sweep over me as
he nods his cleft chin.
“You’ll have to for­give Yaelle,” he mur­murs in a rum­bling bass tone. He
smirks as he glances at the house­keeper. “That Mossad train­ing just doesn’t
ever turn off.”
I wince as I rub my sore neck, glar­ing at the still im­pas­sive Yaelle. When I
rip my gaze to the dark-haired man, he flashes me a small smile.
“My name is⁠—”
“Where the fuck am I?” I hiss, ey­ing them. Yaelle con­tin­ues to look at me
like she’s a fuck­ing psy­cho ro­bot. The tall guy just keeps smil­ing, which is
in­fu­ri­at­ing.
“Where. Am. I,” I spit. “Be­cause this is fuck­ing kid­nap­ping, in case you’re
un­clear. This is a felony⁠—”
“As I was say­ing, Ms. Crown,” the man says slowly. “My name is Mi­los.
And you’re here as a guest of Mr. Krylov.”
I sneer. “Guests have the op­tion of com­ing or go­ing. Do I have that lux­‐
ury?”
“That would de­pend on where you’d like to go, Ms. Crown.”
I glare at him. “This is a fuck­ing crime.”
“I think that could be up for dis­cus­sion,” Mi­los says with­out emo­tion.
“You locked me in a fuck­ing room!” I snap, my nerves fray­ing.
“The locked door was merely a pre­cau­tion—a mea­sure to pro­tect you
should you wake up con­fused.”
“I can’t imag­ine why I’d be con­fused,” I snarl. My jaw tight­ens. “You need
to let me go, now.”
He smiles again, spread­ing his arms. “You’re free to go wher­ever you
please, Ms. Crown.”
My eyes nar­row. “Oh, re­ally.”
“Re­ally,” the man dips his head. “Any­where you’re not to go will be
locked.”
“And if I run?” I hiss. “Will I be re­strained?” My eyes drop to the gun
tucked into his belt. “Or shot?”
The man shakes his head. “Of course not. There’s ac­tu­ally nowhere to run
to.”
“What the hell is that sup­posed to mean?”
“It means you’re on an is­land, Ms. Crown.”

M i ­l os and Y aelle leave me with the tray, which holds a pot of cof­fee with
a cup and saucer, cream, and sugar, along with some toast, a bowl of olives,
and an­other bowl of cher­ries.
Sure enough, they leave the door not only un­locked, but wide open when
they go.
I wolf down the food and the cof­fee. Then I head out of the room, and the
mo­ment I do, my jaw drops.
Holy shit.
Wher­ever I am, it’s pala­tial. Airy hall­ways with the same sandy lime­‐
washed stone, terra-cotta tiled floors, and Mediter­ranean or Mo­roc­can
throw rugs lead to huge, vaulted rooms filled with gor­geous fur­ni­ture, more
pot­ted ferny plants, and mod­ern and clas­si­cal art. I stag­ger to a halt in one
room, star­ing at a framed paint­ing on the wall.
A Van Gogh.
I won­der—even hope—for a sec­ond that it’s a very, very good forgery. But
some­thing tells me that’s not the case. Not in this house. Not with that man.
My eyes are wide, my mouth open as I drift from one room to an­other, un­til
I lose track of how sprawl­ing and mas­sive the house is.
I gawk when I dis­cover an airy, open hall­way with one whole side open and
over­look­ing the sea be­low. Fur­ther down, I step out of an­other hall­way and
into a stun­ning open court­yard filled with lush flow­er­ing plants, hang­ing
Mo­roc­can oil lamps, and sump­tu­ous couches.
I start for a mo­ment when I spot a black-clad armed guard when I step out
of the house through a side door. But the man barely nods at me be­fore
turn­ing to face for­ward again.
…Ap­par­ently, I can go wher­ever I want.
So I head di­rectly to the cliffs I saw from the win­dows in­side. Sure enough,
the edge of the world drops away in dra­matic, rocky shards down to the
froth­ing surf be­low.
You’re on an is­land, Ms. Crown.
Let’s find out.
I fol­low the rocky cliffs away from the house. In some places, they drop
away less dra­mat­i­cally, more like lit­tle hills slop­ing down to sandy beaches.
I keep fol­low­ing the edge of the ocean, past a mound of rocky ru­ins that
sends a shiver up my spine, and then a lit­tle glade of trees—cu­ri­ously, with
a tall stone wall around them, and a locked wooden gate.
Odd.
I con­tinue walk­ing for maybe an­other half a mile or so be­fore I spot a white
gravel road—or drive­way?—that looks to be com­ing from the house. I veer
away from the coast and fol­low the road, go­ing away from the house, un­til
sud­denly I freeze.
In front of me, the gravel drive hits a huge wrought-iron fence. Be­yond it,
the road be­comes paved as it crosses a fairly short—maybe fifty-foot—
bridge to what, if Mi­los is to be be­lieved, is the main­land. Four armed
guards stand watch on the other side of the fence, on this side of the bridge.
An­other dozen or so stand around mul­ti­ple dark SUVs and an­other iron gate
on the far side.
I’m about to turn away when my brain sud­denly short-cir­cuits. I fal­ter, my
vi­sion glitch­ing as some­thing flashes be­hind my eyes.
A half-re­mem­bered dream.
A fleet­ing im­age.
A flick­er­ing mem­ory…
Come play, An­nika.
Play with me…
I gasp as I jolt out of the…episode, or what­ever it was. My breath catches
as I tense, my pulse thrum­ming in my ears as I stare through the gate at the
bridge.
I con­tinue around the perime­ter for an­other few min­utes un­til it’s pretty
clear Mi­los wasn’t bull­shit­ting me. I’m al­most cer­tainly on an is­land.
I pause, peer­ing out at the turquoise ocean. Then I frown slightly, shield­ing
my eyes from the sun as I fo­cus on some­thing a lit­tle ways out from the
beach coast be­low: a buoy, with a small lit­tle row­boat tied to it.
I swal­low, my teeth sink­ing into my bot­tom lip.
It’s not that far out.
You could eas­ily swim that.
As if on cue, a mo­tor­boat zips by with more armed men in black stand­ing
on it.
Drazen’s men.
Well, maybe I couldn’t swim it in day­light…
Giv­ing up on fol­low­ing the coast, I turn in­land un­til I hit the drive­way
again. I fol­low that back up to the sprawl­ing house, this time get­ting a vis­i­‐
tor’s im­pres­sion of the grand en­trance.
The house truly is gor­geous. So is the is­land, and the views of the ocean. I
mean it would be a va­ca­tion par­adise if it wasn’t for the an­noy­ing lit­tle fact
that I’m here against my fuck­ing will, and that it took drug­ging me to get
me here.
Back in­side, I me­an­der through the house un­til I end up walk­ing out an
open door­way from a liv­ing room and onto a beau­ti­ful stone pa­tio over­look­‐
ing the ocean. The sun is hang­ing low over the wa­ter, and even though I’m
a pris­oner here, there’s no ig­nor­ing the warm, flo­ral and sea-salt air that
drifts over my skin.
Sud­denly, there’s an­other sen­sa­tion creep­ing over me. Some­thing dark and
chill­ing. Some­thing ma­li­cious and cold. With a start, I whirl.
Icy blue eyes stab into me, freez­ing me to the spot as my throat tight­ens. A
cold sen­sa­tion, like stand­ing at the mouth of a black cave, tin­gles over my
skin, oblit­er­at­ing the warm, salty-flo­ral scents of a few short sec­onds ago.
“Wel­come home, An­nika.”

OceanofPDF.com
 13

TAY­L OR

W el ­c ome home , An­nika…

Drazen’s face is dark and clouded with all the vi­cious­ness he’s ru­mored to
be ca­pa­ble of when he says it.
“This isn’t my home.”
“But it was once,” he hisses through clenched teeth.
My mouth purses.
“What the fuck gives you the right to drug and kid­nap me?!”
“Drug­ging has such a vile con­no­ta­tion. I se­dated you.”
“I fail to see the dif­fer­ence,” I hiss. “You can’t just se­date peo­ple.”
“Would you have come will­ingly if I’d asked?”
“What do you think?” I snap.
He lifts a shoul­der. “You see? You left me no choice.”
I shiver as his eyes sweep over me.
…I refuse to ac­knowl­edge the slight flut­ter in my core, or the way my nip­‐
ples tighten un­der my dress.
It’s not just that the man is out­ra­geously good-look­ing, ob­jec­tively speak­‐
ing. It’s the way he’s look­ing at me, af­ter the raw anger and lethal ha­tred
dis­si­pates. It’s down­right preda­tory.
“Peo­ple are go­ing to be look­ing for me.”
He shrugs. “They won’t find you. Not here, at least.”
I shiver.
“In any case, you’re mis­taken. No one is look­ing for you. Be­cause you’re
not miss­ing, Tay­lor,” he growls. “You’re on a much-needed va­ca­tion.”
He holds up a fa­mil­iar-look­ing phone: my phone.
I shud­der. “What’d you do, retina-scan me when I was un­con­scious and
fake-text my friends and co­work­ers?”
“Pre­cisely.”
My mouth tight­ens. “What the fuck is this?” I blurt.
His lips curl dan­ger­ously. “What do you think it is?”
“I think I’ve seen this movie,” I spit back ven­omously. “What, I’ve got
three hun­dred and sixty-five days to fall in love with you?”
Drazen smirks. “Not ex­actly,” he growls.
Sud­denly, with­out any warn­ing, he surges into me, eras­ing the dis­tance be­‐
tween us as my heart claws up into my mouth. I whim­per as his hand wraps
tight around my throat, squeez­ing, mak­ing my eyes bulge in ter­ror.
“It’s more like you have three sec­onds to tell me how you did it,” he snarls
like a de­mon, send­ing my pulse spik­ing.
“D-d-id w-what?!” I cry.
“The door, An­nika,” he chokes through clenched teeth, his face a mask of
fury. I shud­der as his hand tight­ens around my throat again, squeez­ing
harder. “How did you un­lock the fuck­ing door.”
“I—I have no idea what you’re talk­ing about!”
“ENOUGH!” he roars in my face.
My legs turn to jelly. Pure ter­ror swal­lows me whole.
“Enough of the fuck­ing lies!” he snarls. “Tell me how you be­trayed me
thirty fuck­ing days af­ter our wed­ding.”
It jolts through me like an elec­tri­cal cur­rent. My vi­sion fal­ters and flick­ers.
A roar­ing, whin­ing, alarm ex­plodes in my ears as grav­ity gives way.
I’m watch­ing a scene I don’t re­mem­ber, fea­tur­ing strangers’ faces that I re­‐
mem­ber all too well.
A wed­ding in a church.
Flow­ers that sting my eyes.
The rough bite un­der my bare knees.
My voice croak­ing “I do”.
Then fire, and scream­ing, and death.
Sud­denly, I’m fall­ing. For real, as the dream evap­o­rates to mist and my legs
give out. I top­ple back­ward, my heel catch­ing on a divot in the stone floor
of the pa­tio. The small of my back hits the edge of bal­cony and I feel the
tug of grav­ity as my body be­gins to slow-mo­tion tilt over the edge to the
rocks be­low.
An arm jerks out, strong, tat­tooed fin­gers wrap­ping tightly around my
throat.
The world goes still as Drazen and I freeze in that po­si­tion: me, half-fallen
over the bal­cony, with the roar­ing waves crash­ing into the jagged rocks be­‐
low; and Drazen, stand­ing firmly on the bal­cony, one hand around my
throat, keep­ing me from fall­ing.
He doesn’t pull me back up.
We stay like that for so many frozen sec­onds that I can’t count. My pulse
thuds hard in my ears, the sen­sa­tion height­ened by the hand squeez­ing my
jugu­lar. My skin crawls and tin­gles.
“Tell me,” Drazen hisses qui­etly, his head tilted to the side. “You owe me
that much af­ter fif­teen years of hell.”
This is in­sane. He’s in­sane. I haven’t the slight­est fuck­ing idea what⁠—
“Tell me how you knew the code to un­lock that door, An­nika.”
“I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about!!” I choke out through my
clenched throat, my eyes round and ter­ri­fied. “I’ve never been here be­fore!!
My name isn’t ANNI⁠—”
I scream as his hand lets go. In­stantly, it tight­ens again, grab­bing a hand­ful
of the front of my dress. The fab­ric rips a lit­tle. Pure adren­al­ine ex­plodes
through my sys­tem as I flail and claw to grab hold of his arm.
“Please!” I beg, gasp­ing for air. “Please don’t drop me.”
An­other hand­ful of frozen, ter­ri­fy­ing sec­onds tick by. My dress tears a lit­tle
more.
Sud­denly, he yanks hard, rip­ping the dress half off me as I hur­tle for­ward
past him onto the ground, land­ing sprawled at his feet. I wince at the bite of
stone on my bare knees and toes.
“Al­low me to re­fresh your frail mem­ory⁠—”
“Fif­teen years ago,” I shriek, turn­ing to lift my face to his, “I was in a fuck­‐
ing car crash!”
“Yes, you were,” he spits ven­omously. He stabs a vi­cious fin­ger past me.
“Half a fuck­ing mile that way, try­ing to es­cape af­ter be­tray­ing me and my
fam­ily!!”
My face pales and drops. My heart twists as some­thing hor­ri­ble and stab­‐
bing cuts into my brain: a flicker of…some­thing. Then it’s gone.
“I grew up in Wash­ing­ton, DC,” I plead. “I⁠—”
“Lies—”
“I DON’T HAVE ANY MEM­ORY OF BE­FORE I WAS EIGH­TEEN!!” I
scream at him in a blind panic. “Noth­ing!! Zero!! I have ret­ro­grade am­ne­‐
sia!!”
“How very. Fuck­ing. Con­ve­nient,” he snaps.
“Trust me,” I spit back through clenched teeth. “It’s not. But I know one
thing,” I sneer up at him. “You and I were never mar­ried. I doubt even am­‐
ne­sia could erase a hor­ror like that.”
“How very lucky for you that it did,” he replies coldly. “Not ev­ery­one has
that lux­ury.”
“Let me be as fuck­ing clear as I pos­si­bly can, you fuck­ing psy­chopath!” I
yell through clenched teeth. “I DO NOT RE­MEM­BER MY FUCK­ING
LIFE! But I know one thing for cer­tain: I was never your wife,” I spit.
“Nev⁠—”
I whim­per, chok­ing as his hand wraps tight around my throat and yanks me
hard into his chest and I look up into his bru­tal, vi­ciously hand­some face,
twisted in a black, dark rage.
“Don’t. Fuck­ing. Move.”
I shud­der as he re­leases me and storms into the enor­mous man­sion. I stand,
turn­ing and hug­ging my­self, shak­ing as I stare out over the wa­ter.
I can still see the lit­tle speck of that row­boat, moored in the wa­ter…
Heavy foot­steps have me whirling as he marches back onto the pa­tio. “How
about now,” he snarls, shov­ing some­thing into my hands. “Ring­ing any
wed­ding bells?”
An icy feel­ing crawls up my spine as I stare down at the pic­ture frame in
my hands, the cor­ner dented and the glass spi­der­webbed, like some­one’s
thrown it in a rage. It’s tinged with black marks, like it sur­vived a fire.
It’s not the state of the frame that sends a shiver through my very soul.
It’s the pho­to­graph in it.
Of me.
A very young, teenaged me, wear­ing a white wed­ding dress, stand­ing mo­‐
rosely next to a stern, much younger Drazen in a black suit.
We both look like we’re at a fu­neral.
“I…”
I blink rapidly, my mouth open­ing and clos­ing.
“This is faked.”
I mean, it’s me, but also not. I’ve never dyed my hair chest­nut brown.
At least…not that I re­mem­ber…
He snorts coldly. “How long un­til this gets old, even for you.”
I raise my eyes to his, frown­ing. “What?”
“The bull­shit, An­nika,” he snarls. “Or is it that you’ve just spent so long
pre­tend­ing to be Tay­lor Crown that you’re hav­ing trou­ble drop­ping the lies
and re­mem­ber­ing your treach­er­ous, back­stab­bing self?”
Fu­ri­ous, I wind my hand back and throw the pic­ture as hard as I can at his
head. Drazen eas­ily dodges it, and to­tally ig­nores the vi­o­lent smash of glass
as it splin­ters into shards against the wall be­hind him.
“No,” I choke, shak­ing my head vi­o­lently. “I was never your wife⁠—”
“You were, lit­tle An­nika,” he hisses. “In fact, tech­ni­cally speak­ing, you still
are.”
My heart seizes.
“And you’ll con­tinue to be.” He smiles cru­elly. “Be­fore you protest, know
that be­ing my wife go­ing for­ward is the only thing keep­ing you alive.”
A tremor of fear rip­ples through me.
“What did I do?” I whis­per. “I mean, what do you think I did? Why do you
hate⁠—”
“You un­locked a key-coded back door and al­lowed your fa­ther’s men into
my home on this very is­land. It was on the other side, closer to the main
bridge.”
Drazen turns to stare out over the wa­ter.
“Those ver­min slaugh­tered my en­tire fam­ily: fa­ther, mother, grand­fa­ther,
grand­mother, aunt, two cousins, my sis­ter, her hus­band. My new­born
nephew.”
Some­thing hor­ri­fy­ing rips through me. My face falls in agony, my hand fly­‐
ing to my mouth.
“Drazen—”
“They held me down and made me watch. Then they torched the house and
left me there to die in a pool of my fam­ily’s blood.”
Oh my God…
It feels like some­one’s just stabbed a knife through my heart. Like I’m
break­ing in two as I stare at him with a haunted, hor­ri­fied ex­pres­sion.
“You might not re­mem­ber the past,” he says, still look­ing out to sea. “But I
can’t for­get it. Nor will I ever.”
With­out an­other word, he storms away.

OceanofPDF.com
 14

DRAZEN

I m ­a ges and ar ­t i ­c les flicker across the lap­top screen. I bring the glass of
vodka to my lips, tak­ing a slow sip, scan­ning the in­for­ma­tion in front of me.
Tay­lor Crown has had an il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer. Top of her class, grad­u­at­ing
magna cum laude from NYU; early, at that. Then on to Har­vard Law, where
she was, again, the very top of her class—right above her two co-part­ners at
the firm.
I’ve tried dig­ging deeper into her so­cial me­dia. But she hardly has any so­‐
cial pres­ence on the web. What lit­tle there is strictly in­volves her work,
which she seems to have been slav­ishly mar­ried to for the last dozen years.
She was a top ju­nior as­so­ciate at Kramer, O’Don­nel, and List. Then they
bumped her onto part­ner track af­ter a few years of, frankly, killing it with
them. She re­ceived an even bet­ter of­fer from a ri­val firm…and then two
more even bet­ter ones from two other ri­val firms.
But she stayed at Kramer, O’Don­nel, and List. Which is…cu­ri­ous.
It wasn’t due to a lack of in­tel­li­gence or drive. She was pur­pose­ful in turn­‐
ing down ev­ery other of­fer.
Out of loy­alty.
That’s some­thing new she’s learned in the last fif­teen years…
A few years later, though, af­ter an in­hu­man num­ber of bill­able hours at the
firm, she handed in her no­tice. So did Al­is­tair and Gabriel Black, at their
own firms. The three of them formed Crown and Black, pool­ing their re­‐
sources, tal­ent…and more than a few poached clients.
I smirk grimly. There it is. There’s the trai­tor­ous streak I know all too well.
I frown as I dig deeper, look­ing for any­thing I can about the for­ma­tion of
their firm. Al­is­tair and Gabriel come from some money…not much. Their
grand­fa­ther, Charles Black, was once a bit of a king­maker in the gray un­‐
der­belly of New York. A wannabe gang­ster who couldn’t quite stom­ach get­‐
ting his hands dirty. Ap­par­ently he was an early in­vestor and board mem­ber
of Crown and Black, but it looks like he’s re­cently been kicked out and
doesn’t have any­thing to do with the firm any­more.
But even there, Charles is wealthy, but he’s not the sort of wealthy that
could fund the startup of a firm like Crown and Black. Noth­ing I read about
him, in­clud­ing the tid­bit that his own grand­sons and a young daugh­ter he’s
had with his much younger tro­phy sec­ond wife seem to loathe him, would
sug­gest he had that much in­vested.
So where the fuck did they get their startup cash?
I put down my drink, and my fin­gers fly over the keys as I pull up what­ever
pub­lic-record fi­nan­cials I can find. When that isn’t enough, I text Dim­itri, a
brute-force hacker I have on re­tainer. I have no fuck­ing idea what time it is
in Tokyo right now, but the kid never sleeps any­way.
Sure enough, he re­sponds in­stantly and gets to work.
And I sit back and let my eyes drag across im­age af­ter im­age of a grown-up
Tay­lor Crown.
Aka An­nika Bran­covich: the Tro­jan horse who let the en­emy in­side my
walls to de­stroy my world.
She was al­ways beau­ti­ful, I sup­pose. I was pissed at the idea of mar­ry­ing
for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons when I was just twenty-two, and fi­nally free of war af­‐
ter years of blood­shed in the Balkan con­flicts. But I was livid at hav­ing to
marry the daugh­ter of our en­emy.
Even so, I’ll ad­mit she was beau­ti­ful in that youth­ful way: tall, leggy, long
chest­nut brown hair—dyed, ob­vi­ously—down to her waist. But the An­nika
I know now, who I’ve taken, and who will play a role to get me what I
want, is some­thing else al­to­gether.
She’s sim­ply gor­geous now.
She’s ma­tured into a woman that any man would trip over him­self to have.
She’s still got the legs and the height. But her hips have filled out into a
toned ass, and her tits…
Je­sus Christ, I’m…hard.
Very, very hard.
It’s not just that she’s grown into a stun­ning woman. The world is full of
those.
…But none of them, at least hardly any, have the same black tastes as me.
And one of those is her.
My mind re­plays the de­li­cious way she whim­pered in the dark for me. The
way she wanted me to chase her. Begged me to, in fact.
To hunt her. To pin her down. To hurt her.
To be my will­ing and ea­ger lit­tle fuck toy and cum slut.
For a brief sec­ond, I al­low my hand to drop to the ob­scene bulge in my
pants. I cup my­self as my eyes slide back to the screen, to an im­age of An­‐
nika—Tay­lor—smil­ing for the cam­era at some char­ity ball hosted by Crown
and Black. She’s in a stun­ning shim­mer­ing green gown that plunges down
her back and shows off a taste­ful yet teas­ing amount of cleav­age. The con­‐
trast be­tween the glit­ter­ing emer­ald and the fiery red of her hair brings out a
hunger in me that…
Stop it.
I yank my hand away from my throb­bing, thick erec­tion and glare at the
pic­ture.
No.
I scroll back to the ear­li­est things I can find on her. There’s a great-aunt—
Flo­rence, with whom she lived in New York the sum­mer be­fore she started
col­lege. But Flo­rence died es­sen­tially the week “Tay­lor” started school. And
be­fore that…
My brow fur­rows.
There re­ally is noth­ing.
Not a sin­gle thing on so­cial me­dia. No schools at­tended. No places lived.
Noth­ing.
“Tay­lor Crown” even has a so­cial se­cu­rity num­ber—a clean one, at that.
She has a fuck­ing US pass­port. Just—no past.
How the fuck did she go to col­lege, let alone Har­vard, with no ed­u­ca­tional
records?
My phone dings with a text from Dim­itri, telling me he’s found what I
wanted and that it’s sit­ting in my in­box. I wire him his usual fee and open
what he’s sent me: fi­nan­cial records pulled from Crown and Black’s in­ter­nal
server.
He’s good, Dim­itri. And fuck­ing fast. This time he was even quicker than
when I had him hack into the NYPD servers and delete the videos of her in
that car, not to men­tion the naked park­ing garage footage af­ter she es­caped
from me that first time.
As sat­is­fy­ing as it would have been to see her ca­reer go up in flames, I
couldn’t have An­nika dis­ap­pear­ing into the ju­di­cial sys­tem and elud­ing my
wrath.
Yes, I have ques­tions—sev­eral, ac­tu­ally—con­cern­ing that stolen Lam­‐
borgh­ini. But they can wait.
This is far more press­ing.
I find the file I’m look­ing for and open it. My eyes scan the break­down of
the startup costs of Crown and Black, look­ing for the source of funds. Sure
enough, there’s a de­cent chunk from Charles Black. Gabriel and Al­is­tair
both seem to have emp­tied their mod­est trust funds, too.
And then I spot Tay­lor’s con­tri­bu­tion, which is noted as “the en­tirety of her
trust fund”.
My blood boils when I see the amount, which is lit­er­ally sixty-five per­cent
of the money they needed to open the doors.
You lit­tle fuck­ing liar.
The devil, as they say, is in the de­tails. One of my lit­tle de­tails that I’ve
never been able to tie up is that the night I lost ev­ery­thing, I was also
robbed. I didn’t re­al­ize un­til later, of course. But af­ter I’d pulled my­self out
of the wreck­age, buried my fam­ily and fled into the night, I re­al­ized the
emer­gency fund my fa­ther had kept se­cret and sep­ar­ ate from ev­ery­thing
else was now gone.
Only he and I knew about the suit­case he kept locked in the safe in his of­‐
fice. The safe not even I knew the com­bi­na­tion to. A fire­proof safe con­tain­‐
ing twenty-two mil­lion US dol­lars, cash. Yet when I was paw­ing through
the wreck­age of my home the day af­ter I lost ev­ery­thing, I found that safe
empty.
My eyes drag back to the screen in front of me. I drop my gaze to “Tay­lor
Crown” on the open­ing funds con­tri­bu­tion list for the law firm, and the
amount next to her name.
My hands curl to fists.
Her “trust fund” con­tri­bu­tion to open the firm was twenty-two-mil­lion dol­‐
lars.
My mind spins as my rage throbs un­der the sur­face.
I saw her body. I spit on her corpse.
…Which, I now see clearly, wasn’t An­nika. Some­how, she got away that
night. She knew about the money and some­how opened a god­damn num­ber-
pad safe be­fore dis­ap­pear­ing to the US, to this mys­te­ri­ous great-aunt Flo­‐
rence.
She changed her name to Tay­lor Crown and set­tled into a nor­mal, quiet life.
She was smart. She didn’t buy a splashy man­sion or a fleet of sports cars.
She sat on that stolen money, way off my radar. And then when op­por­tu­nity
came knock­ing, she fi­nally used it to build her own em­pire.
A growl rum­bles through my chest, but I re­strain my­self from march­ing
through the house un­til I find her and throw her to the rocks be­neath the
cliffs.
Pun­ish the hand that wielded the tool, not the tool.
The goal here isn’t An­nika. It’s Vadik. Well, first it’s Vadik. But af­ter I get
him, us­ing her?
Then I’ll ex­act my re­venge on her as well.
I drum my fin­gers on the edge of my desk as I click away from the fi­nan­cial
state­ments and to the cam­eras that cover ev­ery an­gle of my home and my
is­land.
She’s not in her room.
My mouth curves darkly at the cor­ners as I shrug off my jacket and slowly
roll up my sleeves to the el­bow.
I keep click­ing on dif­fer­ent cam­eras. None of them show her in the house.
My smile turns…hun­gry.
I would ap­pear she took the bait.
Slowly, I open my desk drawer and pull out the matte black devil mask.
Time to run, my lit­tle slut.

OceanofPDF.com
 15

TAY­L OR

T he minute the sun dips low over the ocean and changes from or­ange to
pur­ple, I start to get ready. I’ve been back in “my” room—that is, the room
I woke up in—since my heart-stop­ping face­off with Drazen on the bal­cony.
I swal­low back the ter­ror as I re­mem­ber dan­gling over the edge with only
his hand around my throat stop­ping me from fall­ing to my death.
Now, as it gets dark, I know what I have to do.
I’m on an is­land, with the only means of egress to the main­land a gated,
guarded bridge. There’s no “wait­ing un­til help ar­rives”. He’s told my
friends and co­work­ers—as me—that I’m “on va­ca­tion”.
Sure, maybe even­tu­ally some­one will won­der where the fuck I am. But
even so, wher­ever I am, I doubt it’s any­where near New York. In fact, I’m
start­ing to think—be­tween the decor, the turquoise ocean, and the style of
the man­sion—that I’m much fur­ther away from home than I’d care to ad­‐
mit.
Re­gard­less, the first step is get­ting the hell off this psy­cho’s is­land. Which
means as night falls, I’m get­ting ready to swim.
I try to re­mem­ber the spot on the shore where I saw the lit­tle row­boat tied to
the moor­ing buoy. I’m more of a run­ner and a lifter, but I’m still a de­cent
swim­mer, and I don’t think the row­boat was that far away from shore.
If I can get to it, I can row away from the is­land and to the shore of the
main­land. From there, I’m sure I can find lo­cal au­thor­i­ties and get word to
Gabriel and Al­is­tair, not to men­tion the US con­sulate if I am out­side the
States, and I can leave this night­mare be­hind.
I watch the sun set lower and lower over the ocean. The shad­ows creep
longer and darker as the sky slowly turns vi­o­let, then in­digo, then a dark,
dark blue be­fore fad­ing to night.
Go time.
All I have for cloth­ing is my torn dress. No shoes. But at least it’s black, I
sup­pose. I creep out of my room and dart down a hall. The house is still a
bit of a mys­tery to me, and I’m not quite sure of its lay­out. But I quickly
make my way to where I think I re­mem­ber the side door was.
That idea be­comes a hard no the sec­ond I hear guards talk­ing just out­side.
So I creep back down an­other hall­way un­til I find an­other court­yard. This
one has a wall of big open arch­ways to one side, over­look­ing a man­i­cured
flower gar­den.
That’ll work.
I slip over the stone of the arched win­dows and crouch low in the gar­dens. I
bolt across a dark ex­panse of lawn, thank­ful that the moon is barely a sliver
tonight.
There’s a chill in the air as I half power-walk, half jog in what I’m pretty
sure is the di­rec­tion of the boat. Goose­bumps tease up my arms and legs. A
rip­ple of some­thing ghostly shiv­ers down my spine, the only sounds the
sub­tle lap­ping of the waves down on the rocks and the soft hoot of a night­‐
bird or an owl.
I keep go­ing, start­ing to won­der if I’m even re­motely head­ing the right way.
But then sud­denly, as I jog around a thicket of small trees, my face lights
up.
Found it.
Fear sud­denly knots in my stom­ach as I hang back a sec­ond, bit­ing my lip
as I eye the dark rolling waves be­tween me and the row­boat.
I have no idea how fast the cur­rent is. Or, fuck, if there’s sharks or some­‐
thing. I shiver again as the claws of fear rake down my spine.
I take a deep breath and start to tip­toe my way closer to the edge, try­ing to
find a way down the rocky em­bank­ment.
That’s when I feel it.
An inky black chill.
A ma­li­cious pulse of dark­ness.
A tin­gling sen­sa­tion at the base of my neck, as if claws are inches away
from snar­ing me.
Oh God…
“Won­der­ful.”
My spine snaps rigid. My eyes bulge wide as his deep, malev­o­lent voice
stabs me through the heart.
“I was so hop­ing you’d try to run.”
I gasp sharply as his pres­ence, his wrath, and the slightly spicy, clean scent
of him hov­ers right at my back. A scream lodges in my throat as I feel the
cool, lethal edge of a blade drag se­duc­tively up the side of my neck.
“I’ll count to three, my lit­tle slut,” he growls qui­etly. “That’s all you get.”
My core clenches. My skin rip­ples with an elec­tric en­ergy that throbs
through my en­tire body. My breath catches as the blade slowly slips away
from my skin.
“One…”
And I run.
I run like the devil him­self is about to chase me.
“Two…”
The voice rasps out of the shad­ows, over the thud­ding of my heart as I bolt
into the night.
“Three.”
Adren­al­ine spikes through my veins as I pelt head­long through the dark­‐
ness. Deep down, I know that there’s nowhere re­ally to go. No means of es­‐
cape. I can’t out­run him for­ever.
Still, my sur­vival in­stinct kicks in, forc­ing my legs to pump and my bare
feet to dig into the grassy ground and pro­pel me for­ward.
“So…”
I gasp sharply at the voice barely a few feet away in the inky dark­ness of
the night. I veer left, away from the snarled tone, my lungs burn­ing.
“Fuck­ing…”
I shriek, veer­ing right this time and barely dodg­ing a tree branch as the
voice snarls again in the black­ness.
“Noisy.”
Pure fear vi­brates through my body as I hurl my­self into the dark, my pulse
thud­ding in my ears.
Ex­cept… That’s a lie.
A ma­li­cious, ma­lig­nant lit­tle lie.
It’s not pure fear that I feel cours­ing through my veins. And it’s not just my
body’s nat­u­ral re­ac­tion to dump adren­al­ine into my sys­tem. It’s some­thing
else, too. Some­thing I’m hor­ri­fied to even ad­mit to my­self.
And as much as my psy­che tries to keep it locked down un­der the floor­‐
boards, there’s no stop­ping it as it creeps to the sur­face.
Ex­cite­ment.
The feel­ing I have as Drazen’s pow­er­ful foot­steps pound af­ter mine through
the dark­ness, and as I hear the rasp of his breath, and al­most feel the wind
of his fin­ger­tips claw­ing out to me from the night, is ex­cite­ment.
Chase me.
Catch me.
Hurt me.
Blood roars in my ears. My vi­sion blurs as I hurl my­self through the dark­‐
ness, blindly reach­ing in front of me for tree branches. My skin slicks and
tin­gles, my breath turns ragged and pant­ing.
A shape ex­plodes out of the dark­ness next to me. I scream as pow­er­ful arms
wrap tightly around me like iron bands, lift­ing me off my kick­ing, writhing
feet as a voice hisses in my ear.
“Got you, my lit­tle slut.”
I squirm against his rock-hard body. My el­bows jab back, catch­ing him hard
in the ribs and mak­ing him grunt. But then he whirls and throws me face-
down onto the grassy ground. My feet kick at the dirt as I try to launch my­‐
self back up.
Too late.
The sheer weight of his mus­cled body on mine knocks the wind out of me,
pin­ning me to the ground. He sits astride my lower back, his thighs on ei­‐
ther side of my hips. I scream and writhe, kick­ing and squirm­ing.
But I might as well be fight­ing grav­ity. Try­ing to shove against a solid, im­‐
mov­able force.
I jerk, gasp­ing sharply as he grabs both my wrists and shoves my arms
above my head. In one mo­tion, he’s reach­ing back with his other hand and
yank­ing my dress up high. Heat floods my face, and I yelp an aching whim­‐
per when his palm spanks my ass hard, send­ing fire ex­plod­ing over my
skin.
He grabs the back of my thong, tug­ging it tight against me. My mouth falls
open, my breath catch­ing as the lace rubs against my throb­bing clit. He
pulls my panties back and forth, send­ing dark, for­bid­den heat per­me­at­ing
my re­al­ity.
“Tell me, my lit­tle fuck toy,” he growls darkly. “Did you run be­cause you
re­ally thought you could es­cape?”
I whim­per, chok­ing back a mor­ti­fy­ing moan as he spanks me again.
“Is that re­ally why you ran, my lit­tle slut?” he rasps darkly into my ear as he
leans over me.
I shiver, feel­ing the huge, throb­bing, hot bulge of his erec­tion against my
lower back.
“Or is it just that you needed your greedy lit­tle holes fucked. You just
needed to be chased down like a good lit­tle filthy whore, and forced to take
my cock?”
He grabs the back of my thong again and yanks it down to mid-thigh. His
hand plunges be­tween my legs, and my breath rasps into the ground my
cheek is pressed against.
Oh fuck…
His big, tat­tooed fin­gers slide wetly through my lips, mak­ing me trem­ble.
With­out warn­ing, he sud­denly sinks two fin­gers into me, deep. I cry out,
writhing and moan­ing though the fear and ex­cite­ment clog­ging my wind­‐
pipe.
He slides them out and then rams them back in, yank­ing a loud moan from
my lips.
Drazen laughs darkly.
“I think we have our an­swer.”
His fin­gers plunge into me again, stroking deep against my g-spot as his
thumb starts to rub my clit in slow, de­lib­er­ate cir­cles.
His fin­gers ram into me, the wet squelch­ing sounds fill­ing the dark­ness
around us. I gasp, moan­ing and squirm­ing un­der his touch.
I shiver when his fin­gers slip out of me. When I hear the jan­gle of his belt
and the rough tug of his zip­per, my eyes fly wide.
“I—wait⁠—”
“I’m not in­ter­ested in your opin­ions right now.”
My breath catches, my face flushed and my eyes bulging as he moves lower
down my body, his knees still on ei­ther side of me. I shud­der when I feel
the swollen size of his cock, throb­bing and hot as it drags over my ass.
My mind flashes back to the glimpses I got of it be­fore; how his cock
looked fuck­ing mas­sive.
Sud­denly, with­out warn­ing, his swollen head is sink­ing be­tween my thighs,
pry­ing them open as it lodges against my pussy. He grabs a hand­ful of my
hair, push­ing my cheek to the ground as reaches be­neath me and roughly
yanks down the top of my dress. His big hand mauls my breasts, his fin­gers
twist­ing and pinch­ing my nip­ples mer­ci­lessly as I in­hale ragged breaths of
air.
Breath­ing in fear and hor­ror. Breath­ing out ex­cite­ment and a raw need that
frankly ter­ri­fies me.
“Go on,” Drazen snarls, lean­ing down closer.
My eyes roll back as I feel his fat cock slowly push be­tween my pussy lips,
spread­ing them wide around the head. His teeth drag over my ear­lobe and
bite my neck sharply, mak­ing me cry out be­fore his mouth moves to hover
by my ear.
“Say your fuck­ing safe word,” he hisses darkly. “Scream it for me.”
His hand tight­ens in my hair, mak­ing me wince.
“I’m still go­ing to ruin this slutty lit­tle fuck hole no mat­ter how loud you
do.”
His hips ram for­ward. My eyes bulge and the breath slams out of my body
in a rush. The sheer size of him sends me reel­ing, and the feel of his thick­‐
ness spread­ing me wider than any­thing I’ve ever felt has my toes curl­ing
and dig­ging at the grass as I writhe be­neath him.
One of Drazen’s hands clenches my hair. The other clutches my hip in a
tight, pos­ses­sive grip as he groans deeply, sa­vor­ing the way my body shiv­‐
ers and shakes un­der him and the way my pussy clenches around him strug­‐
gling to ad­just to his enor­mous size.
“Good girl,” he rasps darkly. “Milk my fuck­ing cock like the good lit­tle
cock slut that you are. Let me feel that tight lit­tle pussy stretch for me.”
He drags his cock out. In­stantly, he’s driv­ing right back in.
This time, my eyes roll com­pletely back and my mouth goes slack as some­‐
thing pri­mal ex­plodes deep in­side of me. He does it again, and the walls
around the dark­est, most de­praved parts of my psy­che crum­ble and fall.
This isn’t hav­ing sex. This isn’t even fuck­ing.
This is what be­ing con­quered feels like.
It’s the way that his mas­sive body cov­ers mine. The way his mus­cles rip­ple
and clench, and the way his big hands grab me like I’m his pos­ses­sion—
pin­ning me down like I’m his play­thing to fuck and use any way he pleases.
The way his huge cock rams into me over and over, fill­ing me in ways I’ve
never even dreamed of and tap­ping into my prim­i­tive brain.
His hands grip and twist and spank. His deep, snarling, mas­cu­line groans of
plea­sure fill my ears as my fin­gers and toes claw at the ground be­neath me.
My eyes roll back, my mouth slack, drool drip­ping from my lips that I’m
barely aware of and cer­tainly not ca­pa­ble of do­ing any­thing about.
I vaguely feel his thumb slip­ping be­tween my lips as he fucks me. Hear him
mur­mur the word suck into my ear be­fore I do just that. My tongue swirls
around him, tast­ing my­self on his skin as his huge dick ham­mers into me
over and over.
His thumb slips from my lips. My eyes widen and my throat tight­ens as I
feel him press that thumb against my ass.
“Wait—”
“No.”
Oh, sweet fuck­ing Je­sus…
A filthy sort of plea­sure un­like any­thing I’ve ever felt be­fore con­sumes me
as his wet thumb sinks past my tight ring. I don’t even rec­og­nize the an­i­mal
sounds com­ing out of my mouth as he buries his thumb and rams his gor­‐
geous cock deep into me.
Lethal black plea­sure en­velops me. A gnaw­ing, churn­ing, boil­ing sen­sa­tion
be­gins to throb deep in my core. It spreads through my blood­stream, mak­‐
ing my arms and legs shake and writhe and clench as my eyes roll back. My
mouth opens in a silent scream as the feel­ing of him tak­ing both my holes at
the same time pushes me over the edge.
When it hits, the or­gasm is like noth­ing—noth­ing—I’ve ever felt be­fore. It
feels like I’m blown apart from the in­side out; like my body is shat­ter­ing
into a bil­lion frag­ments of di­am
­ ond dust. I scream into the black­ness of the
night, a raw, an­i­mal­is­tic sound that feels like a re­birth, or a spir­i­tual awak­‐
en­ing.
Wave af­ter wave of plea­sure crashes over me, twist­ing and wrench­ing my
body as I shud­der and stam­mer and gasp, my body buck­ing and writhing
against him as he fucks me over and over.
With a groan, Drazen leans for­ward and sinks his teeth into my neck. I cry
out, shat­ter­ing all over again as he grips my hair tight and rams his cock as
deep as he can into my squeez­ing, clench­ing wet heat.
I feel his huge cock swell and throb, puls­ing and twitch­ing as his hot cum
spills deep in­side of me. Drazen groans, pulling out and wrap­ping his fist
around his cock, growl­ing as he pumps it, spray­ing thick hot ropes of his
sticky cum all over my back, ass and thighs. I can feel it drip­ping down my
ass and over my pussy as my very re­al­ity spins and blurs around me.
Ev­ery­thing goes still and dark and silent. I’m pant­ing, prac­ti­cally hav­ing a
seizure on the ground, ut­terly un­able to move, much less stand.
But Drazen is.
He slowly rises from where he’s crouched over my ass and steps around
me. He kneels be­side my head, and be­fore I know what’s hap­pen­ing, he’s
wrap­ping my tou­sled hair in his fist and yank­ing my face up to look at him.
Holy shit.
He’s not even un­dressed. He’s wear­ing a black dress shirt with the sleeves
rolled up his rip­pling, mus­cled fore­arms, and black dress pants—un­but­‐
toned and un­zipped, his fat, swollen, glis­ten­ing cock hang­ing out heavy and
thick along with his balls.
But it’s his face that sends some­thing not okay tin­gling ea­gerly though my
core.
He’s wear­ing the mask again: the matte-black devil mask from be­fore, his
pierc­ing blue eyes stab­bing through the eye­holes and sear­ing into mine.
“Well?” he growls with a dark, amused smirk on his gor­geous lips. He
glances down at his glis­ten­ing wet cock. A thick white bead of cum is drip­‐
ping from the slit at the head of his crown and slowly trick­ling down his fat,
veined shaft.
My breath catches as I stare at his cock and pull my gaze up to his malev­o­‐
lent smirk.
“Good lit­tle sluts clean up the messes they make…”
Holy shit.
My bot­tom lip re­treats be­tween my teeth. Heat ex­plodes across my face.
But there’s no ig­nor­ing the raw hunger churn­ing deep in­side of me.
My eyes lift to his, hold­ing his fierce gaze through the mask as I lean for­‐
ward. My tongue slips out, and slowly, I lick the head of his cock.
Drazen’s jaw clenches, and a low, sat­is­fied grunt rum­bles in his chest. His
cock swells and throbs as I lick it again and again, trac­ing my tongue up
and down his thick shaft and his swollen head, lick­ing and suck­ing un­til
I’ve cleaned ev­ery trace of him and I off it.
For a sec­ond, I think there’s go­ing to be more. I even think I want more,
even if my body is ut­terly abused and worn out. I can barely move as he
rubs the head of his dick over my lips and groans to him­self.
“Good girl.”
Drazen stands. With­out any fan­fare, he tucks his cock back into his pants
and zips them back up. Then, with­out a word, he turns and walks off into
the night.
“The row­boat is chained and locked, for what it’s worth,” he tosses over his
shoul­der. “But nice try.”
Then, he’s gone, leav­ing me pant­ing and squirm­ing on the ground—my
dress half ripped off, my panties around my knees, and his cum drip­ping
over my skin.

OceanofPDF.com
 16

DRAZEN

It’s not her .

For some rea­son, I can’t es­cape the doubt and the hes­i­ta­tion creep­ing into
my head.
Be­yond the logic that screams that the woman I’ve brought here can’t be
An­nika, be­cause I fuck­ing saw An­nika’s body, there’s an­other voice adding
its opin­ion to the mix.
It’s not like I ever touched An­nika be­fore. We never even kissed at the wed­‐
ding—it was abun­dantly clear that nei­ther of us was re­motely in­ter­ested.
But now that I have touched her, in al­most ev­ery way I pos­si­bly could, it’s
like I’m pulling back the hazy cur­tain of rage and re­venge that’s been
cloud­ing my abil­ity and truly see­ing her.
And I have…ques­tions.
At least half of those are ques­tions di­rected at my­self. “What the fuck are
you do­ing” is top of the list. But that still leaves plenty of band­width for
ques­tions about the woman I’ve just chased through the dark­ness and
fucked like a sav­age.
Back in my of­fice, I open my lap­top again. I can still taste her on my tongue
and smell her on my fin­gers. Still feel her wet, greedy pussy clenched so
fuck­ing snug and tight around my cock. But I fo­cus on the screen in front of
me as best as I can, bring­ing up a new email from Dim­itri.
I asked him to dig deeper.
He de­liv­ered.
The files delve a lit­tle deeper into Tay­lor Crown’s past. I frown as I read the
po­lice re­port, get­ting thor­oughly con­fused.
Her par­ents were Paul and Lea Crown. They lived in Wash­ing­ton, DC.
Just as she said…
There was an ac­ci­dent. A drunk driver smashed into their car, killing Paul
and Lea in­stantly and putting a teenaged Tay­lor into the ICU with se­vere
brain trauma.
A week later, she was brought out of a med­i­cally in­duced coma and di­ag­‐
nosed with ret­ro­grade am­ne­sia, re­mem­ber­ing noth­ing about her life, her
par­ents, or who she was.
My jaw tight­ens, and anger I don’t quite un­der­stand surges in­side.
She wasn’t ly­ing. Ev­ery­thing she said re­ally did hap­pen. The liv­ing in DC.
The par­ents. The car ac­ci­dent.
All of it.
And yet, when you pull on a string, you don’t stop pulling at the first re­sis­‐
tance you get.
At least, I don’t. I keep fuck­ing yank­ing. And in Tay­lor’s case, that’s where
things start to get in­ter­est­ing, ac­cord­ing to what Dim­itri’s sent me.
Yes, her par­ents were real peo­ple, who re­ally did die in a car crash, and
have of­fi­cial death re­ports.
The prob­lem is, that’s all there is.
There’s not a sin­gle other record of them in the sys­tem. No mort­gage, bank
ac­counts or em­ploy­ment records. Not even so­cial se­cu­rity num­bers on their
death cer­tifi­cates.
Noth­ing.
They’re fuck­ing ghosts. But they’re ghosts with a daugh­ter who has a
record nam­ing her “Tay­lor Crown”.
I, how­ever, have a mar­riage cer­tifi­cate nam­ing her An­nika Bran­covich.
Whose body I saw.
…Or did I.
What I ac­tu­ally saw was a charred, al­most un­rec­og­niz­able corpse. I as­‐
sumed it was her, be­cause who the fuck else would it have been?
Clearly, I was wrong.
I frown, drum­ming my fin­gers on the edge of the desk be­fore I pull up the
cam­eras to her room. She’s not in the bed­room. She’s in the bath­room, sit­‐
ting in the tub with her arms wrapped around her knees and her cheek ly­ing
on them, star­ing at the wall.
She has to be An­nika. She is An­nika.
If not, who the fuck is she?

OceanofPDF.com
 17

TAY­L OR

My sec ­o nd day as Drazen’s pris­oner, I wake up starv­ing.

And naked.
The hunger is be­cause I haven’t eaten any­thing since the tray of food Yaelle
and Mi­los brought yes­ter­day morn­ing, be­fore I tried to plot my es­cape.
An es­cape I now know won’t hap­pen.
The naked­ness, though…
My face burns as I feel my own nu­dity un­der the sheets of the sump­tu­ous
bed. That’s be­cause of what hap­pened last night.
When he chased me, caught me, threw me to the ground, and buried me in
the most hard­core ex­plo­ration of my dark­est fan­tasy I could have ever
imag­ined. Harder than any­thing I have imag­ined, ac­tu­ally.
The rough­ness. The vi­cious­ness of it. The raw lust and vi­o­lence.
Say your fuck­ing safe word. Scream it for me. I’m still go­ing to ruin this
slutty lit­tle fuck hole no mat­ter how loud you do.
A jolt of some­thing fucked up and needy spikes through my core.
I’ve never ac­tu­ally ex­plored that dark side of me. I’ve never even ad­mit­ted
to it or come close to broach­ing the sub­ject with any ex. But last night, with
ev­ery­thing di­aled up to eleven, I dove head-first into my first true ex­pe­ri­‐
ence of it.
Pri­mal.
Con­sen­sual non-con­sent.
Rape kink.
My lip twists as it slips be­tween my teeth. I bite down on it, feel­ing a weird
mix of achy de­sire and poi­sonous shame flood my sys­tem.
I’m not sup­posed to en­joy that shit. No one is. But me, of all peo­ple?
No.
I’m Tay­lor, the good girl. The over-achiever. The top of her class lit­er­ally
al­ways. I do soft can­dles and mis­sion­ary po­si­tion. I do dates where the door
is held open for me.
I don’t do crazed, hy­per-mas­cu­line psy­cho catch­ing me in the woods,
throw­ing me down, rip­ping my panties half off and just fuck­ing me, heed­‐
less of per­mis­sion or con­sent.
Though, ob­vi­ously, he had it.
In fuck­ing spades.
My thighs clench as I re­play ev­ery filthy, gasped, whim­pered mo­ment. Ev­‐
ery vi­cious, pri­mal thrust. Ev­ery way his fuck­ing huge cock rammed into
me, stretch­ing me to my limit in the most glo­ri­ously fucked-up, deliri­ously
hot ways.
I’m sore.
I’m fuck­ing sore. My pussy feels like I just rode a horse across the en­tire
Amer­i­can south­west, sans sad­dle.
…or maybe more like I got rid­den by the horse.
That’s the rea­son for the lack of clothes. I mean all I had any­way was the
dress and un­der­wear I was taken in. The dress is ba­si­cally ru­ined, and the
panties def­i­nitely are.
At the same time, it’s a de­li­cious ache. An ache that makes me want…
More?
I shake my head, hug­ging my knees to my chest un­der the sheets like I did
in the bath last night. The bath helped with the sore mus­cles and aching
bruises on my thighs, neck, breasts. So did the lit­tle bot­tle of Ep­som salts I
found sit­ting on the edge of the tub that I’m not sure was there be­fore. Af­ter
that, I crawled into bed, nude, to col­lapse into sleep.
The psy­cho prob­ab­ ly has cam­eras in here. But who cares.
Noth­ing he hasn’t seen al­ready.
I rub my eyes, push­ing my un­combed hair back from my face and try­ing to
fig­ure out how to solve the im­me­di­ate prob­lems of lack of food and lack of
clothes. When I glance around the bed­room, though, my brow arches.
Across the room, sit­ting on the cre­denza by the door, is a tray of food, with
a steam­ing pot of cof­fee. My gaze shifts, my brow fur­row­ing as I glance
through the arched door­way into the mas­sive chang­ing room.
…Which is now filled with clothes.
Wait, what?
I climb out of bed, once again shov­ing aside any thoughts of Drazen hav­ing
cam­eras in here. Af­ter what hap­pened last night, it re­ally doesn’t mat­ter.
I grab a piece of toast and pour a cup of cof­fee from the pot be­fore head­ing
into the chang­ing room.
The clothes are stun­ning. Dresses and gowns for ev­ery oc­ca­sion. Skirts,
tops, pants, shorts, bathing suits, for fuck’s sake. I pull open a drawer set
into the wall that glows with a soft warm light when it opens, re­veal­ing a
col­lec­tion of bras. The drawer be­neath it has match­ing panties, thongs, and
boy shorts, which are sort of low-key my comfy fa­vorites.
One drawer lower has…damn.
“Lin­gerie” doesn’t quite do it jus­tice. It’s like some­one’s bought the en­tire
Agent Provo­ca­teur line, or some other crazy high-end French brand.
For some rea­son, it doesn’t sur­prise me when I re­al­ize it’s all in my per­fect
sizes.
All. Of. It.
Across the room, there’s a door that slides open to re­veal an en­tire wall of
shelves with the most jaw-drop­ping shoes and heels imag­in­able. Also my
size.
“I hope they fit.”
I whirl, gasp­ing as my heart lurches into my throat and I lock eyes with
Drazen.
In­stantly, what­ever devil-may-care at­ti­tude I had about him see­ing me
naked af­ter last night goes out the win­dow. With a small shriek, I spin back
and grab the first thing I see—a light, gauzy, lacy robe. I turn my back to
him, blush­ing fu­ri­ously and feel­ing his eyes on me as I slip it on, tie it, and
turn to glare at him.
“Oh, yes, much more mod­est.”
I glance down, and my face falls.
God­dammit.
The fuck­ing thing is com­pletely see-through, giv­ing him an eye­ful of, well,
ev­ery­thing. Scowl­ing, I grab the next thing I see—a ran­dom sun­dress—and
wrap it around my­self like a makeshift sarong.
When I turn back to him, Drazen has a smug look on his face.
“Do you need a minute?”
“A few hun­dred of them would be peachy, thanks,” I mut­ter through
clenched teeth.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He’s dressed in very Mediter­ranean-style cream linen dress pants and a
white shirt with a few but­tons open and the sleeves rolled up.
I mean, holy ca­sual for­mal-wear porn, Bat­man.
He eyes me cooly but in­tensely, like he’s peer­ing into my very thoughts. It’s
ex­tremely un­nerv­ing.
“Yes?” I mum­ble.
“Do they meet your stan­dards?”
I ges­ture at the closet. “What, all this?”
He says noth­ing.
“I mean, it’s only the top de­sign­ers in the world. Whose stan­dards wouldn’t
they meet?” My mouth purses. “And I think we both know that it will all fit
just fine.”
“You’re wel­come.”
My lips thin. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“You’re go­ing to need it, though.”
I eye him. “Why?”
“I won’t have my wife walk­ing around naked.”
The room goes quiet.
“I’m not your wife,” I say qui­etly.
Drazen’s jaw sets a lit­tle. “We’ve cov­ered that. At length.”
“I don’t re­mem­ber my life be­fore⁠—”
“Still not re­ally my con­cern⁠—”
“But I’d re­mem­ber,” I snap coldly, “be­ing mar­ried to you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you would,” he says dryly, his lips curl­ing a lit­tle. “Now—we
have busi­ness to dis­cuss. You can do it wrapped in var­i­ous bits of cloth­ing
like a crazy per­son or dressed like a nor­mal hu­man be­ing. Your choice.”
I seethe. “Dressed.”
Drazen ges­tures broadly at the plethora of clothes.
“Could I get some pri­vacy?”
“No.”
I shoot him a hard look. Drazen’s face re­mains im­mo­bile.
Noth­ing he hasn’t seen be­fore, I re­mind my­self yet again. Just the same, my
face burns as I march over to the draw­ers. I pull out the least sexy pair of
boy shorts and match­ing bra I can find.
“Not those.”
I turn to shoot him a look. “Ex­cuse me?”
“Pick some­thing else.”
“Why?”
“Be­cause I’m telling you too.”
My eyes roll. “But why⁠—”
I gasp as he surges into me. My back hits the wall of pull-out draw­ers be­‐
hind me as he cages me in, hands slam­ming to the wall on ei­ther side of me,
loom­ing over me.
“You have is­sues be­ing told what to do, don’t you.”
“It ap­pears so,” I hiss back.
Drazen’s cold blue eyes nar­row. “You’ll need to change that. When I tell
you to do some­thing⁠—”
“I’m not one of your men, or your em­ployee.”
“Cor­rect, An­nika,” he snaps. “You’re my fuck­ing wife.”
Some­thing elec­tric siz­zles through my core when he growls it.
“Oh, and do all wives have to do ev­ery­thing their hus­bands say?” I mouth
back.
“Not at all.” He leans down close, let­ting his mouth brush my ear. “But
mine does.”
He pulls back. My skin is flushed and my nip­ples are tight­en­ing to points as
he ca­su­ally reaches down and plucks the boy shorts and match­ing bra from
my hands, toss­ing them aside.
“Why are they even here, if I can’t wear them,” I mum­ble.
“Per­haps later you may,” he mur­murs back, paw­ing through my drawer of
thongs. His eyes swivel to mine. “If you’re a good girl who does as she’s
told.”
Why is that so hot?
“In the mean­time”…he pulls out a ridicu­lously sexy, skimpy lit­tle teal col­‐
ored, see-through lace thong and dan­gles it in front of me…“you’ll wear
this.”
I huff as I pluck it from his fin­gers.
“Fine.”
Drazen’s brow arches. “I’m wait­ing.”
“What, now?”
“Now.”
My face burns as I turn away from him, fac­ing the wall. Ex­cept he’s only
three inches from me, so when I drop the ran­dom sun­dress and the see-
through robe I’ve got wrapped around me, and bend to slip on the thong, I
shiver, my breath catch­ing as my butt pushes against his thigh.
In­stantly, my eyes go wide when his thigh twitches.
Not his thigh…
Holy shit.
I straighten, pulling the panties up, cross­ing my arms over my chest, and
turn­ing back to him. I’m blown away again at just how freak­ing tall Drazen
is. I mean, I’m five-ten. It’s hap­pened in the past that I’ve shown up to a
first date and been taller than the guy, es­pe­cially if I’ve worn heels.
Drazen, mean­while, tow­ers over me by what feels like a foot, with shoul­‐
ders al­most twice the width of mine.
“Do I get to wear any­thing else,” I snap testily.
“Keep us­ing that tone and you’ll wear only what you have on now, but
stuffed into your mouth while I pump your ass full of my cum.”
My face turns crim­son, my mouth fall­ing open as I just stare at him in
shock. Calmly, Drazen turns and scans the hang­ers full of dresses be­fore he
plucks one down—a gor­geously sim­ple peach-col­ored sleeve­less sun­dress
with an asym­met­ri­cal hem and a sweet­heart neck­line.
Dior, of course.
“Bra?”
He shakes his head.
Okaaay. I mean, I’m a small B on a good day. I rarely wear a bra when I’m
at home alone. But the sun­dress is thin and silky…
“I thought you didn’t want your wife walk­ing around naked?”
“A dress cost­ing sev­eral thou­sand dol­lars is hardly naked.”
“So you don’t mind if your men see my nip­ples?” I say smugly, see­ing if I
can push this pos­ses­sive part of him.
Drazen just smiles back.
“They wouldn’t be my men if they didn’t un­der­stand where to and where
not to look. Put on the dress.”
I go to turn away again. He stops me with an­other shake of his head and a
cool, stern look. I lower my arms, flush­ing when he ca­su­ally drops his gaze
to my bare breasts.
I slip the sun­dress on. “All good?”
Drazen nods. “Beau­ti­ful.”
God­dammit.
My cheeks tin­gle with heat, and it takes real ef­fort to bite back the grin on
my face. The com­pli­ment is in such stark con­trast to the filthy things he
said last night, and the raw, bru­tal things he did to me.
“Come.”
Drazen turns, leav­ing me alone in the dress­ing room be­fore I hurry af­ter
him. I fol­low as he walks out of my room, down the hall, and then out onto
an­other gor­geous, shaded pa­tio over­look­ing the ocean.
Just like the one he held me over the edge of yes­ter­day, with a hand around
my throat.
He ges­tures for me to take one of the chairs around a low ta­ble, with him
sit­ting across from me.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“My home.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, but where is that.”
Drazen smirks and points to the side, to­ward the main­land. “That’s the is­‐
land of Elba.”
Yeah, there go my es­cape plans en­tirely, if there was even a sliver left. The
“main­land” is it­self an is­land.
And…hang on⁠—
“Did you say Elba?”
He nods.
“As in Italy?”
“Yes. Elba is where Nap⁠—”
“Yes, where Napoleon was ex­iled,” I sigh heav­ily. “I know.”
NapoleonInEx­ile.
Of course.
“Where do my friends think I am?”
“Italy,” he says, mat­ter-of-factly. “Tus­cany, ac­tu­ally. Gabriel was quite in­‐
sis­tent that you visit a cer­tain vine­yard he raved about. And your friend
Fumi texted you hop­ing that you’d—and I quote—‘get some good Ital­ian
stal­lion dick’,” he says dryly.
I cringe a lit­tle.
“Need­less to say,” Drazen growls coldly, “that will not be hap­pen­ing.”
No, just some fuck­ing FAN­TAS­TIC Ser­bian dick…
…You are in­sane.
“Now, shall we talk busi­ness?”
“Why not,” I drawl.
Drazen arches a brow. “I’ve de­cided I might be­lieve you.”
I frown. “About?”
“About your am­ne­sia. Your story checks out.”
“Oh, goodie,” I say sar­cas­ti­cally.
“Don’t get cute. Be­ing dressed at the mo­ment doesn’t pre­clude you from
get­ting your mouth stuffed with panties and your ass with my dick.”
I shiver.
“How­ever, that’s ir­rel­ev­ ant. Just as it would be if you weren’t An­nika. Be­‐
cause for­tu­nately for me…al­though per­haps unfor­tu­nately for you…you
look just like her. And if I of all peo­ple think that, oth­ers who mat­ter will as
well.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve got me. I have an evil twin,” I mut­ter sar­cas­ti­cally.
“If only you did,” he growls. “You’re an only child.”
“You sure about that?” I toss back. “It would ex­plain a lot of⁠—”
“My fa­ther would have never okayed the mar­riage if you had a sib­ling.”
“Why, ex­actly?”
His mouth thins. “It would have cheap­ened our union.”
My brows fly up. “Wow, I’m so glad fem­i­nism is alive and well in Ser­bian
Mafia pol­i­tics,” I mut­ter dryly. “A sib­ling would have cheap­ened our mar­‐
riage?”
“We didn’t marry for love,” he grunts.
I bark a laugh. Drazen glares at me.
“We were be­trothed as chil­dren to ce­ment a peace be­tween our fam­i­lies.
The union was es­sen­tially a treaty. But that treaty would have been worth
far less if you had a sis­ter that could be mar­ried off to an­other fam­ily, thus
forg­ing other al­liances.”
Well, there goes that the­ory.
“Who did you mean when you said ‘oth­ers who mat­ter’ would be­lieve I was
this An­nika per­son even if I wasn’t?”
His smile hard­ens. “The Iron Ta­ble.”
My brow fur­rows. “The what?”
“Iron Ta­ble,” he mut­ters again. “A gov­ern­ing lead­er­ship coun­cil in the
Bratva world, based out of Rus­sia. There are…” He clears his throat. “I
have busi­ness with them. Busi­ness that will go much more smoothly with
you at my side.”
Moth­er­fucker. He’s try­ing to play coy. But I’ve seen and out­ma­neu­vered ev­‐
ery trick in the book in court.
“You need me, is what you’re say­ing.”
Drazen eyes me. “Per­haps.”
The wheels in my head quickly whirl to life, and the pieces fall into place.
“Aaah,” I mur­mur. “I see.” I smile broadly. “They think this An­nika girl has
been miss­ing for fif­teen years. Or that she’s dead. And what­ever busi­ness
you have with them can’t hap­pen un­less she’s not.”
Drazen raises an eye­brow, his tat­tooed fin­gers drum­ming on the arm­rest of
his chair.
“Yeah… Maybe next time you kid­nap some­one and want to keep them in
the dark, don’t pick the woman that The Le­gal Jour­nal just slapped on their
cover and called ‘the bright­est young new mind in law’.”
“I’ll try and re­mem­ber that,” he says dryly. “But to sum­ma­rize, es­sen­tially,
yes. I need you to play the role of my wife. Which you are.”
“Highly de­bat­able.”
He shoots me a look. I sigh heav­ily.
“Do I have a choice in this?”
“Of course,” he says, far too eas­ily.
“What’s the catch?”
Drazen’s mouth pulls into a lethal smile. “I’ve heard Crown and Black have
re­cently pur­chased Poul­ter and Lenz. Con­grat­u­la­tions.”
The back of my neck tin­gles.
“Thank you. We’re all very ex­cited.”
He smiles preda­to­rily. “Are you, now.”
Shit.
He’s not even try­ing to hide the fact that he knows what’s go­ing on. It’s
writ­ten all over his face.
“That’s con­fi­den­tial,” I say primly.
“Noth­ing is be­yond my reach,” Drazen growls back. “The sooner you re­al­‐
ize that, the eas­ier this will be.” He sighs. “Which is how I know that Roger
Fairchild has your balls…fig­u­ra­tively speak­ing, of course”—he fixes me
with a hun­gry, dark look—“in a vice.”
I lick my lips ner­vously.
“And?”
“And it would seem that Crown and Black is thus in dire straits. Sure, you
might put up a good fight for the next year or so. But in the end, surely you
know there’s no sce­nario that doesn’t re­sult in Roger Fairchild ac­quir­ing the
firm you and your lit­tle friends built from the ground up.”
My tem­per flares and my pulse quick­ens as I glare at him.
“What’s your point.”
He smiles. “My point is that Crown and Black needs a lifeboat. And it just
so hap­pens, I own a ma­rina full of them.”
I go still as what he’s say­ing truly hits me.
“So, yes,” he growls. “I do, in fact, need you to play my wife for the pur­‐
poses of sway­ing busi­ness I have with the Iron Ta­ble.”
“What sort of⁠—”
“The kind in which the de­tails or even broad strokes of aren’t your con­‐
cern,” he says gruffly.
My brow arches.
“What I don’t need,” Drazen con­tin­ues, “is you play­ing a half-assed role or
me hav­ing to won­der at which point you’ll pur­pose­fully sab­o­tage things. So
I’m go­ing to pro­pose a deal with you.”
I swal­low. “I’m lis­ten­ing.”
“You’ll be my wife. You’ll play the role—and to be clear,” he growls with a
dark grin, “I do mean ev­ery as­pect of the role.”
Trai­tor­ous heat floods my core.
“When…” I swal­low thickly. “When will you…you know…”
“Fuck you?”
I flush, my nip­ples tight­en­ing. “Yes,” I whis­per.
“When you least ex­pect it.”
Holy fuck.
Drazen shrugs, stroking a fin­ger over his jaw­line.
“Your pussy just tastes so much sweeter when it’s fla­vored with fear.”
My heart does a back­ward som­er­sault in­side my chest. My face heats.
“So I’ll be your whore,” I mut­ter coldly, my voice shak­ing.
“If you want to call it that.”
“You know what I mean,” I hiss, push­ing back against the throb of heat that
tin­gles through me like venom. “I mean, do I get any say in the mat­ter?”
He fixes me with a look. “I’m sure you re­mem­ber the word.”
I go still.
The word.
The safe word.
Vault.
“You re­mem­ber,” he mur­murs qui­etly. “If you say it, this ends. But it goes
with­out say­ing, so will my of­fer to bail out your firm.”
I wet my lips.
“So I don’t have a choice.”
“Of course you do. Some­times our choices are dif­fi­cult, aren’t they?”
I chew on the in­side of my mouth as I look out over the wa­ter.
“I’m not go­ing to be a sugar baby or any­thing like that.”
“Ex­cuse me?”
“I mean, no…” I shrug. “No pay­ing me off. Like no gaudy jew­elry or
money or what­ever.” I turn to look at him, my pulse jan­gling and my hands
shak­ing a lit­tle. “You’ll get me,” I croak. “But that’s all. I won’t be paid to
do…that.”
He nods slowly. “Fine.”
I nod back and then turn to look out to the Tyrrhe­nian Sea.
“How long?”
“Three months,” Drazen replies promptly.
My breath sucks in sharply.
“You’ll stay here for three months as my wife. Af­ter that…” he shrugs. “Go
where you want. Do what you wish. Our busi­ness will be con­cluded.”
“Re­ally,” I say, sus­pi­cion lac­ing my tone.
“Re­ally. In the mean­time, I’ll float Crown and Black enough money to get
Roger off your backs. Once our busi­ness is con­cluded, you’ll re­ceive the
bal­ance of what you need to make the deal good with Poul­ter and Lenz.”
I nod my head slowly. This could work.
“And ob­vi­ously, we’ll work out a re­pay­ment sched­ule for the other twenty-
two mil­lion.”
My eyes snap to him. “Ex­cuse me?”
Drazen smiles coldly at me. “I’m ea­ger to hear where you thought the
startup cash for Crown and Black came from.”
I glare at him. “From my trust fund.”
“Ahh yes, from the par­ents with­out so­cial se­cu­rity num­bers.”
I bris­tle, but this isn’t news to me.
“They were⁠—”
“What,” Drazen smiles lethally. “Day traders try­ing to avoid taxes?”
“They…worked for the gov­ern­ment, okay?” I mut­ter.
That’s what my great-aunt Flo­rence told me when I woke up.
Drazen ac­tu­ally laughs. “What, spies?”
I nod. When he snorts and rolls his eyes, I glare at him.
“That’s such a fan­tas­ti­cally un­re­al­is­tic ca­reer for an in­ter­na­tional crime lord
to imag­ine?”
He arches a brow, say­ing noth­ing as he dips his chin.
“That’s hon­estly where it came from. They set it up for me be­fore they died,
and I didn’t touch it un­til I was ready to launch the firm.”
“Yes, well, un­for­tu­nately,” he mut­ters. “That isn’t true. The money is mine.
And you seem to have stolen it the night you…” His brow fur­rows deeply.
“The night you, shall we say, cheated death.”
I shake my head. “No. That money is mine. It was my par­ents’—”
“You know this how.”
I glare at him. “My great-aunt Flo­rence told me!”
“Yes, a woman you knew for two months.”
“She was my great-aunt!” I spit.
Drazen shrugs and drums his fin­gers on the arm of his chair. “I won’t
charge in­ter­est when we ar­range the re­pay­ment plan.”
I look away. “You are such an ass­hole.”
“So I’ve been told.”
I take a slow breath, push­ing my hair back as I gaze out over the wa­ter. “Do
peo­ple re­ally think I’m—I mean, An­nika—is dead? Like, the peo­ple sit­ting
at this Iron Ta­ble thing?”
“They do.” His brow fur­rows. “So did I, ac­tu­ally.”
“Un­til?” I frown. “I mean, when did you…how did you⁠—”
“Your tat­too,” he mur­murs.
I stare at him, open-mouthed. “Do you know what it means?” I blurt.
He nods, and my pulse spikes.
“Tell me,” I whis­per heat­edly. “Please. I’ve won­dered about it ever since I
woke up.”
Drazen looks away.
“Please…”
“It’s your fam­ily crest.”
I blink. “My…what?”
“Your fam­ily. Bran­covich. It’s…well, it was…their fam­ily crest. The hawk
and ar­row, in the cir­cle of the sun.”
It’s like com­ing up for air af­ter be­ing un­der­wa­ter for a lit­tle too long. Oxy­‐
gen floods into my lungs, into parts of my brain I still can’t ac­cess.
But at least now I can feel that they’re there.
Bran­covich.
Is my name se­ri­ously An­nika Bran­covich?
But then, some­thing else he says reg­is­ters.
“You said it was my fam­ily crest.”
Drazen is silent.
“Are they…” I frown. “Do I have…”
“No,” he growls qui­etly. “They’re all dead.”
Even if I don’t know them, can’t re­mem­ber them at all, aren’t even sure if
this is real, a piece of me winces.
“Did you…” I hes­i­tate, eye­ing him.
“Some,” he mut­ters. “Not all.”
“My par­ents?” I whis­per.
“Un­for­tu­nately, that wasn’t me.”
Un­for­tu­nately.
Jeez.
I take a deep breath, look­ing out over the azure Mediter­ranean.
“Okay,” I say qui­etly, nod­ding my head slowly.
“Is that your un­der­stated way of agree­ing to our ar­range­ment?” Drazen
grunts.
“I have con­di­tions⁠—”
“Think again.”
I turn to eye him. “May I fin­ish?”
“It’s a waste of breath, but by all means,” he says dryly, ab­sently wav­ing a
hand with a bored, amused look on his face.
“As I was say­ing,” I mut­ter. “I have con­di­tions. For one, I’m not spend­ing
the next three months here.”
His lips curl. “As a mat­ter of fact, you are.”
I shake my head. “How am I sup­posed to ex­plain that to my col­leagues? To
the board?”
“That is, I be­lieve, what is re­ferred to as a ‘you’ prob­lem,” Drazen says with
a tight smile.
“I’m frankly amazed you’re still alive if you al­ways ex­hibit this lit­tle fore­‐
sight, given your choice of pro­fes­sion.”
The smirk drops from his face.
“Care­ful, coun­selor,” he growls qui­etly.
I bite back the shiver that chases up my spine.
“It’s not a ‘me’ prob­lem if telling my part­ners that I’ve de­cided to take a
three-freak­ing-month va­ca­tion from the firm sends up mas­sive red flags and
they start ask­ing ques­tions. That, I be­lieve, is what is re­ferred to as a ‘you’
prob­lem.”
Drazen looks about as amused by me throw­ing his words back at him as
he’d be by a root canal with­out lo­cal anes­the­sia.
“I have clients I can’t walk away from, Drazen. Re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. I mean
Gabriel is in the mid­dle of tran­si­tion­ing out of the firm en­tirely, and we
need to bring the new man­ag­ing part­ner up to⁠—”
“You’ll work from here.”
I start to shake my head. “That’s im­pos­si­ble.”
“That’s my line, and I won’t be budg­ing on it,” he growls. “Even for ‘the
bright­est young new mind in law’ as re­ported by The Le­gal Jour­nal,” he
says dryly, his tone laced with sar­casm.
“I can’t pos­si­bly⁠—”
“You’ll tell your col­leagues that I’m hir­ing you as my le­gal con­sul­tant on a
mas­sive new busi­ness ex­pan­sion I’m do­ing over the next three months.
You’ll have space for an of­fice here, and you’ll be free to work on what­ever
Crown and Black busi­ness you need to work on, from here. Other than that,
you’ll be at­tend­ing to the le­gal mat­ters of my ex­pan­sion, for which—I’m
sure your part­ners will be happy to hear—I’ll be pay­ing you hand­somely.”
“No,” I hiss.
“This isn’t a ne­go­ti­at­ion.”
“Why the fuck would I pos­si­bly need to stay⁠—”
My words and breath choke off as Drazen surges into my per­sonal space.
My eyes flare as his hand slips into the back of my hair, grab­bing it in a fist.
I whim­per as he yanks my head back, drop­ping his mouth so close and so
quickly to mine that I think he’s go­ing to kiss me.
Then his mouth slips past my cheek, his lips brush­ing my ear.
“Be­cause I’m not fly­ing to New York ev­ery time I feel like chas­ing you
down and fuck­ing my greedy lit­tle whore in the dark. That’s why.”
I’m still trem­bling, throb­bing, and dizzy when he pulls back and abruptly
turns to walk away.
“Call your part­ners and make the ar­range­ments. Our deal be­gins im­me­di­‐
ately.”

OceanofPDF.com
 18

TAY­L OR

T he other end of the line goes ut­terly silent for a sec­ond. Then an­other.
Then a few more, un­til I’m not sure Al­is­tair is still ac­tu­ally there.
“Alis—”
“Is this a fuck­ing joke?”
There’s a clipped, cold tone in his voice.
“Look, it’ll just be three months⁠—”
“Yeah, I got that part,” he spits ven­omously. “Hence my ques­tion. And the
an­swer had bet­ter be fuck­ing yes. Af­ter which, we can dis­cuss how good a
thing it is you never went into com­edy, be­cause you, Tay­lor, are not fuck­ing
funny.”
The line goes quiet again.
“You…uh…” I clear my throat. “Are you done?”
“Oh, I can keep go­ing.”
“Okay, Al­is­tair,” I sigh. “Ob­vi­ously it’s not ideal⁠—”
“No, Tay­lor,” he snaps. “No, you go­ing on a fuck­ing three-month va­ca­tion
to Sicily⁠—”
“Elba.”
“Stop talk­ing for a minute.”
I swear, it’s like he re­ally is the brother I never had some­times.
“As I was say­ing,” he mut­ters. “It is, in fact, the fuck­ing op­po­site of ideal
for you to jet off to Isla de Drazen for three god­damn months right af­ter my
fuck­ing brother ab­di­cates his fuck­ing throne to go play house with Fumi in
the Gov­er­nor’s man­sion for a term or two. Leav­ing yours fuck­ing truly as
the sole cap­tain of a ship that we’re all painfully aware takes three peo­ple to
sail.”
“Oh, c’mon, Ally,” I soothe. “Don’t sell your­self short.”
“Okay, A, I could steer Crown and Black solo in my fuck­ing sleep, and you
know it. B, your Jedi mind-trick re­verse psy­chol­ogy ap­peal-to-my-ego bull­‐
shit won’t work on me. And C, I’m be­gin­ning to won­der if not hav­ing you
around might ac­tu­ally be a good thing. Be­cause here I thought you were a
le­gal mas­ter­mind, and yet there you go us­ing that fuck­ing nick­name that
you know I fuck­ing hate.”
“Well, since you’re so ca­pa­ble,” I sigh, smirk­ing, “I guess there won’t be
any prob­lem⁠—”
“Tay­lor.”
The fire is gone from his tone this time. Now, he just sounds a lit­tle de­‐
feated.
“Yes?”
Al­is­tair ex­hales. “Let’s just say that maybe things are a lit­tle eas­ier for me
when you and Gabriel are around.”
“Awww, was that so hard?”
He chuck­les darkly. “Fuck off. And yes, it was. Look, Tay­lor, real talk? You
dis­ap­pear­ing to Italy at all is rough. Do­ing it now, with Gabriel gone too, is
cat­as­ trophic.”
“What about Elsa?”
“Elsa’s go­ing to be giv­ing birth in the con­fer­ence room any fuck­ing
minute.”
I grin. “At what point do we force her to take ma­ter­nity leave?”
He snorts. “Good luck ‘forc­ing’ Elsa Guin to do fuck­ing any­thing she
doesn’t want to.”
“Hey, at least she works for us and not a com­pet­ing firm. Or the DA’s of­‐
fice, for that mat­ter.” I sigh. “But also, you’re right. You might need to
shore things up while I’m gone.”
“Fumi,” Al­is­tair grunts ca­su­ally. “I mean, not as a per­ma­nent man­ag­ing
part­ner or any­thing. But I could use her help while you’re off role­play­ing
365 Days with Chris­tian Gray.”
My face burns. “Okay, first of all, you’re mix­ing up your pop cul­ture ref­er­‐
ences.”
“Sue me. Se­ri­ously though, Tay­lor…” He ex­hales. “I mean, what the fuck?
So Drazen wants your ex­per­tise in re­struc­tur­ing his busi­ness top to bot­tom,
fire­walling him­self from risk, stream­lin­ing the con­tracts and pa­per­work and
all that shit…”
It’s the ex­cuse I’ve given why I’ll be spend­ing the next three months away
from the firm, my re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and my life. I ad­mit, it’s bizarre. But it’s
a whole hell of a lot bet­ter than “I think I mar­ried a Bratva king­pin fif­teen
years ago and now I need to play the part of his wife again so that he can do
I-don’t-ac­tu­ally-know-what but I’m sure it’s su­per im­por­tant.”
“Why the fuck can’t you do that here in New York?”
Luck­ily, I’ve pre­pared for this cross-ex­am­i­na­tion.
“The work­load is in­tense, and a lot of it is go­ing to be in con­junc­tion with
his cur­rent in-house coun­sel, not to men­tion the sen­si­tive na­ture of the
work⁠—”
“And no one seems to care that you’re in no way, shape or form li­censed to
prac­tice law in Italy?” Al­is­tair grunts.
“Tech­ni­cally, I’ll just be work­ing as a con­trac­tor of­fer­ing my le­gal ex­per­‐
tise.”
“Oh is that how they pro­nounce ‘loop­hole’ in Ital­ian?” he mut­ters. “But
c’mon, Tay⁠—”
“It gets us out from un­der Roger’s thumb, Al­is­tair,” I say qui­etly. “If noth­‐
ing else, re­mem­ber that.”
This is how I’m sell­ing it to Al­is­tair and Gabriel: that Drazen is hir­ing me as
a con­sul­tant for a three-month stint of le­gal work for his or­ga­ni­za­tion. In ex­‐
change, he’ll pay me for a year’s worth of bill­able hours at my high­est rate.
Up front.
Aka, five hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars.
Aka, the amount Poul­ter and Lenz owes Roger Fairchild.
“Well, yeah,” Al­is­tair sighs over the phone. “But I still don’t get why the
hell he’d want you.”
My brows shoot up. “Okay, ouch? Fuck you, too.”
Al­is­tair chuck­les. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, why hire the name
part­ner of a firm, with a frankly in­sane hourly? I mean, you’re ob­vi­ously the
best of the best, but there’s gotta be cheaper⁠—”
“That’s the ap­peal,” I shrug. “You know these mafia type guys. It’s all im­‐
age for them. There are equally good cham­pagnes out there. But you buy
Dom for the la­bel and the pedi­gree.”
Al­is­tair chuck­les. “Yeah, that’s what we are, T. Pure pedi­gree, baby.”
We both laugh. This is kind of an on­go­ing in­side joke for Al­is­tair and me,
since my parent­age and en­tire back­ground are kind of a mys­tery, and he’s
adopted. In law school, we used to joke about him be­ing the long-lost third
son of Charles and Di­ana. Or me be­ing the se­cret off­spring of a rock leg­end,
a la Liv Tyler.
“For the money he’s putting up, I think Drazen just wants…”
Me.
“…my full avail­abil­ity when­ever and wher­ever he needs it. Hence stay­ing
here at his place in Elba.” I clear my throat. “But to touch on it again, I
agree about Fumi. We should’ve bumped her up to eq­uity part­ner last quar­‐
ter any­way. Let’s do it now, and part of the deal will be her cov­er­ing my
work­load and clients. I mean, the ones you can’t han­dle,” I smirk.
“Bitch,” Al­is­tair chuck­les back.
“So, yeah, the ship­ping guys should be there to­mor­row to start pack­ing up
my of­fice. Amelia is go­ing to be around to help⁠—”
“Wait, you’re not even com­ing back to pack up your own shit?”
“Eh…” I shrug. “Amelia’s there, and Fumi’s go­ing to help out with the doc­‐
u­ment prep. Hon­estly, I could use some time away, and, I mean, I’m al­ready
here.”
“Okay,” he grunts. “I get it. Lis­ten, I gotta jet for a board meet­ing where I
can share the good news about the bailout. Check in any­time, yeah?”
“Will do. Thanks.”
He snick­ers. “Try not to have too much fun work­ing un­der the psy­chotic
king­pin.”
My face heats.
Too late.

OceanofPDF.com
 19

TAY­L OR

I used to hate mov ­i ng . Af­ter my great-aunt Flo­rence died, I did it more

fre­quently than I would have liked, switch­ing be­tween cheap off-cam­pus
apart­ments to save money.
I knew I had the trust fund, and I knew how much was in there. But I never
wanted to touch it un­less strictly nec­es­sary. I think I al­ways knew deep
down that I wanted to use it to build a dream one day.
So, yeah, when I was a fresh­man at NYU, I could have bought a sick fuck­‐
ing pent­house near the park or in Soho and lived like a queen. At the very
least, I could have stayed in the dorms. But it was cheaper to live off-cam­‐
pus, as long as I didn’t mind some­what sketchy neigh­bor­hoods. As one lo­‐
ca­tion gen­tri­fied and the rent went up, I’d move to an­other sketchy area, all
in the name of sav­ing that nest egg for when I re­ally needed it.
Hell, I didn’t even tell Gabriel and Al­is­tair about the twenty-two mil­lion sit­‐
ting in the trust un­til we’d de­cided for sure that we were go­ing to set out on
our own.
But mov­ing meant start­ing over. And that al­ways re­minded me of when my
en­tire life started over: when I had to re­learn how to do ev­ery­thing. How to
think. How to re­mem­ber things.
How to grieve for par­ents I didn’t re­call.
Any­way, that’s why I’ve al­ways hated mov­ing. Ex­cept this time, for the
first time, there’s an odd sort of lift­ing feel­ing in my heart as it hap­pens.
This time, that whole “start­ing over” thing feels oddly hope­ful and op­ti­‐
mistic.
And yes, I fully re­al­ize the irony there, given that I’m mov­ing into the
house of a Bratva king­pin and po­ten­tial psy­chopath who wants me to play
his wife.
The only things I ask Fumi to pack up from my apart­ment back home are a
few books, some cloth­ing fa­vorites like the Vel­vet Guil­lo­tine tour t-shirt I
love to sleep in, and a cou­ple of framed pho­tos—me and Great-Aunt Flo­‐
rence, the broth­ers and I, a ter­rific shot of Fumi and me at her and Gabriel’s
wed­ding.
But from the of­fice, I re­quest a lot.
I mean, I’m not re­ally here as Drazen’s “le­gal con­sul­tant”. And though
Fumi and Al­is­tair—and Elsa be­fore she gives birth—are go­ing to be pick­ing
up a lot of slack back in New York, I’ve had a lot of my work shipped here
for me to tackle from this side of the At­lantic.
Drazen gives me use of one of the sev­eral—and there are tons of them—un­‐
used rooms of his sprawl­ing man­sion; or palazzo, I sup­pose, since we’re in
Italy. The huge, lime-washed room with terra-cotta tiles cov­ered with a gor­‐
geous blue and white area rug opens onto a bal­cony that looks out over the
Tyrrhe­nian Sea to­ward Sicily and Cor­sica.
I mean, there’s worse places to work from home.
When the boxes from Crown and Black ar­rive, I get to work set­ting up my
new of­fice. I’m also ex­pected to have sit-downs with Yaelle, Drazen’s fe­‐
male guard, who I’ve learned is one of his top un­der­lings.
It’s not lost on me that not a sin­gle one of his men comes near me. There’s
Mi­los with his gruff, some­what leery look. But even he never comes that
close, let alone touches me in even the most ba­sic way. Like, not even a
hand­shake.
Ac­tu­ally, I’m fairly sure that the only peo­ple who’ve touched me at all—
again, even in pass­ing like a hand­shake or brush­ing fin­gers while be­ing
handed some­thing—are the only other woman who seems to be on this is­‐
land…
…and Drazen. Ex­cept, he hasn’t touched me at all since that night he
chased me through the dark and fucked me like an an­i­mal.
The fact that I’m crest­fallen that hasn’t hap­pened again since is a good lit­tle
re­minder for me to in­quire about Dr. Jes­nick’s sched­ule go­ing for­ward for
vir­tual ses­sions.
Over the next week, I set­tle into a rou­tine. I wake up to find cof­fee wait­ing
for me next to a pre-se­lected out­fit, in­clud­ing un­der­wear. The first day, I ig­‐
nored the “sug­ges­tion” and put on some­thing else. Drazen met me at the
door as I was leav­ing my bed­room, glanced at me, and told me to change
un­less I wanted him strip­ping me at the break­fast ta­ble.
Hon­estly?
Tempt­ing.
But also a lit­tle scary.
Most of the morn­ings, Drazen is there on the lit­tle ve­randa off the kitchen to
eat break­fast with me—usu­ally in si­lence, only punc­tu­ated by him tak­ing
ran­dom busi­ness calls or tap­ping away on his phone.
Ter­ri­fy­ing Bratva king­pin he may be, I will say, the guy works. And that’s
com­ing from my worka­holic per­spec­tive.
As a lawyer, the guy would be in­sane.
Af­ter break­fast, Drazen usu­ally dis­ap­pears to lo­ca­tions un­known for an un­‐
de­ter­mined length of time. Part of me sorely wants to ask him where he
goes, and what the daily sched­ule of a mafia king looks like. But on the
third day, when he sits down across from me at din­ner with blood still on
his tat­tooed knuck­les, I de­cide it’s maybe best not to ask.
Dur­ing the day, I set up my of­fice and or­ga­nize the pa­per­work I’ve been
get­ting from New York. I break for lunch, and I have those meet­ings with
Yaelle, who gives me a crash course in the pol­i­tics in­volv­ing Drazen and
the Iron Ta­ble.
There are, ap­par­ently, five seats, oc­cu­pied by the heads of five Rus­sian
Bratva fam­i­lies: Solovy­ova, Niko­layev, Nikitin, Antonov, and Belov. These
are the peo­ple I need to im­press when I’m “pre­sented” to them soon: the
peo­ple I need to con­vince that I’m An­nika Bran­covich.
Or maybe, it’s just that I need to con­vince my­self that I’m her…
Drazen hasn’t said a word about his busi­ness with these peo­ple, or why it’s
so im­por­tant for me to im­press them. But Yaelle is a way worse poker
player than her boss. I haven’t guessed the de­tails yet, but I’m pretty sure
this in­volves a ri­valry or dis­pute be­tween Drazen and Vadik Belov, based
purely on the hate­ful, ven­omous way Yaelle says the lat­ter’s name.
Af­ter that, I eat din­ner with Drazen, again, usu­ally in si­lence. Then he dis­‐
misses me—I mean he lit­er­ally says “you may go”—to my room, where I
usu­ally read or catch up on some more work be­fore go­ing to bed.
By day six of this rou­tine, I’m go­ing out of my mind. I do like hav­ing a
sched­ule. But com­pared to the fran­tic life I have in New York, there’s so
many hours of the day where I’m just do­ing noth­ing at all that it feels like
I’m los­ing it.
At least I’m not sleep­walk­ing. At least, I don’t think I am.
I’ve been aware the last few days of Drazen’s mood get­ting blacker and
blacker. I have no idea what it’s about, but it seems to be busi­ness-re­lated.
By the fourth day, he’s glar­ing into his food as he eats in si­lence, oc­ca­sion­‐
ally check­ing his phone. By the fifth, he’s even more bit­ter. The day af­ter
that, he’s a down­right tyrant, and toxic to be around. So I eat din­ner in my
room that night and send word to Drazen via Yaelle that I’ve got some work
to catch up on.
The fol­low­ing morn­ing, I open my eyes to see an out­fit that wakes me up
even be­fore I can get into the cof­fee sit­ting next to it. An out­fit that brings
heat to my face and the words “hell fuck­ing no” to my lips: a sheer demi-
cup bra with match­ing sheer thong panties, com­plete with black thigh-high
stock­ings and tow­er­ing heels.
That’s all.
So, to quote the great Tay­lor Crown from four sec­onds ago: “hell fuck­ing
no.”
I’m not wear­ing this to break­fast.
In­stead, I walk out onto the ve­randa, cof­fee in one hand and a piece of toast
in the other, in cute, com­fort­able linen shorts and a white col­lared top with
the sleeves rolled up. Drazen’s glar­ing pure mal­ice at his phone. When he
slams it down and looks up to see me, his eyes get even an­grier.
“What the fuck are you wear­ing?”
I shrug as I sit across from him at the lit­tle metal ta­ble. “Clothes?”
“Not the ones I had laid out for you.”
I snort. “Very ob­ser­vant.” I turn to look out over the ocean, sigh­ing thought­‐
fully as I bring the cof­fee mug to my lips. “I’ve been won­der­ing. Who is it
that leaves the out­fits for me in the morn­ing? I mean I would as­sume Yaelle,
be­cause I can’t imag­ine you let­ting Mi­los or any of your men into my room
while I’m sleep­ing, con­sid­er­ing you won’t even let them look at me when
I’m awake. But is it you? I mean, I have a hard time see­ing you as a se­cret
ex­pert on women’s cloth­ing, but⁠—”
“Would you care to ex­plain why you seem to be un­der the im­pres­sion that
it’s ac­cept­able for you to break the rules of our ar­range­ment?”
“Is dress­ing me a rule?” I snap.
“Yes,” he grunts back. “As is your obe­di­ence.”
Some­thing twists and tugs in my core.
“What you laid out was hardly ap­pro­pri­ate.”
“For?” he growls.
I shift in my seat, my bot­tom lip catch­ing be­tween my teeth. “For break­‐
fast.”
I look away, but I can feel his eyes bor­ing into me. Sure enough, when I
look back, he’s look­ing at me with such fe­roc­ity that I shiver.
“What makes you think I wanted you to wear that be­cause I thought it was
ap­pro­pri­ate break­fast at­tire?”
I clear my throat and sip my cof­fee. “I can’t read you at all, ac­tu­ally,” I mut­‐
ter. “So I guess I as­sumed it was open to in­ter­pre­ta­tion.” I take an­other sip.
“All right, why did you want me to dress like that?”
“Be­cause I’ve had a rough cou­ple of days with work,” he growls. “Be­cause
I wanted you in what I picked for you, in here, on your fuck­ing knees, with
your lips wrapped around my cock.”
I al­most spit out my cof­fee, my eyes rip­ping back to his, star­ing at him with
heat on my cheeks. Drazen’s face stays com­pletely neu­tral as he pushes his
chair back from the ta­ble. My eyes go wide as his veined, tat­tooed hands
drop to his pants, un­do­ing the but­ton and fly. My mouth falls open in shock
as the man pulls his huge, thick cock out of the tight con­fines of his linen
pants, his hand wrapped around the thick base and the fat head swollen and
glis­ten­ing with pre­cum.
Shame­fully, hor­ri­bly, and in­stantly, I’m wet.
“Out­fit aside,” he growls, smirk­ing. “Now is when you can get on your
knees, come here, and open up that pretty mouth so that I can fuck it.”
My breath be­comes ragged and choked. My face burns hotly as my eyes
fix­ate on his dick be­fore I man­age to pull my gaze up to his face.
I’ll ad­mit, for a hot sec­ond, I al­most slide right off the chair at the thrilling
mix of emo­tions that he seems to bring out in me: the po­tent cock­tail of fear
and ex­cite­ment. The thrill of the com­mand­ing, de­mand­ing, dom­i­nant tone.
The way him say­ing some­thing like that, and do­ing some­thing like that,
makes me want to throw my cof­fee in his face and call him a pig.
But also how it makes me want to drop to my knees and do ex­actly as he
com­mands.
Plus, af­ter what hap­pened the other night and then a full of week of noth­ing,
I’ll ad­mit it: I’m horny. And I mean, the man is a freak­ing god with a devil’s
cock.
Still, some­thing in­side of me balks.
What the fuck, self. I mean, have a lit­tle self-re­spect?
So I shove the filthy im­pulse and the aching de­sire away. I swal­low the
lump in my throat and fill my lungs with air as I force my­self to look away.
“Mm, I don’t think so.”
The ve­randa is ut­terly silent ex­cept for the soft cry of a seag­ull some­where
and the rhyth­mic crash of the waves at the bot­tom of the cliffs be­low.
I force my­self to keep look­ing calmly out over the wa­ter when I hear his
chair scrap­ing back across the floor, to keep on sip­ping my cof­fee and ig­‐
nor­ing him.
That is, un­til he be­comes unig­nor­able.
I whim­per when I feel the fist grab a hand­ful of my hair. He pulls hard,
send­ing my breath gasp­ing as he yanks my head around so that I’m look­ing
up at him. My eyes bulge wide, my mouth fall­ing open as I come face to
face with the huge, swollen, heavy cock hang­ing thickly right in front of my
face.
“You seem to be un­der the im­pres­sion that our ar­range­ment is a demo­cratic
one,” he growls. “One where you have a vote. Where your opin­ion mat­‐
ters.”
I start to open my mouth to toss some­thing back at him. The sec­ond I do, I
whim­per as he grabs my jaw in his pow­er­ful hand and pushes his thumb be­‐
tween my lips. I re­flex­ively go to shove him away. But his grip is se­ri­ously
strong. And then I feel his thumb stroke over my tongue and across my lips.
The sen­sa­tion is…elec­tric.
Dis­ori­ent­ing, too. But mostly, it’s such a sen­sual, weirdly in­ti­mate feel­ing
that my pulse skips and my skin tin­gles.
My nip­ples tighten.
Drazen’s eyes lock with mine. He doesn’t say a word, but his thumb be­gins
to push in and out of my mouth, stroking across my lips and tongue with
ev­ery move.
My lips close around it as if on im­pulse.
“Good girl,” he growls qui­etly.
Fuck.
The raw, needy, achy throb in­side me ex­plodes back to life. My thighs
clench in­vol­un­tar­ily, and I shiver as I feel my sen­si­tive nip­ples peb­ble
against the cup of my bra.
Slowly, his eyes still locked on mine, Drazen slips his thumb out of my
mouth. He keeps his hand cup­ping my jaw, his wet thumb pulling my lower
lip down.
His hips push to­ward me. A breathy moan es­capes my throat as I feel the
swollen, vel­vety head of his cock push be­tween my wet lips. I shiver, open­‐
ing my jaw even wider as he pushes his thick­ness into my mouth.
Drazen grunts loudly, the deeply mas­cu­line sound thrilling me as he sud­‐
denly shoves his cock fur­ther into the back of my throat. I sput­ter and
whim­per, but when he pulls out and then does it again, that needy ache in
me only grows hun­grier.
His vel­vety crown pushes over my tongue, hit­ting the back of my throat
again. His mas­sive girth stretches my lips wide, forc­ing my jaw open. I
shiver as his hand slides into my hair, and when he wraps it tightly around
his fist, my core throbs.
“That’s a good girl,” he growls, his eyes stab­bing down into mine as he
tow­ers over me. “Don’t suck it,” he mur­murs darkly. “Fuck it with your
mouth.”
I know it should be de­mean­ing. In­sult­ing.
But it’s not. Or worse, maybe it is, and that’s pre­cisely what I like about it.
Ei­ther way, as he growls the words and starts to fuck my mouth, the sen­sa­‐
tion that washes over me is pure lust.
Drazen’s hips thrust, his fat cock driv­ing in and out of my wet mouth as he
growls deeply and loudly. And fuck, that’s hot. Men hardly ever voice their
plea­sure, and hear­ing these grunts from this vi­ciously dark and elec­tri­cally
ter­ri­fy­ing man sends raw power cours­ing through my veins.
“Pull your shorts down. Now,” he hisses.
My skin tin­gles as I reach down, un­but­ton­ing the linen shorts. My ass raises
a lit­tle bit from the chair, but he never lets go of my hair, and his hips never
stop slowly thrust­ing his swollen dick in and out of my mouth.
My shorts hit the floor and I kick them off.
“Touch your­self,” Drazen mur­murs darkly. “Panties to the side, and two fin­‐
gers fuck­ing that greedy lit­tle pussy.”
Je­sus.
My pulse is hum­ming in my ears, my core clench­ing tightly as my hand
drops be­tween my thighs. My eyes raise to his, my cheeks heat­ing as my
fin­gers slip un­der the gus­set of the panties and tug it aside. I shiver and
whim­per as a fin­ger slips up and down my slick lips.
In­stantly, Drazen reaches down, rips open my top, and slides his hand into
my bra to cup one of my breasts. He vi­ciously twists my nip­ple, mak­ing me
gasp and choke on his cock.
“Two fin­gers, my lit­tle slut,” he grunts. “Not one.”
My eyes roll back as I do as he says. My back arches, my thighs quiv­er­ing
as I add a sec­ond fin­ger.
“Fuck your­self,” he growls. “Let me hear how messy your greedy cunt gets
while you’re swal­low­ing my cock.”
I moan around him as he starts to thrust harder, my fin­gers slid­ing eas­ily in
and out of my wet­ness.
“Take them out.”
I don’t even think about what he’s say­ing or or­der­ing any­more. It’s like I’m
in a trance—like he’s cast this spell over me that takes away rea­son and
self-con­trol.
I whim­per in protest as my fin­gers slide out from be­tween my legs.
“Now bring your hand up. Show me,” he mur­murs.
I raise my hand and show him the glis­ten­ing slick­ness on my fin­gers, my
eyes watch­ing his as I moan around his cock.
Slowly, Drazen slides him­self from be­tween my lips.
“You’ve made a fuck­ing mess of your fin­gers, my lit­tle slut,” he mur­murs.
“Clean them off.” His eyes glint hun­grily. “On my cock.”
I shiver as our eyes lock. My hand drops to his cock, and he grunts as I drag
my fin­gers up and down his shaft, wip­ing my own arousal off on him as my
face throbs with heat.
“Now clean up the mess you’ve made of my cock,” Drazen says slowly, his
voice rum­bling and deep as his eyes stab into mine. “With your tongue.”
And I do. Shame­fully. Ea­gerly. With him, I sub­mit, will­ingly sur­ren­der­ing
all the con­trol I usu­ally have on my life and the world around me. My
tongue ex­tends from my mouth as I lean for­ward and drag it up and down
his cock. I taste my­self as I lick his dick clean, feel­ing him throb un­der my
tongue as his hand tight­ens in my hair.
“Good girl.”
I whim­per when he sud­denly shoves his cock back into my throat, his mus­‐
cles clench­ing.
“Play with your messy lit­tle cunt, baby girl,” he snarls. “Two fin­gers while I
fuck this pretty mouth.”
My eyes roll back. Heat, shame, ex­cite­ment, and fiery lust ex­plode through
my sys­tem as I ea­gerly thrust my fin­gers into my­self. The lewd wet sounds
of his cock ram­ming over my tongue and my own fin­gers fuck­ing my pussy
fill the ve­randa. Drazen’s thrusts get harder and faster, and the heat build­ing
in­side of me throbs hot­ter and fiercer, un­til sud­denly, I can’t stop it.
My face caves with shame and de­sire as I ex­plode, my walls clamp­ing
down around my fin­gers as I grind my palm into my clit. I spasm in the
chair, writhing and twist­ing and whim­per­ing as he fucks my mouth with a
snarl on his lips.
With a low grunt, his cock swells even harder and thicker be­tween my lips.
I whim­per when I feel the first thick sticky splash of his cum fill­ing my
mouth and rop­ing across my tongue. He pumps and ex­plodes again down
my throat be­fore he pulls out and groans as he strokes his glis­ten­ing cock.
His hot cum splat­ters across my tongue and my lips, drip­ping down my chin
and onto my cleav­age be­fore he pushes his cock back be­tween my sticky
lips again. An­other rope of cum lands across my tongue as he grits his teeth,
our eyes locked.
Slowly, Drazen pulls his still-hard cock from my mouth. I’m shak­ing from a
mix of con­fu­sion, shame, and the af­ter­shocks of my or­gasm as his hand
gen­tly cups my jaw again. His thumb drags over my chin, push­ing his cum
over my skin un­til the thumb slips be­tween my lips.
He doesn’t have to ask. In­stantly, my tongue swirls over it, tast­ing his cum.
He does it again with an­other streak, then an­other, push­ing all the cum he’s
just sprayed over my lips and chin into my mouth as I lick his thumb clean
like a com­plete whore.
Fuck me, I’m lov­ing ev­ery sin­gle filthy sec­ond of it.
When he’s done, Drazen’s eyes are still locked on mine as he tucks his cock
back into his pants and zips up.
“Good girl,” he mur­murs, bring­ing a pleased flush to my cheeks. He leans
down, his mouth teas­ing up my neck un­til his lips brush my ear. “Wear what
I fuck­ing tell you to wear, when I tell you to wear it,” he growls qui­etly. “Or
next time, it’ll be your tight lit­tle ass­hole that I empty my cum into.”

OceanofPDF.com
 20

DRAZEN

Twenty-three years ago:

“W ait here , boy ,” my fa­ther grunts, pat­ting my shoul­der. “I won’t be

long. Mr. Bran­covich and I need to talk busi­ness.”
Past him, I see the en­emy smil­ing at me.
Like a fuck­ing jackal.
A year ago—less—this man would have shot me on sight. He still might;
the day is young. Hon­estly, I still might do the same to him.
But we’re here be­cause the times, as my fa­ther keeps say­ing, are chang­ing.
We’ve seen the blue hel­mets of the UN peace­keep­ing forces for a few years.
But re­cently they’ve sim­ply taken over. They’re ev­ery­where, now that the
fight­ing has stopped. The jaded part of me that comes from fight­ing wars
be­fore you even be­come a man wants to be bit­ter about that.
The re­al­is­tic part of me is glad they’re here.
I’m not so sure how much more war I could take. Not “be­fore I break”.
More like be­fore I get shot and killed, and I’m lit­er­ally no longer able to
con­tinue.
I’ve been fight­ing for al­most three years, since war came to Kosovo when I
was ten. Since the en­tire Balkan re­gion and what­ever re­mains of Yu­goslavia
de­te­ri­o­rated into chaos and pure an­ar­chy. Neigh­bor fight­ing neigh­bor.
Words like “ex­ter­mi­na­tion”, “geno­cide”, “crimes against hu­man­ity” and
“eth­nic cleans­ing” have be­come my en­tire world.
We’re not a coun­try or even a re­gion of the world any­more. We’re just an
open pit look­ing into Hell, brim­ming with car­nage and vi­o­lence and belch­‐
ing ha­tred and dis­trust into the filthy air.
In the be­gin­ning, it was nearly im­pos­si­ble to know who was friend and who
was foe un­til they started shoot­ing at you. We’re—my fam­ily and I—Ser­‐
bian, mostly, mixed with a lit­tle Rus­sian. But we live in Kosovo.
The pol­i­tics are messy, con­fus­ing, and tire­some. All I know is that one day,
our neigh­bors were Ser­bians just like us. And then the next day, they were
the en­emy. Or we were their en­emy. We’re not even Al­ba­nian, but ap­par­‐
ently, that’s the side we’ve fallen into: Serbs and Al­ba­ni­ans fight­ing Serbs
and Yu­gosla­vians. All the same peo­ple giv­ing them­selves dif­fer­ent names,
and fight­ing over who gets to seize con­trol of a lit­tle piece of the world no
one gives a fuck about.
And as that war drew to an close, an­other one be­gan: the war over who got
to sift through the rub­ble and keep what­ever they find.
I’d never heard much about the Bran­covich fam­ily be­fore. Just that their
fam­ily made their money the same way we made ours: out­side the law. And
when the law dis­ap­pears com­pletely, the law­less take over.
My fa­ther called it a power war: a clash of crim­i­nal en­ter­prises to see who
would lord over the re­mains. It’s been a bloody few years. I’ve prob­ab­ ly
killed a dozen or more of Bran­covich’s men. They’ve prob­ab­ ly killed just as
many of my fa­ther’s.
But it’ll be end­ing now that I’m to be be­trothed to Mr. Bran­covich’s daugh­‐
ter.
We’re stand­ing on the mas­sive front steps to the Bran­covich es­tate—more
of a com­pound, re­ally. High walls sur­round their sprawl­ing acres and
woods. No­to­ri­ous for be­ing in­su­lar and hy­per-pro­tec­tive of his fam­ily even
be­fore the fight­ing, Mi­ha­jlo Bran­covich has only dou­bled down since the
war for crim­i­nal power started.
My fa­ther’s told me no one—not friend, and cer­tainly not for­mer foe—has
been in­side the walls of the es­tate for years. And def­i­nitely not in­side the
house it­self.
“This is an honor,” my fa­ther told me on the drive over. I asked him why it
was an honor to meet the dogs we’d been shoot­ing in the rub­ble-strewn
streets for years.
“An al­liance, Drazen,” he said. “In the end, we all must die. But we don’t
have to rush into it. And the con­tin­u­at­ion of our fam­ily line is more im­por­‐
tant than a use­less war over scraps.”
“Drazen.” Mi­ha­jlo smiles as he walks down the front steps of his sprawl­ing
home and ex­tends a hand. I hes­i­tate, eye­ing it du­bi­ously. But my fa­ther
clears his throat and then digs his thumb into my shoul­der where he’s hold­‐
ing it. My hand slowly ex­tends to shake my fu­ture fa­ther-in-law’s.
“A plea­sure to fi­nally meet you, young man,” he growls. “It pleases me to
think that our chil­dren will have a fu­ture. That even de­spite these blood-
soaked con­flicts and sense­less wars, there’s a fu­ture wait­ing to hap­pen.”
He smiles at me.
“Your papa and I need to talk busi­ness. But if you go around to the back of
the house near the gar­dens, I’m sure An­nika’s there.” He chuck­les. “I’m
sure you’re anx­ious to meet your bride-to-be!”
He and my fa­ther laugh, the lat­ter tou­sling my hair and telling me to be
good and play nice. Then they both dis­ap­pear into the house.
Play nice.
I haven’t “played”, nice or oth­er­wise, in years. I traded make-be­lieve and
toys for vi­o­lence and war. And I haven’t the slight­est in­ter­est in meet­ing the
ten-year-old Ser­bian mafia princess who’ll be my stupid fuck­ing wife when
she turns eigh­teen, al­most a decade from now.
Just the same, I fol­low the blue­stone path around the side of the house and
through a man­i­cured rose bush patch. I’m near­ing what looks like a pool
when I hear a com­mo­tion in the hedges in front of me. I frown, my senses
sharp­en­ing as I in­stantly go on the de­fense. I reach for my ri­fle be­fore I re­‐
mem­ber that I don’t carry one of those any­more, since the truces.
I do have a knife, though.
It comes out with a lethal flick as I creep around the cor­ner of the rustling
hedge. A soft voice whis­pers hoarsely. Then again.
Then, right be­fore I lurch around the hedge and grab who­ever is hid­ing
there so that I can slit their throat, the bushes in front of me sud­denly part.
And fire comes pour­ing out.
I frown as it stum­bles to a stop in front of me and then looks up with big
blue eyes, a smat­ter­ing of freck­les across the nose.
Not fire. Just bright gin­ger-red hair with the sun glint­ing on it. My brows
knit as the girl stares at me, then at the knife in my hand.
“What do you have that for?” she says cu­ri­ously in Eng­lish, with an Amer­i­‐
can ac­cent.
My jaw clenches as I glance past her. “Who else is in there?”
She shrugs. “No one.”
“I heard you talk­ing to some­one. It sounded like you were wrestling.”
She grins. “I was.”
“With?”
The red­head gig­gles. “My imag­i­nary friend.”
I scowl. “What?”
“My friend. She’s imag­i­nary. And in­vis­i­ble, so you can’t meet her. Sorry.”
I grin slightly and I drop my hand, fold­ing the knife up and slip­ping it back
into my pocket.
“Who are you?” she in­quires.
“I’m…look­ing for An­nika,” I grunt.
“You found her.”
My brow arches. “You’re An­nika?”
She glances back at the bushes be­hind her.
“What are you do­ing?”
“Just telling my in­vis­i­ble friend that it’s okay.”
I smirk as she turns back to me.
“I’m An­nika.” She sticks out a hand. “Who are you?”
“Drazen,” I re­ply, feel­ing awk­ward as I shake the hand of the girl I don’t
know, who I’ll marry one day.
“Oh!” Her eyes widen a lit­tle as she steps back. Then she looks me up and
down, clearly siz­ing me up.
“Oh?”
“You’re…not what I was ex­pect­ing.”
“What were you ex­pect­ing?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Papa used to call you and your fam­ily mon­sters
and demons. But I guess I wasn’t re­ally ex­pect­ing you to have horns or any­‐
thing.”
“Maybe I do,” I smile. “Maybe I am.”
“What—a mon­ster or a de­mon?”
I nod. She shakes her head.
“I don’t think you are. I don’t see any horns.”
I chuckle. “Your Eng­lish is per­fect.” I frown. “I’m sur­prised.”
“We can talk in Ser­bian if you pre­fer.”
I shake my head. “No, I like it. It’s good prac­tice for me.”
“My mother is Amer­i­can. So is our house­keeper.”
My brow lifts. I didn’t know that.
“You’re here with your fa­ther?”
I nod.
An­nika shrugs. “Wanna play while they talk?”
“I…don’t re­ally play. I’m a sol­dier.”
She eyes me. “But you’re a kid like me.”
“I’m thir­teen.”
“Sol­diers aren’t thir­teen.”
My skin crawls, and the mem­o­ries I try not to think about start to creep
through my mind.
“I think I’m just go­ing to go wait back at the car with my fa­ther’s men⁠—”
“Do you play Nin­tendo 64?”
I pause, frown­ing. “A…lit­tle?”
“Do you know Gold­en­eye?”
“The James Bond movie?”
An­nika rolls her eyes. “The video game.”
“Not re­ally.”
“Oh.” Her brows knit in con­fu­sion. “But…you’re a sol­dier.”
I nod.
“So you’re good at shoot­ing stuff?”
From any­one else, any­one older, it would be a taste­less, ass­hole thing to
say. From her, it’s just funny.
“Yeah,” I smile, shrug­ging. “I guess so.”
“Then you’ll be great. Let’s go.”
I flinch a lit­tle when she grabs my hand, but she doesn’t let go, and the
strange sen­sa­tion from her hand in mine goes away. An­nika is start­ing to
tug me in the di­rec­tion of what looks like the pool house when she stops
and glances back at the hedges again.
“What are you do­ing?” I ask.
“I’m see­ing if maybe next time,” she laughs, “my in­vis­i­ble friend will come
play with us too.”
I smile cu­ri­ously. “What’s your in­vis­i­ble friend’s name?”
She grins as she turns to me. “An­nika.”
I laugh, and it gen­uinely feels like the first real, heart­felt laugh I’ve laughed
in years.
“You’re kind of weird, aren’t you?”
She shrugs, nod­ding. “Yeah, well, sucks to be you. You’re the one that’s
gonna have to live with me some­day.”

OceanofPDF.com
 21

DRAZEN

I gen ­t ly turn the glass of vodka, watch­ing the clear liq­uid swirl in the
lights of my of­fice.
“Drazen.”
My gaze shifts, my at­ten­tion sud­denly pulling from the drink in my hand to
Mi­los, stand­ing in the door­way.
His brow fur­rows. “Ev­ery­thing okay?”
“Yes.”
No.
Maybe.
I don’t know any­more.
I’m a man of plans. A man of bul­let points on a list that are fol­lowed by bul­‐
let holes. And I thought I had this all fig­ured out.
I thought I’d found the woman who be­trayed me. The Tro­jan Horse who let
the en­emy in­side to slaugh­ter my fam­ily. I thought she was fi­nally in my
clutches, and I would fi­nally mete out my vengeance.
Get my pound of flesh.
But then those plans changed when I re­al­ized I needed her to get to the Iron
Ta­ble so I could ex­act a higher re­venge. But it’s not the change in plans that
has me glar­ing into my drink in the mid­dle of the night when I should be
asleep.
It’s the change in in­ten­tions.
I no longer wish to carve out a pound of vengeance from An­nika’s flesh.
When I look at her, even think of her, I’m no longer dream­ing of re­venge at
all.
But I am think­ing about lis­ten­ing to her scream. And beg. And writhe.
And moan.
My re­solve with her is…weak­en­ing. All of me is weak with her, in a way
it’s never been be­fore. I never lusted af­ter An­nika. Not when she was my
eigh­teen-year-old bride walk­ing down the aisle. Not be­fore. Not af­ter.
I spent our wed­ding night alone, sulk­ing into a bot­tom­less glass of vodka.
But the An­nika I cap­tured in New York and brought here is an­other An­nika.
One I do de­sire. One, I’ll even grant, whose com­pany I en­joy. Per­haps the
crash changed her. Per­haps am­ne­sia re­ally did re­wire her.
Or re­set her.
Be­cause there’s only one day I re­mem­ber when I ac­tu­ally en­joyed be­ing
around her. One sin­gle time, when I was thir­teen and she was ten, and we
spent half a day play­ing Gold­en­eye on the Nin­tendo 64 in her fa­ther’s pool
house. The day we met, where she spent hours while we were gam­ing to­‐
gether telling me how nice her in­vis­i­ble friend was.
She was weird, and kind. And I en­joyed her com­pany that day…and that
day only.
Un­til now.
I rip my at­ten­tion back to Mi­los. “What’s go­ing on?”
“There’s a prob­lem.”
I frown. “Go on.”
“Se­cu­rity breach.”
Shit.
I stand abruptly, cross­ing the room to my desk. I wake up my lap­top, al­‐
ready open to the cam­eras in ev­ery cor­ner of my house. There’s only one I
look at.
An­nika’s room.
When I see her sleep­ing peace­fully, I glance back at Mi­los.
“What sort of breach.”
He frowns, nod­ding his chin at the lap­top, which is fac­ing away from him.
“What did you just look at?”
“Noth­ing,” I growl. “What’s the se­cu­rity⁠—”
“Drazen…” he mut­ters qui­etly.
Only Mi­los can talk to me like this. We’ve known each other since we were
kids go­ing on raids to­gether dur­ing the wars. We were a sniper team at one
point, perched up in the ru­ins of some build­ing with one of us on the ri­fle,
the other on the binoc­u­lars. His fa­ther worked for mine for years un­til the
night of the death and blood on this very is­land.
I glare back at him. “It’s noth­ing.”
“I say se­cu­rity breach, and your first con­cern is her?”
“She’s im­por­tant to our plans, Mi­los.”
“Well, this con­cerns her,” he says grimly.
I glance back at the cam­eras, then back at Mi­los.
“When I say breach, I don’t mean some­one got in,” he grunts. “Some­one
got out.”
My brow fur­rows. “Who?”
“Your wife,” he mut­ters dryly.
A n ­n ika stirs as I look down at her sleep­ing form. She’s only in a thin
night­gown with a sheet over her, the warm Mediter­ranean air com­ing in
through the open bal­cony doors.
Part of me thinks she looks so soft and in­no­cent.
An­other part of me wants to wake her with my cock down her throat and
her hair in my fist. With ev­ery inch of my dick buried in her tight lit­tle cunt,
mak­ing her scream into her pil­low. That’s the part of me that wants to
bruise her. Mark her. Ruin her.
Not be­cause of any sort of re­venge any­more. But be­cause that’s the messed-
up way my de­sires work. That’s my fuck­ing “love lan­guage”: vi­o­lence and
mon­strous bru­tal­ity.
And the rea­son I feel those things when I look at her is that I know I’m not
the only one with those types of urges and screwed-up wiring.
She’s the same.
But that’s not why I’m in her bed­room right now, watch­ing her sleep. So in­‐
stead of let­ting my eyes wan­der over the bare shoul­der, imag­in­ing gag­ging
her with a pair of her panties be­fore I work my dick into her tight lit­tle ass, I
let my gaze slip down to my feet.
Then I crouch down and touch the rug.
It’s dirty, and a lit­tle wet.
Shit.
For a sec­ond I al­most wake her: not for dark needs, for an­swers. My mind
goes over ev­ery­thing Mi­los has just told me. Shown me.
Two hours ago, one of my men was across the bridge on Elba, in a lit­tle
coastal bar in a town two miles away. It was his night off, and he’s freely
ad­mit­ted he’d had four or five beers. But that doesn’t change what he saw,
and snapped a grainy, blurry pic­ture of with his phone.
An­nika.
She was keep­ing to the shad­ows, down by the shore near the lo­cal fish­er­‐
man’s pier, ap­par­ently.
“I swear on my mother’s grave, Mr. Krylov,” my man told me not ten min­‐
utes ago down­stairs, his hands fid­get­ing ner­vously as I glared at him. “It
was her.”
The pic­ture he took is…pretty bad. But it’s damn­ing. Red hair. A furtive but
de­ter­mined look on her face. Same height, same build.
Same An­nika.
My eyes drag from the wet spots on the rug to the woman asleep in the bed.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done this. Sleep­walked, that is. I’ve seen
the be­wil­der­ing footage of her be­hind the wheel of a stolen Lam­borgh­ini at
two o’clock in the morn­ing, be­fore Dim­itri nuked the po­lice’s server. I’ve
also lis­tened in on her vir­tual ses­sions with Dr. Jes­nick, also cour­tesy of
Dim­itri , who sent them with proof of him never hav­ing opened the files at
all.
Be­cause he’s de­tail-ori­ented like that.
An­nika—Tay­lor—has spo­ken to her ther­ap­ ist at length about her un­ex­‐
plained night­time ac­tiv­i­ties. Go­ing through her taxes, mess­ing around in her
kitchen, even go­ing to work, all with­out a sin­gle mem­ory of it when she
wakes up.
But this one is more than slightly baf­fling. Get­ting off my is­land with­out be­‐
ing seen is hard enough. Get­ting back on—while tech­ni­cally asleep—is in­‐
sane.
My eyes sweep over her sleep­ing form—at the soft, serene ex­pres­sion on
her face. Like she didn’t just some­how es­cape and re­turn, leav­ing no trace.
Who the fuck are you, An­nika Bran­covich.
For the first time since she got here, I have her door locked when I leave.
Two of my men fall into step be­hind me as I walk out the front door of the
house. But I wave them off as I head out into the dark, to­ward the bridge.
I’m car­ry­ing a sidearm, and be­sides, I’m con­fi­dent that I am the most dan­‐
ger­ous thing on this is­land.
At the bridge, my men snap to at­ten­tion. My en­em­ ies—most peo­ple, for
that mat­ter—think of me as ruth­less and fear­some and cruel. Be­cause, to
them, that’s what I am. But I treat my own peo­ple with re­spect and loy­alty.
A lot of these men have worked for me my en­tire adult life. Sev­eral of them
worked for my fa­ther, or their fa­thers did.
Mi­los ap­proaches, a cig­ar­ ette be­tween his lips. He lights it deftly with a
Zippo, in­hal­ing deeply.
“Any­thing use­ful?”
He shakes his head. “Noth­ing, boss. The men on duty tonight are sharp, too.
No one slipped up or missed any­thing. Cam­eras, in­frared sen­sors, night-vi­‐
sion…noth­ing. My guess is, she came and went via the shore­line.”
“And get­ting across the strait?”
Mi­los tilts his head med­i­ta­tively, in­hal­ing smoke. “It would have been low
tide a few hours ago. But that still in­volves a swim. Cur­rent is stronger
when the tide is go­ing in or out, too. So, not an easy swim, ei­ther.”
I nod pen­sively, walk­ing to the bridge and look­ing down at the black wa­ter
be­low. Mi­los joins me, his face stoic.
“Thanks for check­ing so thor­oughly,” I growl qui­etly.
He nods.
“I know you don’t…you know.”
Mi­los’ fa­ther was the mor­tally wounded guard who blew up the bridge the
night of the at­tack fif­teen years ago. Need­less to say, I know my friend
doesn’t en­joy spend­ing any time on this bridge.
“It’s fine,” he grunts, peer­ing out at the dark­ness.
I eye him cu­ri­ously for a mo­ment. “Speak.”
“Noth­ing to speak about, boss.”
“Drop the ‘boss’ shit and talk to me as my friend.”
He glances at me, his jaw tight. “Freely?”
“Yes.”
His eyes nar­row. “I think it’s fuck­ing in­san­ity that she’s here, Drazen,” he
growls. “I think af­ter what she fuck­ing did, the fact that you’ve got her liv­‐
ing in your home like a guest is in­sult­ing. I think there are a mil­lion dif­fer­‐
ent ways you could be flay­ing her alive in­stead of fuck­ing her⁠—”
“That’s enough.”
“Your fam­ily’s and my fa­ther’s blood is on her hands!” he hisses vi­ciously.
“And you’re us­ing her like your own per­sonal whore⁠—”
Mi­los’ eyes bulge and his face goes pur­ple as my hand snaps out to tighten
around his throat.
“I said that’s enough,” I hiss darkly.
In­stantly, my hand drops from his wind­pipe. Mi­los clears his throat and
looks away.
“Apolo­gies, I over­stepped,” he grunts.
I ex­hale. “I… I shouldn’t have put hands on you.”
“You’re the boss,” my friend says dryly, smirk­ing as he rubs his voice box.
I ges­ture with my chin at his cig­ar­ ette. He nods, pass­ing it to me. “Just like
old times, huh?”
“Just need a sniper ri­fle and some of that shitty UN peace­keeper cof­fee.”
He gri­maces. “Swear to fuck, that stuff was lit­er­ally shit.”
“Eh,” I shrug. “That’s why we cut it with vodka, if I re­mem­ber right.”
“I’m sur­prised we re­mem­ber any­thing at all from those days,” he sighs,
shak­ing his head. “Sur­prised we lived through those days.”
“But we did,” I mur­mur, tak­ing a puff of the cig­ar­ ette be­fore hand­ing it
back. I clap my friend on the shoul­der. “We did, and look at us now.”
Mi­los nods solemnly, look­ing out over the dark waves. “Per­mis­sion to
speak…well, freely, but not as freely as just now?”
I nod.
“You re­ally be­lieve the am­ne­sia thing?”
I look away. “I do, ac­tu­ally.”
“With­out you fuck­ing chok­ing me again, can we agree that what hap­pened
be­fore⁠—”
“Hap­pened fif­teen years ago,” I grunt. “Be­fore her mem­ory deleted it­self.”
“Do you think that ex­cuses it?”
It’s a good ques­tion, and some­thing I’ve been con­tem­plat­ing ever since I
found her again.
I still don’t have an an­swer.
“I don’t know if it’s be­cause of the am­ne­sia or not. But she’s changed.
She’s…dif­fer­ent than the girl I re­mem­ber from the wed­ding.”
“You re­ally be­lieve that peo­ple can change like that?” Mi­los grunts. “Be­‐
come some­thing dif­fer­ent?”
I nod as my eyes drift back to the rolling black waves.
“I do.”
I have to be­lieve that change is pos­si­ble. That peo­ple can evolve past what
they were into some­thing new.
I have to.
Or else I’m truly damned.

OceanofPDF.com
 22

TAY­L OR

“M y , my .”

Her pale, vi­o­let eyes sweep over me ap­prais­ingly, a sil­very-white brow

cocked.
“You’ve re­ally grown up, haven’t you?” Yeliza­veta Solovy­ova’s lips twist
up at the cor­ners. “You look just like your mother, you know.”
A smile tugs at my mouth. I may not re­mem­ber her at all—in fact, I only
have a few old pho­tos of my mom from my great-aunt—but it’s been a
long, long time since any­one’s said that to me. Flo­rence used to tell me the
same thing.
We’re sit­ting—Drazen, Yeliza­veta, and I—in one of the op­u­lent, Mediter­‐
ranean-styled court­yards of Drazen’s house. Two pot­ted olive trees stand at­‐
ten­tion near the soft couches and chairs around the low ta­ble we’re all sit­‐
ting at. A warm, soft ocean breeze wafts in from the arched door­ways that
lead out to a bal­cony over the cliffs.
I smile at the White Queen her­self, who I know from my lessons with
Yaelle is the head of the Solovy­ova Bratva. She’s also the de facto head of
the Iron Ta­ble col­lec­tive, even though tech­ni­cally no one fam­ily is in
charge.
Still, Yeliza­veta clearly has power that may ri­val even Drazen’s. Plus, she
has the re­spect and loy­alty of the Iron Ta­ble.
That’s why she’s here to­day. In a week, Drazen and I will at­tend the Zolo­‐
toye Za­vt­ra—the “Golden To­mor­row”—Gala in Mos­cow. Os­ten­si­bly, it’s a
fundraiser for Rus­sian politi­cians to min­gle with big-ticket po­lit­ic­ al donors.
In re­al­ity, it’s a way for the fam­i­lies of the Iron Ta­ble to show off which
politi­cian they’ve each bought, like a huge flex. It’s there that I’ll have my
first “out­ing” as An­nika Bran­covich and meet the mem­bers of the Ta­ble.
Yeliza­veta, how­ever, de­cided she wanted to meet with me alone be­fore the
gala. The translu­cently pale older woman sizes me up from across the ta­ble.
“Did you know my mother well, Ms. Solovy­ova?”
The White Queen, fa­mously, never mar­ried.
“Slightly, yes,” she says coolly, tak­ing a sip of her tea.
I shiver as Drazen leans back in the loveseat next to me, his mus­cled arm
drap­ing pos­ses­sively over my shoul­ders, his hand rest­ing on the far one.
Yeliza­veta ob­vi­ously no­tices. But she ig­nores it.
“Your fa­ther was ac­tu­ally my god­son.”
My brow arches in gen­uine shock. “I…didn’t know that.”
“Well, you did,” she smiles po­litely. “At one point.”
My lips twist. “Apolo­gies. I’m sure Drazen has filled you in on the gaps in
my mem­ory.”
“Gaps”. That’s what we’re call­ing them. Drazen thought it was best not to
men­tion the com­plete loss of mem­ory be­fore the age of eigh­teen, and I
agree. I still don’t know the ex­act specifics of his busi­ness with the Iron Ta­‐
ble, but even with­out them, it’s ob­vi­ous me hav­ing zero mem­ory might
com­pli­cate things.
“Yes, I was good friends with Drazen’s grand­par­ents, on his fa­ther’s side.
His mother’s side”…she chuck­les to her­self…“well, ob­vi­ously not so
much.”
The fur­row in my brow catches her at­ten­tion.
“You don’t re­mem­ber?”
I shake my head. My en­tire be­ing feels like it’s on edge, hang­ing on her ev­‐
ery word for any scraps of my past she might be able to feed me.
“Your grand­par­ents…” Yeliza­veta makes a cluck­ing sound of dis­ap­proval
with her tongue. “They weren’t too happy about their daugh­ter run­ning off
with a Ser­bian-Rus­sian mafioso.”
So far, the only bits I’ve gleaned from Drazen about my mother is that she
had red hair like me, was tall like me, and was Amer­i­can. So was our
house­keeper, which I sup­pose ex­plains why it is I speak with an Amer­i­can
ac­cent de­spite grow­ing up mostly in Ser­bia.
In the last few weeks, I’ve tried to see if there’s any glim­mer that comes
back when I try to read or lis­ten to Ser­bian. But there’s noth­ing. That part is
still a to­tal blank.
“Your mother’s fam­ily was…proper, as I gather,” Yeliza­veta goes on. “I be­‐
lieve your grand­fa­ther was a ty­coon or a sen­at­or or some­thing. Old money,
lots of con­nec­tions.”
My eyes widen. “Do you know his name?”
She shakes her head. “No. I don’t even know your mother’s maiden name,
I’m afraid,” she shrugs. “But I did meet her on a few oc­ca­sions, and I al­‐
ways en­joyed her com­pany. Take that as you will.”
I smile, feel­ing my heart swell a lit­tle.
Yeliza­veta clears her throat, ey­ing me coolly. “I’m a busy woman, An­nika.
As are you, I gather. A lawyer and all now, with a brand-new name.” Her
brow cocks, like she’s amused by some­thing, but she keeps go­ing. “So I
won’t waste any of our time by beat­ing around the bush.” She looks right at
me. “I’d like to know why you left your hus­band, have been miss­ing for the
bet­ter part of fif­teen years, and why you’re liv­ing un­der a new name in New
York.”
I’ve been ex­pect­ing ques­tions like this. It’s one of the things Yaelle, and
later Drazen, has quizzed and coached me on. But hear­ing it spo­ken to my
face is still jar­ring.
I take a breath, like I’m about to give fi­nal ar­gu­ments in court.
“I was a dif­fer­ent per­son back then, Ms. Solovy­ova. I thought I knew what I
wanted and felt…pres­sured by my fam­ily.”
“Yes, well, wel­come to the world of ar­ranged mar­riages,” Yeliza­veta
drawls. “You can see why I never did.” She sighs, twirling her fin­gers in the
air. “So, you mar­ried Drazen, and then you…what, got bored?”
“More like cu­ri­ous. I knew what I wanted to do, and in my naiveté , I didn’t
see that hap­pen­ing as the wife of a Bratva pakhan.”
“Whom you’d been forced to marry.”
I dip my head. “As I said, I was young and naive.”
Yeliza­veta smirks. “And smart. And, ar­guably, right. Some­times, a woman
has to change ev­ery­thing about her­self, to be­come some­thing else, in or­der
to rise in a man’s world,” she spits coldly. Then she sighs, her gaze flip­ping
to Drazen sit­ting next to me, who’s been oddly quiet. “Her be­ing back cer­‐
tainly helps your case, Drazen. But the rest of the Ta­ble will cer­tainly have
ques­tions and con­cerns about you, given that you al­lowed your wife to dis­‐
ap­pear from your life for fif­teen years.”
“I…made mis­takes, Ms. Solovy­ova,” I say qui­etly. “And I was very care­ful
to make sure I wasn’t found.”
“And yet…” She eyes Drazen’s arm over my shoul­der. “Here you are.”
I smile, reach­ing up to squeeze Drazan’s hand af­fec­tion­ately. Hs squeezes
back, and when he does, I feel a jolt, my breath catch­ing at the sheer power
in his squeeze.
It’s more like a grab. A hos­tile takeover.
“Peo­ple change.”
She nods. “In­deed. Well, Drazen,” she says to him. “As I men­tioned, it cer­‐
tainly helps your pe­ti­tion to join the Iron Ta­ble.”
Abruptly, one of her guards walks briskly into the court­yard. He leans down
to mur­mur some­thing into Yeliza­veta’s ear and hands her a phone. She
nods, and then turns her at­ten­tion to the two of us as her man leaves.
“Please ex­cuse me for a mo­ment. Busi­ness calls.”
Drazen nods as she stands, bring­ing the phone to her ear and mut­ter­ing in
Rus­sian. She turns and walks through the arched stone door­ways to the bal­‐
cony over­look­ing the ocean.
“Why do you want to join the Iron Ta­ble?”
I can feel him stiffen, even though I haven’t turned to look at him. I’m just
smil­ing, look­ing happy as can be, snug­gled against my hus­band.
“I be­lieve we dis­cussed this,” Drazen growls.
“We dis­cussed that it was none of my busi­ness.”
“Ex­actly,” he grunts brusquely.
“Yes, well, I’m mak­ing it my busi­ness.”
I smirk to my­self. Then I’m gasp­ing as he turns his at­ten­tion fully to me. I
can feel the heat and the wrath in his gaze as his eyes bore into the side of
my skull.
“Care­ful, toy,” he growls qui­etly.
I keep my com­po­sure.
“You’re go­ing to tell me the truth.”
“I prom­ise you, that’s not hap­pen­ing,” he hisses.
“I wouldn’t make prom­ises you have no way of keep­ing right now, hus­‐
band,” I smirk, still look­ing for­ward. I see Yeliza­veta out on the bal­cony,
ges­tur­ing vi­o­lently with her hands as she barks some­thing I can’t hear from
here into the phone. She turns, spot­ting me watch­ing her. She flashes a
quick smile and a wave.
I wave back, beam­ing.
“Tell me why you want onto the Ta­ble so bad, or when she walks back in
here, I tell her ev­ery­thing.”
His grip on my shoul­der turns malev­o­lent, his pow­er­ful fin­gers dig­ging into
my skin painfully, send­ing warn­ing alarms blar­ing through my head.
“How do you sup­pose she’ll re­act to me,” he grunts, “telling her about
you⁠—”
“I think she’ll be a lit­tle more con­cerned about you brib­ing me to pre­tend to
be your wife so that you can sneak⁠—”
“You are my⁠—”
“So that you can sneak,” I bar­rel on, “your way onto their Ta­ble.”
I fi­nally turn to­ward him. Some­thing sharp and cold rip­ples up my spine as
his pierc­ing blue eyes evis­cer­ate me.
But I don’t scare eas­ily.
“Tell me why you want onto that Ta­ble.”
“For the power it brings,” he grunts, smil­ing coldly at me.
I shake my head. “Again, the next time you kid­nap a girl to use her for your
own ne­far­i­ous pur­poses, maybe make sure she’s not one of the top trial
lawyers in New York, if not the top. That’s one rea­son you want on. But you
al­ready have more power than you could pos­si­bly know what to do with,
and more money than you could ever spend.”
“No one has ever in the his­tory of the world said no to more power,” he
grunts.
“But that’s not why you want that seat, is it.”
I shiver, my spine snap­ping straight as he leans for­ward.
“Care­ful, lit­tle girl,” Drazen mur­murs darkly. “You’re way out of your
depth here.”
I smile sweetly. “No, lit­tle boy,” I whis­per back. “I’m not.”
I glance over to where Yeliza­veta is still yam­mer­ing into her phone.
“Tell me.”
“An­nika, I’m fuck­ing warn­ing you.”
Yeliza­veta sighs as she hangs up the phone.
“Ooo, tick-tock,” I say qui­etly. “You know, I can’t wait to see her face when
I tell her you bribed me to play along so you can scam your way⁠—”
“You will sorely re­gret this,” he snarls vi­ciously.
“Later, maybe,” I shrug, grin­ning at him like we’re hav­ing a flirty lit­tle
convo. Then I glance over to see Yeliza­veta walk­ing to­ward us. “But not un­‐
til af­ter I de­stroy what­ever plans you have⁠—”
“Fine. Your fam­ily killed mine,” Drazen snaps coldly. “But the or­der to do
so came from higher up.”
Yeliza­veta is al­most at the arches back into the court­yard.
“That man sits on the fuck­ing Ta­ble. From the out­side, I can do noth­ing.
From the in­side, I can turn them all against him, and watch as they tear him
to pieces for me.”
Fuck­ing hell. The way he says it so coolly, with zero emo­tion in his voice
and a mur­der­ous glint in his eyes is scary.
…And pretty hot.
“Well,” Yeliza­veta comes to a stop near the couch where she was pre­vi­ously
sit­ting. “I’m afraid I have to be some­where. Un­less there’s any­thing else?”
Drazen turns to me, a smile on his face and mal­ice in his eyes. His hand
squeezes my shoul­der tightly again.
“Yes, An­nika,” he growls qui­etly. “Is there any­thing else?”
With a smile, I shake my head. “No, I don’t be­lieve so, hon.” I turn to beam
a thou­sand-watt grin at him.
Yeliza­veta chuck­les. “You can drop the the­atrics. I’m old, not stupid. I
know what this is,” she mur­murs, eye­ing me. “To be hon­est, I don’t care. I
think Drazen is a good ad­di­tion to the Ta­ble, re­gard­less of the sta­tus of your
mar­riage. But the other mem­bers”…her brow cocks mean­ingly as she looks
at me…“the other men, won’t be so open-minded.”
She lev­els a gaze at the both of us.
“It’s not me you have to con­vince, Drazen. It’s them. And if I were you, I’d
sell this…thing,” She smirks as she waves a fin­ger be­tween us. “To them a
lit­tle bit bet­ter than you’ve tried sell­ing it to me.”

OceanofPDF.com
 23

TAY­L OR

My ass hurts .

A lot.
Af­ter Drazen’s prom­ise that I’d “re­gret” threat­en­ing to blow up his plans
with Yeliza­veta, I ex­pected the worst. I spent the rest of the day wait­ing for
him to jump out of the shad­ows to bru­tal­ize me, to pun­ish me some­how.
But it never hap­pened. Nor did it the next day, or the day af­ter that. It’s been
six days now since Yeliza­veta’s visit: five nights of slip­ping un­der the cov­‐
ers, won­der­ing if this would be the night I’ll wake up to a black devil mask
and a tat­tooed hand around my throat seek­ing ret­ri­bu­tion.
That ret­ri­bu­tion never came.
Un­til ear­lier this af­ter­noon.
I was in my dress­ing room, slip­ping into a gen­uinely stun­ning Yves St. Lau­‐
rent cream-col­ored gown—form fit­ting and strappy, with a slit up one thigh,
a plung­ing back, and al­most equally plung­ing front—when Drazen word­‐
lessly en­tered.
“It’s time.”
That’s all he said. That’s all he had to say for me to know.
Ten sec­onds later, he was pulling me into my bed­room, bend­ing me un­cer­e­‐
mo­ni­ously over the foot of my bed, and yank­ing the gown up over my ass.
Four sec­onds af­ter that, my panties were firmly stuffed into my mouth and
his palm was com­ing down hard on the bare skin of my ass.
That was just the be­gin­ning.
An hour and a half later, my ass was down­right bruised. My pussy was sore
be­yond be­lief from him fuck­ing the ab­so­lute shit out of me three times, my
nip­ples were on fire, my makeup was com­pletely smudged, and I hon­estly
wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to sit down again.
Sev­eral hours later, I’m still not sure. Com­fort­ably, that is. I did just spend a
few hours sit­ting on his plane fly­ing to Mos­cow: al­beit with a god­damn
icepack un­der my ass.
I re­did my makeup and hair on the plane, and made sure the dress looked
per­fect. I’m even sort of get­ting used to the con­tacts I’ve slipped in tonight,
even though I re­ally hate them. Even so, as we step out of the car in front of
the lav­ish Ho­tel Bhakut in cen­tral Mos­cow, where the gala is be­ing held, I
feel a shiver of…some­thing.
Shit. It’s nerves. And I never get ner­vous. Not for tri­als, even against re­ally
tough op­pos­ing coun­sel, and cer­tainly not for shit like galas and fundrais­ers.
That said, I’ve never done this be­fore: never had to face an en­tire fir­ing
squad of truly pow­er­ful Bratva heads—some of whom know more about
my past than I do—and smile through it.
For the first time, I’m truly fac­ing the world as An­nika Bran­covich. And it’s
ter­ri­fy­ing.
I shiver as Drazen’s hand goes to the small of my back. I glance at him, but
he’s smil­ing cor­dially and wav­ing gra­ciously at var­i­ous peo­ple out­side the
ho­tel that he seems to know. He keeps his hand on the small of my back as
we walk up the red-car­peted steps to the ho­tel en­trance. There, we pause.
My pulse skips as he leans close, his lips by my ear.
“Re­mem­ber,” he mur­murs. “This is⁠—”
“Im­por­tant,” I mut­ter back. “Yes, I’m aware. Thanks so much for the pep
talk.”
Drazen pulls back. His eyes stab into mine.
“It wasn’t a pep talk.”
“I’ll be fine, okay⁠—”
“Be­cause you don’t need one.”
Wait, what?
“What I was go­ing to say,” he mur­murs. One hand slides to my hip. The
other slides up my back, tan­gling a lit­tle in the back of my elab­o­rately
pinned-up hair. “Is that this is your mo­ment.” His head cocks. “Try to en­joy
it.”
One sec­ond, we’re stand­ing there. The next, his mouth is de­scend­ing to
mine.
And the mo­ment af­ter that, my world shat­ters. Be­cause for the first time,
Drazen is kiss­ing me.
The breath leaves my body. My heart stops. My skin lights on fire.
It’s not just a peck. It’s pure Drazen. His lips part, and my brain is still rac­‐
ing to catch up when his tongue pushes past my lips. His mouth sears to my
mouth. His tongue du­els with and con­quers my tongue. He steals the very
breath from my lungs and the thoughts from my head un­til all I know is the
all-con­sum­ing, all-an­ni­hi­lat­ing sen­sa­tion of him de­vour­ing me.
It feels like it’s over al­most be­fore it starts. He pulls away, his eyes lock­ing
with mine for long, drawn out sec­onds. Then he’s turn­ing, nod­ding to some­‐
one else he rec­og­nizes, and re­turn­ing his hand to the small of my back as
we walk in­side.
Sud­denly, I’m not so ner­vous any­more.
Weird…
I t ’ s not hard to tell which of the Iron Ta­ble heads Drazen has his sights on.
Not for me, any­way. I’m used to these sort of dy­nam­ics, these bat­tles fought
over cock­tails or across board­room ta­bles with smiles on faces and knives
hid­den be­hind the backs.
He’s cor­dial enough to Yeliza­veta Solovy­ova, who’s quite open about hav­‐
ing met me al­ready. He’s gruff but re­spect­ful to Kir Niko­layev, Pavel
Nikitin, and Niko­lai Antonov. But he’s all fuck­ing smiles to Vadik Belov,
even though it’s ob­vi­ous the man is a hem­or­rhoidal ass­hole.
“So the prodi­gal wife re­turns,” Vadik sneers when we’re in­tro­duced. His
eyes are firmly on my cleav­age even though he’s got his arm around the
lithe waist of some poor blonde girl who looks like she could be his daugh­‐
ter, if not granddaugh­ter.
“Mne priy­atno poz­nakomit’sya,” I say with a po­lite smile any­way.
It’s my plea­sure to meet you.
No, I haven’t mag­i­cally learned Rus­sian. Just enough phrases to try and
make a good im­pres­sion. I mean, if I don’t, Drazen doesn’t get onto the Iron
Ta­ble, and I don’t get my pay­out.
Vadik eyes me, sneer­ing.
“Please, no more, Mrs. Krylov,” he chuck­les roughly. “Your Rus­sian is
shit.”
“Well, at least her man­ners are bet­ter than yours, my friend.” Kir Niko­layev,
a tall, hand­some man with dark hair and eyes, di­rects a thin smile to the
older Vadik. He turns to take my hand, shak­ing it po­litely. “A plea­sure to
meet you, An­nika.” He beams. “Again.”
“Kir was at our wed­ding,” Drazen mur­murs qui­etly into my ear, send­ing a
shiver down my spine. It’s not lost on me how ag­gres­sively and quickly he
pulls my hand away from the other man’s.
“I’m so sorry to learn of your mem­ory trou­bles,” Kir says, gen­uine con­cern
in his tone. “That must be dif­fi­cult.”
“Clearly,” Vadik chuck­les. “Given that she slipped right back into the same
bed she ran from be­fore, when there’s plenty of room in mine.”
I jolt as Drazen’s huge hand at my back tight­ens al­most to the point of
bruis­ing. I glance up ner­vously at him, half ex­pect­ing him to smash Vadik’s
face in. In­stead, he just gri­maces a hard, tight smile.
That’s when I know for sure that this is the man he’ll be de­stroy­ing once he
gets onto the Ta­ble.
Vadik roars with laugh­ter at his own stupid joke. The girl at his side tries to
laugh along, even though she looks mor­ti­fied and scared even to be next to
him.
“Some re­spect, Vadik,” Kir snarls qui­etly. “And per­haps some class while
you’re at it.”
Vadik rolls his eyes, slosh­ing his tum­bler of vodka around. “I kid, I kid. As
long as she’s back in his bed, what does he care?” He snick­ers, el­bow­ing
Drazen. “Isn’t that right, Krylov?”
“Sil­ver lin­ings, Mr. Belov,” Drazen says tightly back, a smile etched
roughly across his face.
“Well,” Vadik leers at me. “If you get tired of try­ing to re­mem­ber where this
one’s cock and balls are, you come find me, yeah?”
He says it as he slaps his date’s ass. The poor girl turns bright red, look­ing
ab­so­lutely mis­er­able as she smiles weakly.
“Oh, I can prom­ise you, Mr. Belov,” I smile right into Vadik’s face. “My
hus­band’s cock and balls would be im­pos­si­ble to miss.”
Vadik’s face sours.
“Hope­fully your date has the same ease in dis­cov­ery.”
His eyes turn con­fused, like he’s not quite sure if I’ve just in­sulted him or
not. Kir, on the other hand, roars with laugh­ter. The blonde at Vadik’s side
bites her lip to stop her­self from do­ing the same.
Drazen’s hand drops to my ass and squeezes, hard⁠—
Yep, still sore. Je­sus.
…Still, don’t care, be­cause the feel of his grip on me…does things to me.
Vadik mum­bles some­thing about get­ting an­other drink be­fore he grabs his
date by the wrist and roughly drags her away. Kir chuck­les as he turns to
Drazen and me. “You sur­prise me, An­nika. This is not the qui­etly sub­mis­‐
sive lit­tle girl I met at a wed­ding fif­teen years ago.”
“Sorry to dis­ap­point,” I smile.
“Oh, quite the con­trary, I can prom­ise you,” he grins be­fore turn­ing his at­‐
ten­tion to Drazen. “And you, my friend, can stop hid­ing your feel­ings so
poorly. It’s quite clear to any­one with half a brain that you de­spise the
man.”
Drazen’s jaw ticks. “I’m sure Yeliza­veta has made known my in­ten­tions to
ask for a vote onto the Ta­ble.”
Kir nods. “In­deed. But surely you know it’s a ma­jor­ity vote that car­ries such
a re­quest, not a unan­i­mous one. So fuck Vadik.”
Drazen smiles thinly. “I’ve been a num­bers man since the war, Kir. Play the
num­bers, and you’ll play to win.”
Kir smiles, nod­ding. “Speak­ing of num­bers…” He glances at me and clears
his throat. “I was hop­ing to bend your ear, Drazen, about a busi­ness op­por­‐
tu­nity.”
Drazen’s eyes swivel to mine.
“I’ll go min­gle,” I smile cor­dially. Yeah, I might hate these sort of func­‐
tions. But fuck, I’m good at them.
“My apolo­gies, An­nika,” Kir smiles. “I merely need to bor­row him for a
mo­ment.”
“I’ll be at the bar,” I smile as I turn to­ward Drazen. “Dear.”
I lean up to kiss his cheek, for Kir’s ben­ef­ it, I guess. But at the last sec­ond,
Drazen twists his head. My eyes fly open in shock when he kisses me. Then
I’m melt­ing as his hands slide over my hips, pulling me tight against his
hard, mus­cled body.
“Don’t stray far,” he growls. “Dear.”
There’s still a shiver tin­gling down my spine and a throb be­tween my thighs
as I wan­der off.

T wenty min ­u tes later , I’ve made the rounds. I’ve linked back up with
Yeliza­veta again and had a sur­pris­ingly good con­ver­sa­tion with Pavel
Nikitin and Niko­lai Antonov on in­ter­na­tional mar­itime law, which I ac­tu­ally
had a class on in law school. Turns out Pavel is a lawyer him­self, though
not prac­tic­ing. And Niko­lai at­tended Har­vard for his un­der­grad.
Small world.
Even­tu­ally, I’m mak­ing my way past a quiet side hall­way to­ward the sec­‐
ondary ball­room of the gala, en­route to the bar for a glass of cham­pagne,
when a hand sud­denly slips out of the shad­ows.
I gasp as I’m yanked back­ward, and the breath leaves my body as I’m
slammed against the wall be­hind me.
A hand grabs me by the throat, and my eyes widen as I stare up into a beau­‐
ti­ful but fiercely sav­age man’s face.
“There seems to be a mis­un­der­stand­ing,” he growls in a slightly British-ac­‐
cented voice.
His fea­tures are a mix of—Ja­pa­nese, per­haps?—and some­thing vaguely
Nordic. The dark hair and Asian eyes cou­pled with his tow­er­ing height and
squared, Eu­ro­pean jaw makes me think of a samu­rai mixed with a Viking.
My eyes drop to the wrist of the hand grip­ping my throat. The cuff of his
tuxedo has slipped up, show­ing a flash of bril­liant bright Yakuza ink.
“I—”
“You’ve been in­tro­duc­ing your­self all evening as An­nika Bran­covich,” he
snarls qui­etly. “But you and I both know that isn’t true.”
I swal­low painfully, his grip still firm around my wind­pipe.
“I—yes, I⁠—”
“No,” he snaps coldly. “You’re not.”
My stom­ach knots as he looms over me.
“You don’t be­long here, Ms. Crown.”
I stare at him. “I⁠—”
His hand abruptly drops from my throat. He steps a half foot back from me,
as if he knows he shouldn’t be this close to me.
“I be­lieve you em­ploy my half-sis­ter.”
My eyes go wide.
Holy shit.
This is Kenzo Mori?
I frown at him. “You’re Fumi’s brother?”
“We can’t talk here. But we do need to speak.”
“I don’t un­der­stand⁠—”
“Tell no one you saw me,” he growls, reach­ing into his pocket and pulling
out a lit­tle black flip phone. “Es­pe­cially Fumi. Cer­tainly not Drazen.”
I tense as he looms into me; for one sec­ond, it feels like this man might
freak­ing kiss me. But then his mouth slips past mine to hover near my ear. I
stiffen when I feel him slip the phone into my hand.
“Hide this,” he growls. “When you’re ready for an­swers, use it.”
“An­swers to what?” I whis­per as he pulls back and ad­justs his tux.
“To all the things you can’t ex­plain, Ms. Crown,” he growls. “The gaps in
your mem­ory. The things you do when you’re asleep.” His eyes lock with
mine. “The ques­tion that I think deep down you’ve al­ready fig­ured out.”
I start to shake my head, but then I stop cold.
“I’m not her,” I whis­per, al­most to my­self.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, Tay­lor,” Kenzo mur­murs as he starts to
step away. “But there’s an­other you out there. And I would very much like
to find her.”
With­out an­other word, he turns and storms away into the crowd, leav­ing a
wreck­age of scream­ing, unan­swered ques­tions in his wake.

OceanofPDF.com
 24

TAY­L OR

T he rea ­s on peo ­p le tell you to never pull at a string is that once you start,
there’s no go­ing back. Un­til fi­nally, you’ve pulled so much that the whole
sweater comes un­rav­eled.
And yet, it’s so hard to see a lit­tle string and not want to pull it.
A week af­ter the gala in Mos­cow, it feels like I’m at a weird cross­roads.
On the one hand, I’ve slowly started to ac­cept who I am. Even though “who
I am” is com­pli­cated. Be­cause I’m start­ing to be­lieve I’m two dif­fer­ent peo­‐
ple.
One is the woman I’ve known for fif­teen years. Her name is Tay­lor. She
loves the few close friends she has, work­ing out, Van Mor­ri­son, and trashy
re­al­ity TV. She’s also a com­plete worka­holic, is mar­ried to her job, doesn’t
know what a work-life bal­ance even looks like, and is fine with all of that.
She’s more than fine. She thrives on it.
She’s built a ca­reer and an em­pire, and if that came at the ex­pense of a
house in the burbs with a dot­ing hus­band, two point five chil­dren, a dog and
a mini­van, so be it.
She’s great with that choice.
Then there’s the other “me”. The girl I for­got fif­teen years ago. Her name is
An­nika. Her fam­ily is, or was, Ser­bian mafia. I don’t know what sort of mu­‐
sic she liked, or what she did for fun, or if she ever watched re­al­ity tele­vi­‐
sion.
She mar­ried out of duty. Then she par­tic­i­pated in a hor­ri­ble, loath­some
event. The only thing keep­ing me from tear­ing my own soul out with guilt
and hor­ror there is that I don’t re­mem­ber it, or my mo­tive for be­ing part of
it.
And that’s it. That’s all I know. Or all I knew, and I was hav­ing an in­ter­est­‐
ing enough time try­ing to jug­gle and han­dle both those re­al­i­ties and selves.
But then Mos­cow hap­pened, and I met Kenzo.
Sud­denly, the bal­ance is all shaken up again.
“An­swers to all the things you can’t ex­plain, Ms. Crown. The gaps in your
mem­ory. The things you do when you’re asleep. The ques­tion that I think
deep down, you’ve al­ready fig­ured out.”
“I’m not her.”
“There’s an­other you out there.”
I’ve been won­der­ing why my great-aunt Flo­rence would tell me my name
is Tay­lor when the ev­ery­one I’ve met since crash­ing into Drazen’s world
knows me as An­nika. But I’ve looked into my fam­ily time and time again
over the years, us­ing ev­ery re­source I could to dig as deep as pos­si­ble. But
the same ques­tions for­ever re­main unan­swered, be­cause of who my par­ents
were. Well, who I thought they were.
Flo­rence al­ways told me in a hushed tone, as if wor­ried some­one was lis­ten­‐
ing, that they worked for the CIA. That ac­counted for the huge amount of
money they left me, and the to­tal black hole that their pasts were. When­ever
I dug into Paul and Lea Crown, I never found any­thing.
No other liv­ing fam­ily, ei­ther. Great-Aunt Flo­rence was the last of them.
But af­ter fight­ing my way back from the black­ness and re­learn­ing who I
was and how to nav­i­gate the world, I chose to look for­ward. I chose to see
the ac­ci­dent that took my mem­o­ries as a marker, sep­ar­ at­ing the two parts of
my life. And af­ter re­learn­ing all that I know now about the “other” part of
me I for­got, I was start­ing to make peace with the two parts of my life: the
“be­fore” An­nika and the “af­ter” Tay­lor.
Now I’m not so sure about any of it. I’m not sure I even AM An­nika.
But if that’s the case…who the fuck am I?
A knock on my bed­room door yanks me out of my thoughts and I turn to
see Drazen stand­ing in the door­way. It’s funny: I’ve been here a month now,
and this is still “my” room, just like he sleeps in “his” room.
He’s chased me around the house. He’s tied me to his bed or mine. He’s
spanked me, fucked me, come in and on me, and made me scream for more
as he pushes me past ev­ery blurry black line I have and into ev­ery de­praved
fan­tasy I’ve ever had.
But we’ve never once spent the night to­gether.
I’m not sure if I’m com­plain­ing about that, but it’s some­thing I’m more and
more aware of as time goes on.
“Yes?” I glance over at him.
“Din­ner­time,” Drazen growls.
Yeah, he won’t sleep with me or spend the night in a bed with me. But he’ll
still de­mand that I eat din­ner with him ev­ery night.
Okay, maybe I am com­plain­ing about the sleep­ing ar­range­ments.
“Not hun­gry,” I shrug, look­ing away.
“And I wasn’t ask­ing. It’s din­ner­time. Come and sit with me, even if you
just stare at your food.”
I roll my eyes and whirl back to glare at him. “I’m re­ally not in the mood to
have or­ders barked at me, okay?”
I turn my back to him and pick up the Crown and Black work file I’ve been
read­ing. Sud­denly, I feel and hear him storm­ing across my room.
“What—hey!”
I squeal when Drazen grabs me roughly, pick­ing me up as if I’m weight­less
and throw­ing me over his fuck­ing shoul­der.
“What the shit!” I scream, slam­ming my fists into his broad chest. “The
fuck are you do­ing!?”
“You said you weren’t in the mood for barked or­ders. So I’m not bark­ing.”
He ig­nores my swats and hits as he marches out of my room with me over
his shoul­der, stom­ach-down, his arm wrapped around my mid­dle.
“But you will come eat with me.”
“Fuck­ing psy­chopath,” I hiss.
I jolt as he reaches up with his other hand, yanks my skirt up over my hips,
and swats my ass. I yelp, squeal­ing as I squirm against his shoul­der.
“Stop it! Stop—ugh.”
I bite my lip when he spanks me again, send­ing a flam­ing pulse through my
core and a needy ache throb­bing be­tween my legs.
His palm spanks my ass again, this time stay­ing where it lands to mas­sage
and knead the burn­ing skin. His fin­ger curls un­der the back of my thong and
he tugs, mak­ing my eyes flut­ter shut as the fric­tion of lace on my clit sends
ex­plo­sions through my nerve end­ings.
We step out­side onto one of the many ve­ran­das over­look­ing the ocean. This
one acts as an out­door din­ing room, with a small ta­ble, hang­ing cas­cad­ing
flow­ers, and torches. Din­ner is laid out, and for a minute when he grabs me
off his shoul­der, I think he’s go­ing to plop me down and force feed me.
But that’s not what hap­pens.
At. All.
I gasp as he sets me on my feet fac­ing the ta­ble and then roughly shoves me
for­ward over it. My pulse spikes, my lungs chok­ing off my breath as I
moan. Drazen growls as he grabs the back of one of my knees, shov­ing it
onto the ta­ble be­fore he yanks up my skirt and rips my panties to the side.
“You made me late for din­ner, lit­tle slut,” he rasps into my ear. I cry out as I
feel two of his fin­gers run up and down my lips be­fore he rams them into
me. My moans echo through the night and out over the black ocean as he
curls his fin­gers deep and strokes them against my g-spot.
“And now,” he hisses, bit­ing my ear and my neck madly, like a ra­bid an­i­‐
mal, “I’m fuck­ing starv­ing.”
He drops to his knees be­hind me, slaps my ass, shove my leg up higher, and
then sears his mouth be­tween my thighs from be­hind.
Sweet fuck­ing God.
I cry out, a deep, husky, shud­der­ing moan I barely even rec­og­nize as my
voice rip­ping from my mouth. His tongue plunges into me, fuck­ing me
deeply with it. My eyes roll back and my fin­gers claw at the ta­ble as
Drazen’s tongue drives in and out be­fore curl­ing around my clit.
He wraps his tongue around my swollen bud, suck­ing as his tongue teases
in slow, de­lib­er­ate cir­cles. His tongue drags back and forth, tin­gling over
my clit and then div­ing down to part my lips and push into me.
He teases his tongue back even fur­ther. My eyes widen and flut­ter as they
roll back, and an­other gut­tural, pri­mal moan rips from my chest as his
tongue dances over my ass­hole.
“Fuck,” I whim­per as the tip of his tongue pushes past my tight ring. “Oh
fuck….”
I yelp as he spanks me, my ass­hole spas­ming around his tongue.
“Such a filthy lit­tle fuck toy,” he growls against my skin. “Reach back,” he
com­mands. “Reach back and spread your­self wide for me, my lit­tle whore.”
Dirty slut.
Fuck toy.
Cum­slut.
Lit­tle whore.
I’ve had dark de­sires about the chas­ing, and the pri­mal kink, and the con­‐
sen­sual non-con­sent for years. I’ve fan­tasied about be­ing held down or tied
up and forced. And sure, telling me “good girl” has al­ways pushed my but­‐
tons.
But it wasn’t un­til Drazen that I re­al­ized how fuck­ing hot those filthy, de­‐
mean­ing, fucked-up things he calls me are. I think, too, that those words
com­ing from any­one else’s mouth would in­stantly put my vagina in shut-
down mode. I mean, I think of Steven call­ing me his “good lit­tle cum­slut”
and I want to gag.
Drazen says it, and I want to gag on his cock.
I want to de­mean my­self for him. I want to show him ex­actly how fuck­ing
dirty and filthy and slutty I can be for him.
So when I reach back, I moan loudly as I grab my ass and spread my ass
cheeks lewdly apart for him. I cry out, beg­ging for more when he tongues
my ass­hole deeply and then pushes his fin­ger into my back hole.
I scream in plea­sure when his mouth finds my clit again, his tongue danc­ing
over the throb­bing nub as his fin­gers plunge in and out of both of my holes,
un­til my thighs are shak­ing and the leg I’m stand­ing on threat­ens to give
out.
He sucks harder on my clit, his fin­gers pump­ing in and out and stroking
against places in­side me that make me want to ex­plode.
Then, sud­denly, I do.
I’ve never been “a screamer”. I’m the girl that bites her pil­low or cov­ers her
mouth, or just keeps it tightly shut.
Well, I was that girl. But not any­more.
And when I come, the scream that rips from my throat echoes through the
night. My face scrunches up against the table­cloth, heed­less of the spilled
wine and scat­tered cut­lery as my fin­gers dig into my ass cheeks and
Drazen’s mouth and hands drive me into obliv­ion.
I’m still shak­ing when he moves away from me. I slip from the edge of the
ta­ble, trem­bling and whim­per­ing as I sink to my knees.
He’s not done with me.
Drazen groans as he grabs a fist­ful of my hair, twist­ing my head around. His
cock is out and huge—red and swollen, bulging with veins. His hand is
pump­ing his fat girth, squeez­ing as it slides wetly up and down the pre­cum-
slicked shaft.
“Open your mouth,” he groans. “There’s a good girl.”
I whim­per as I turn to face him on my knees, my mouth open and my
tongue out.
“I get so fuck­ing hard tast­ing your pretty lit­tle pussy,” he growls, pump­ing
his fist roughly up and down his swollen dick. “So now you’re gonna make
me come, my lit­tle cum­slut.”
My skin tin­gles. My nip­ples tighten and throb as I reach up to cup his heavy
balls. My eyes lock with his as ev­ery filthy, slutty, dirty in­stinct he brings
out in me comes roar­ing to the sur­face.
“Please give me your cum, daddy.”
Drazen’s jaw clenches tight. The vein on his fore­head throbs and his eyes
blaze with raw lust as his cock bulges hard and thick.
He chokes out a rough, deep, mas­cu­line groan as the hot white cum sprays
from his swollen head. I moan as it splat­ters onto me, thick ropes of it land­‐
ing across my cheeks and my mouth, drip­ping down my chin onto my shirt.
I shiver in the en­su­ing si­lence as his pierc­ing eyes lock with mine. A small
smile curls de­vi­ously at the cor­ners of his mouth.
“Good girl”.
Holy fuck.
I feel my face burn­ing as I slowly get to my shaky feet. I reach for a nap­kin
on the wrecked din­ner ta­ble. But Drazen stops me, his hand grab­bing mine
and pulling it away. He spins me around, and my breath stut­ters as he cups
my face and looks down into my eyes.
Sud­denly, he’s kiss­ing me, hard.
His tongue tan­gles with mine, swirling his cum across my lips as I fuck­ing
melt against him.
When he pulls away, his eyes are still locked on mine.
“Leave the rest where it is,” he growls. “I want to see my cum on your
pretty face while we have our meal.”

Y ep , I’ve of­fi­cially gone off the deep end into Drazen­land. Which is ba­si­‐
cally the in­san­ity and dan­ger of Willy fuck­ing Wonka’s bizarro fac­tory, but
with less ev­er­last­ing gob­stop­pers and oompa loom­pas and more sex­ual ex­‐
pe­ri­ences that fling me miles past any­thing I’ve ever even dreamed of.
I am not com­plain­ing.
Af­ter din­ner, and af­ter Drazen kisses me good­night…again…I head back to
my room to shower and get ready for bed. When I step out of the bath­room
later, wrapped in a towel, I frown when my gaze lands on my bed.
Or rather, the box sit­ting on it.
Cu­rios­ity sim­mers in my veins as I sit on the edge of the bed with the box
on my lap and open it. In­stantly, my hand flies to my mouth, my eyes brim­‐
ming with tears as they widen.
Oh my God…
The box is filled with pho­to­graphs.
Of me.
Me, my mother, and my fa­ther.
Tears trickle down my cheeks, blur­ring my vi­sion as I sift through the
dozens of pho­tos and stare at them in awe. Most are of just me, laugh­ing
and gig­gling as a small kid. Rid­ing a bike down a huge gravel drive­way
with high walls and an im­mense iron gate at the end.
Me eat­ing pizza.
Me draw­ing a pic­ture, or on a com­puter. Me watch­ing The Lion King on a
huge couch or play­ing Gold­en­eye on a Nin­tendo 64 in what looks like a
pool house.
But oth­ers in­clude them, too.
My par­ents.
My dad, with his strong, tall, and broad-shoul­dered frame, and a black mus­‐
tache that hon­estly suits him. He doesn’t smile much in the pho­tos. But
there’s a few with a slight grin, usu­ally when I’m in his arms or laugh­ing
next to him.
And then there’s my mom. When I see those ones, my heart wrenches. She
re­ally does look just like me: like an older sis­ter, not a mother. We’ve got
the same hair, and the same face and eyes. Same legs, same smile.
I flip through photo af­ter photo of her laugh­ing on a swing with me in her
arms. She and I bak­ing cook­ies, or blow­ing out what’s clearly her birth­day
cake can­dles to­gether.
The tears flow hot down my face, and my sobs fill my ears—so loudly that
I don’t even re­al­ize he’s en­tered the room un­til I feel his thumb brush across
my cheek.
I jolt, star­tled by his touch. When I look up at him, my heart surges as our
eyes lock.
“How…” I choke. “I barely have any from…from be­fore…”
“Your house is gone,” he growls qui­etly. “Af­ter…ev­ery­thing…it was sold
and even­tu­ally torn down. Most of what was in­side was sold at auc­tion.”
He nods at the box in my hands as he kneels in front of me.
“I’ve been track­ing down what­ever I could. This fi­nally ar­rived just now
while you were show­er­ing, af­ter I found it in an an­tiques shop in
Dubrovnik. I know it’s not much, but I thought⁠—”
I shove the box aside and wrap my arms around him, si­lenc­ing him. My
face presses tightly into the crook of his neck as I crawl into his lap and his
em­brace, snug­gling as tightly into him as I can.
“Thank you,” I whis­per.
“You’re wel­come.”

OceanofPDF.com
 25

TAY­L OR

A bout those strings , and pulling them…

My string is the cheap black flip phone that Kenzo Mori pressed into my
hand at the Mos­cow gala. That night, with guilt flow­ing through my veins
like fire, I hid it away in my lit­tle evening bag. Back here at the house, I’ve
kept it in a box of tam­pons un­der the sink in my bath­room.
Out of sight. But not out of mind.
“An­swers to all the things you can’t ex­plain, Ms. Crown.”
I don’t know why I haven’t told Drazen about meet­ing Kenzo. It’s not just
be­cause he told me not to. It just feels…
Well, like I shouldn’t. Like it will set fires that can’t be put out. There’s also
a lit­tle fear in the back of my mind of it blow­ing over onto Fumi, just for
be­ing Kenzo’s half-sis­ter. And they’re not even close, her hav­ing just
learned of his ex­is­tence re­cently.
Yet, the longer that god­damn thing stays un­der the bath­room sink, the
guiltier I feel. It’s as if the mere pres­ence of that phone means I’m cheat­ing
on Drazen.
At the same time, I don’t know if even fuck­ing an­other guy, given what­ever
Drazen’s and my ar­range­ment is, would be con­sid­ered cheat­ing. Not that I
want to fuck any­one else.
What the hell are we? A cou­ple? It some­times feels like it, in a weird way.
Other times, not so much. Tech­ni­cal­i­ties of us be­ing mar­ried aside, it
feels…un­de­fined. Prob­ab­ ly be­cause it is. I mean I’m stuck here on his is­‐
land. And it’s not like I’ve got op­por­tu­ni­ties to—or any re­mote in­ter­est in—
sleep­ing with any other man on this is­land, like any of the guards, or that
gruff guy, Mi­los, who al­ways looks like he’s an­noyed at me.
But Drazen leaves. Not of­ten, but ev­ery now and then. I know he’s off the
is­land. Some­times he tells me he’s leav­ing, other times he doesn’t. Ei­ther
way, God only knows where he goes.
Or who he sees…
My brow fur­rows as my gaze slips from the book in my hand to my bath­‐
room door.
“Hide this. When you’re ready for an­swers, use it.”
It’s been three weeks since the ball. For all I know, Kenzo’s of­fer was an
ex­plod­ing, time-lim­ited one. He could’ve meant “when you’re ready for an­‐
swers to­mor­row” or “in the next few days.”
Not “al­most a month from now.”
Then again… There’s only one way to know for sure.
I’m off the bed be­fore I can stop my­self. My hand ri­fles through the box of
tam­pons un­til I find the lit­tle phone, a tin­gling feel­ing claw­ing up my neck
as I pull it out.
This feels wrong. I haven’t even done any­thing yet, and it still feels like I’m
do­ing some­thing wrong.
But while the box of pho­tos Drazen gave me has be­come one of the most
pre­cious ob­jects I’ve ever owned, and even though I spend al­most ev­ery
night look­ing through them, it’s still not enough.
I need more.
I need more an­swers to ques­tions I’m al­most scared to ask.
Who am I.
You’re An­nika Bran­covich AND Tay­lor Crown.
But what if I’m not? What if I’m only one of them?
And what if Kenzo Mori has the an­swers to those hard ques­tions?
I’ve kept the phone off since he gave it to me—one, I wouldn’t want it to
ring. Two, I don’t have a charger for it, and I have no idea where on
Drazen’s lit­tle is­land fortress I’d find a charger for what looks like a flip
phone from twenty years ago.
When I turn it on and flip to the con­tacts, I see only one there. There’s no
name, but it’s clear who it is.
ME
I might be ready for an­swers

Sur­pris­ingly, the re­ply comes within sec­onds.

UN­KNOWN
When can you meet?

I shiver, frown­ing at the screen.

ME
When can YOU meet?
UN­KNOWN
Tonight. Now.

My eyes widen. What?

ME
I’m not in Mos­cow
UN­KNOWN
I’m aware of where you are. If you’re able to sneak out, meet
me at the row­boat moored off the north­ern edge of the is­land in
two hours. I’ll wait ten min­utes. Af­ter that, this num­ber will dis­‐
ap­pear

Some­thing fin­ger-walks up my back. I was look­ing for an­swers. I’m not so

sure about a cloak-and-dag­ger James Bond night out.
An­swers. He has an­swers.
I chew on my lip as I ner­vously open and close the lit­tle phone. Fi­nally, I
flip it back open.
ME
See you there

S neak ­i ng out of the house isn’t hard. I mean noth­ing is locked, and at this
point, I have to­tal free rein. What’s harder is avoid­ing Drazen’s men that pa­‐
trol the im­me­di­ate vicin­ity of the house it­self.
I end up hav­ing to duck be­hind a tree once, and then crouch­ing in some
scratchy bushes for a full ten min­utes when two of his men stop to smoke
cig­ar­ ettes and chat in what I as­sume is Ser­bian five feet from my hid­ing
spot.
Af­ter that, though, I’m out into the dark­ness of the lightly wooded is­land
and run­ning to­ward the north­ern side.
At the wa­ter’s edge, I stop to quickly change into a bathing suit I’ve
brought. The idea of swim­ming through a com­pletely dark, black ocean to a
boat I can’t even re­ally see right now since the moon is so dim sounds com­‐
pletely fuck­ing ter­ri­fy­ing.
So does try­ing to sneak back to my room in drip­ping wet clothes.
So with a fi­nal breath and a pep talk to my own frayed nerves, I leave my
clothes and the towel I brought on the rocky beach and step into the quiet
surf.
The wa­ter is rel­at­ively warm. But I made the mis­take of googling “sharks
Elba” a few weeks ago just for kicks.
Spoiler: they live in this very ocean. Blue sharks mostly, but the oc­ca­sional
white, mako, and ham­mer­head has been spot­ted around these wa­ters as
well.
So that’s got me half-pet­ri­fied as I slip into the wa­ter, set my eyes on the
dark row­boat moored off­shore, and start swim­ming.
I swear to God, ev­ery stroke has me won­der­ing when some­thing is go­ing to
surge out of the dark­ness and bite me. But sooner than I would have ex­‐
pected, the boat it­self looms out of the dim moon­light.
I gasp, chok­ing on a mouth­ful of sea­wa­ter as a face sud­denly ap­pears above
me, dark eyes pierc­ing into mine.
“Take my hand,” Kenzo mur­murs qui­etly, ex­tend­ing his arm.
I take it, sur­prised by his strength as he eas­ily lifts me out of the wa­ter and
into the boat. My wet skin prick­les with the sud­den chill of the air. But then
Kenzo of­fers me a towel from a black wa­ter­proof bag, like some­thing a
Navy SEAL would use.
“Thanks,” I mum­ble, tak­ing it and wrap­ping it around my­self. I’ve had my
glasses tucked into the top of my one-piece dur­ing the swim. Awk­wardly, I
reach into the suit and pull them out, dry­ing them with the towel be­fore I
slip them on and look up at him.
Oh…okay.
I don’t know why I’m sur­prised to find that Kenzo has also swum out to the
boat in a swim­suit. He’s sit­ting across from me in the stern of the boat, the
soft moon­light glint­ing off the hard, chis­eled lines of his lean, mus­cled
frame. Scars, from cut marks, run over his chest, his grooved abs, and one
shoul­der. One of his arms and what I think might be all his back is cov­ered
with breath­tak­ingly in­tri­cate and beau­ti­ful Yakuza tat­toos.
Parts of him look so much like his half-sis­ter, Fumi, that it’s freaky. And yet
other parts look en­tirely his own.
“Well, here we are,” he growls with a tense smile.
I suck on my teeth as we both size each other up. It feels like he’s look­ing at
me with the same kind of cu­rios­ity with which I’m re­gard­ing him.
“You told me you had an­swers,” I say, my voice low so it doesn’t carry over
the wa­ter. Drazen’s men pa­trol around the is­land. At night, their boats
would def­i­nitely have their lights on.
“You have to ask the ques­tions first.”
I swal­low, dig­ging deep for the courage to ask him what is burn­ing a hole in
my heart.
“Who am I?”
His lips curl.
“I think we both know you know who you are, Tay­lor.”
Tay­lor, not An­nika.
It’s been a few weeks since any­one’s called me that, and it sounds alien to
my ears.
“You know what I mean,” I fire back.
He gazes at me steadily. “What do you re­mem­ber from be­fore your ac­ci­‐
dent. Be­fore the am­ne­sia.”
“Noth­ing,” I say qui­etly. “I’ve even seen pic­tures of my child­hood and my
par­ents. There’s still noth­ing com­ing back.”
“Noth­ing at all?” he presses, peer­ing through the dark­ness at me. “No lit­tle
in­signif­i­cant de­tails, noth­ing big pic­ture?”
I shake my head. My heart sinks. Fuck, I re­ally thought he’d have an­swers,
not just more ques­tions.
“What about friends.”
My jaw grits as I shake my head. “Sorry, but I thought you said⁠—”
“Does the term in­vis­i­ble friend mean any­thing to you?”
It’s like get­ting dunked into ice wa­ter. My body tenses up, my breath leav­‐
ing my body in a whoosh as my vi­sion fades away.
“Come play, An­nika.”
“Play with me.”
“That’s my in­vis­i­ble friend…”
I jolt back to re­al­ity with Kenzo’s hands on my shoul­ders, shak­ing me.
When I blink and my vi­sion re­fo­cuses, the look in his eye is…con­cern.
“I’m go­ing to take that as a yes,” he growls.
I shud­der, hug­ging the towel around my­self as I try to catch my breath and
slow my rac­ing heart.
What the fuck was that.
My eyes lift to his. “What do you know,” I whis­per, shak­ing.
Kenzo’s chis­eled jaw rip­ples as his teeth grind.
“I know you’re not An­nika.”
I swal­low, still shak­ing. “Be­cause she died on this is­land, at the bridge?”
His head slowly shakes side to side.
“No,” he mur­murs.
“How do you know that?”
Kenzo pushes his wet hair back from his face.
“Be­cause I met An­nika in Ky­oto,” he rasps through clenched teeth. “Five
years ago.”
My body stiff­ens. My brain tries to put to­gether the pieces as I stare at him.
“I—I don’t un­der­stand.”
“I don’t ei­ther,” he mur­murs. “But I do know that⁠—”
Sud­denly, a light flick­ers in the dark­ness.
“Fuck,” Kenzo hisses, whip­ping around. “Get in the wa­ter. Now.”
My pulse spikes as he grabs the towel from me and stuffs it into his bag,
along with some­thing I didn’t see be­fore that was in the bot­tom of the boat
by his feet.
A gun.
Word­lessly, he zips up the bag, and we slip over the side qui­etly into the
wa­ter. The sound of a low boat en­gine rum­bles closer. A light sweeps over
the row­boat from the other side of it as we both push our­selves low to the
wa­ter­line, tread­ing wa­ter. Men’s voices qui­etly talk to one an­other be­fore
they go silent and the light goes out.
The barely au­di­ble en­gine put­ters away. Kenzo peeks around the side of the
row­boat we’re hid­den be­hind. Then he turns to look at me, his face lined
with con­cern.
“Get back to the house,” he hisses. “Now.”
Fear stabs through me. “Why the ur­gency?”
“Those men on the boat were speak­ing Rus­sian.”
A creep­ing sen­sa­tion skit­ters over my skin.
“You need to get the fuck back into that fortress of a house, Tay­lor,” Kenzo
growls. “Drazen’s men all speak Ser­bian. Those weren’t Drazen’s men.”
Holy shit.
“Crush the phone and hide the pieces when you get back,” he says rapidly.
“I’ll try to get in touch an­other way later when I can.” He slips the strap of
the bag around his chest and turns to face me, the dim moon­light barely il­‐
lu­mi­nat­ing his sharp fea­tures. “What I was go­ing to say be­fore,” he mur­‐
murs, “is that An­nika Bran­covich didn’t die on Drazen Krylov’s is­land. And
I know for damn sure that you’re not her.”
A ghostly chill rip­ples up my spine.
“Like I said, Tay­lor,” Kenzo says darkly. “I don’t know how to tell you this,
but there’s an­other you out there.”

I shiver as I step out of the surf back onto the rocky shore. My heart is rac­‐
ing—partly from the black night­mare that was the swim back from the boat.
Partly from Kenzo’s omi­nous warn­ing about the men pa­trolling the wa­ters
off Drazen’s is­land.
Partly from his part­ing words: there’s an­other you out there.
I change quickly, strip­ping off my swim­suit and stash­ing it be­hind some
rocks along with the towel af­ter I dry off as best I can. I can come for the
ev­i­dence to­mor­row. Right now is all about sneak­ing back in with­out get­ting
caught.
Dressed, my pulse still rac­ing, I quickly scram­ble back up the em­bank­ment.
I stick to the shad­ows, my ears hum­ming with adren­al­ine and the thud of
my heart­beat as I race back to the house.
Move­ment near me catches my eye. I flinch, whip­ping my head to the side.
Only shad­ows. Only dark­ness.
I’m los­ing it.
I keep speed-walk­ing, then up­grade to a light jog. Again, move­ment has me
yank­ing my gaze from in front of me to peer into the shad­ows.
My heart lurches.
There’s some­thing there.
I don’t think, I just turn and run. I bolt through the dark, al­most moon­less
night, rac­ing in the di­rec­tion of the house. The snap of twigs be­hind me has
my pulse jan­gling. The gruff snarl of a man’s voice has my heart climb­ing
into my throat.
Chanc­ing a glance be­hind me, my eyes go wide when I see a man in black,
a bal­ac­ lava over his face, charg­ing through the trees to­ward me. The scream
cur­dles in my throat as I whirl and start run­ning again. More move­ment
catches my eye to the side.
Holy fuck­ing God.
For one brief, ex­hil­ar­ at­ing sec­ond, I was won­der­ing if it was Drazen. I was
hop­ing it was him, even if he’d be pissed to know I’d snuck out.
But it’s not. There are two men in black chas­ing me through the night.
My foot catches, and I scream as I go tum­bling to the ground. My pulse
shrieks like a train whis­tle in my ear as I scrab­ble for pur­chase, get­ting up
again. I keep run­ning, but I can hear them right be­hind me. I can feel the
wind as one of their hands al­most grabs me, and the heat of their breath as
they close in.
The house lights are up ahead. Veer­ing to my left, I run as fast as I can to
the bro­ken stone wall that runs along the cliffs here. There’s no trees there. I
can run faster.
I’ll make it.
A hand grabs the back of my shirt. My heart ex­plodes into my throat, chok­‐
ing me as I get yanked back­ward off my feet. My back slams to the ground
as they pile onto me. Sheer, mad ter­ror sirens through my en­tire ex­is­tence as
one of them yanks out a vi­cious blade, leer­ing down at me as he lifts it.
His head snaps back in a vi­o­lent jerk. A red cir­cle ap­pears in his fore­head as
he slumps to the side. The other guy leaps up, gun in hand. In­stantly, he’s
gur­gling as a hole ex­plodes through his throat.
My hand flies to my mouth and my eyes bulge in hor­ror as he drops like a
stone. I scram­ble to my feet, spin­ning around, my heart still try­ing to claw
its way out of my chest.
Ter­ror grips me as I lock eyes with the man in the black devil mask and
black suit, a smok­ing gun in his hand and his pierc­ing blue eyes cut­ting into
my very soul.
Holy fuck.
It’s Drazen.
Just as I’m about to stag­ger to­ward him in sheer ela­tion, the look in his eyes
stops me. It hon­estly scares me, and the snarl on his lips un­der the edge of
his devil mask turns my heart to ice.
“I—”
“You’re in fuck­ing trou­ble,” he hisses. He starts to walk to­ward me with a
black, malev­o­lent en­ergy swirling around him like smoke. I shiver, back­ing
away as my heart be­gins to speed up again.
“Drazen—”
“You fuck­ing dis­obeyed me.”
I shiver as the backs of my legs hit the crum­bled wall over­look­ing the cliffs
down to the waves be­low. He keeps ad­vanc­ing on me, teeth bared, a ven­‐
omous glint in his eyes and a pri­mal look etched across his face.
“I—those men,” I choke. “They came out of⁠—”
“You think I give a fuck about two dead men?” Drazen snarls.
I shud­der, and some­thing wicked and de­viant and dis­turbingly ag­gres­sive
un­curls and lodges it­self deep in my core.
“No, my lit­tle fuck­ing slut,” he hisses as he storms up to me. “No, I am far
an­grier about the fuck­ing man you just met, in the dark, alone, in a fuck­ing
bathing suit.”
He grabs me by the throat and vi­o­lently spins me around. In one mo­tion,
he’s shov­ing me hard against the rock wall and knock­ing the backs of my
knees with his. I shud­der as my legs give out, drop­ping me to my knees and
he grabs the back of my neck and bends me over the wall.
He grabs the back of my shorts and yanks them down. I bite down hard on
my lip, shiv­er­ing in ex­plo­sive fear of what this man in his sheer wrath
might do to me.
…And trem­bling in an­tic­i­pa­tion for the very same rea­son.
Drazen yanks my panties down, let­ting them tan­gle at my knees be­fore he
smacks the fuck out of my ass. I yelp loudly, scram­bling and squirm­ing
against the rocks and the ground as he does it again.
Hie belt jan­gles.
His zip­per yanks down.
“You fucked up, my lit­tle cum­slut,” he snarls vi­ciously in a tone that chills
my blood. “And now you’re go­ing to learn what hap­pens to bad lit­tle sluts
who de­cide to meet other men in the dark.”
His gun cocks.
My face goes white as some­thing ut­terly pri­mal sinks its claws into the
dark­est, most de­praved, most shame­ful hid­den cor­ners of my psy­che.
“You thought we were play­ing dark be­fore, slut?” he hisses in my ear.
The warm metal of the re­cently fired gun presses be­tween my lips and rubs
against my pussy, turn­ing my soul black.
“Think. A. Gain.”

OceanofPDF.com
 26

TAY­L OR

It’s pure in ­s an ­i ty .

Mad­ness.
The cul­mi­na­tion of all my most for­bid­den thoughts and fucked-up fan­tasies
man­i­fest­ing in the sin­gle most un­hinged mo­ment of my life.
On my knees, in the dark, with a gor­geous psy­chopath rub­bing his fuck­ing
gun on my pussy.
That in it­self is be­yond de­ranged. But what makes it ten times worse is the
fact that I’m not plead­ing for my life or whim­per­ing for mercy.
I’m just whim­per­ing.
My skin is throb­bing. My nip­ples are tight­en­ing.
And I’m wet. Ex­tremely, shame­fully, con­fus­ingly wet.
I shud­der as Drazen rubs the warm bar­rel of the gun in mad­den­ingly slow
strokes against my clit.
This is be­yond in­sane. But there’s no pos­si­ble way I can ig­nore the dark,
twisted lust that he’s bring­ing out in me.
The fucked-up urges.
The gun rubs over my clit again as his palm smacks my ass, hard. I squeal
when he reaches up, yank­ing my hair in a fist and tug­ging, forc­ing my head
back and my spine to arch. The gun pushes against my needy core as I
shud­der with for­bid­den heat.
“You seem to be un­der the im­pres­sion that you’re al­lowed to go meet some
other man,” he snarls, sound­ing de­ranged in a way that shouldn’t thrill me
this much. “Alone,” he rasps. “In the fuck­ing dark.”
“Drazen—”
“Don’t fuck­ing talk.”
The bru­tal edge to his tone sends heated rip­ples danc­ing over my skin. He
reaches down, and I gasp as my panties shred when he rips them from my
thighs, then whim­per as he stuffs them into my mouth.
“Maybe it’s my fault,” he growls, a sadis­tic, clipped tone in his voice.
“Maybe I haven’t shown you how fuck­ing mine you are, wife. Per­haps I’ve
been ne­glect­ful about tak­ing ev­ery fuck­ing part of you.”
Oh fuck. Oh my God.
He’s se­ri­ously go­ing to do it.
Like this.
Here, with a fuck­ing gun in his hand.
I whim­per again when I hear him spit and feel the wet­ness trickle down the
cleft of my ass. He spits again, and this time it hits its tar­get. I shiver with a
vi­cious en­ergy and dark de­sire as he takes his thumb and rubs his spit over
my ass­hole. He pushes, adding pres­sure as I whine, my back arch­ing.
“Beg me all you want, my lit­tle toy,” he hisses. “Beg me not to. Plead with
me not to shove my fat cock up this tight lit­tle hole.”
He rubs my ring again, send­ing a shud­der rip­pling down my spine.
“Has any­one else ever had you here,” he hisses.
I’ve never done this. Not ever. I’ve never even had the de­sire to, with any­‐
one.
“An­swer the fuck­ing ques­tion,” he growls.
I moan, shak­ing my head.
“No other man’s felt this tight lit­tle hole swal­low his cock and wrap fuck­ing
tight around it.”
I shake my head as drool seeps into my panties.
“Good,” Drazen growls. “Be­cause I want you to re­mem­ber me claim­ing this
ass. Mak­ing you scream when I empty my balls in­side this tight lit­tle ass­‐
hole.”
His thumb pushes in­side.
JE­SUS FUCK­ING CHRIST.
I shud­der, mewl­ing qui­etly as I feel him rock his hips for­ward. His heavy,
swollen cock slaps against my needy pussy, mak­ing me shud­der and trem­‐
ble. I suck a breath in through my nose as he cen­ters the head and then
pushes it into me—not slid­ing all the way in, just…
Get­ting him­self wet.
Lubed.
Ready to claim the rest of me.
He spits on my ass again, then again. His thumb slips in and out of my tight
ring, get­ting me stretched and wet and ready. He grunts as he slides his cock
a lit­tle deeper in my pussy, mak­ing me whine in plea­sure be­fore it slides
back out.
His thumb eases out of my ass, rub­bing a slow, promis­ing cir­cle round the
ring.
“Time for your les­son, slut,” Drazen growls.
He cen­ters the thick head against my im­pos­si­bly tight lit­tle hole. I have no
idea how he’ll fit. Or how I’ll sur­vive this. But then, when he starts to push,
pure lust ex­plodes through my core.
Oh fuck…
He groans, pre­cum, my own arousal, and his spit all greas­ing his cock as the
head squeezes against my ass. Delir­ium makes my head spin as I suck in
an­other breath. He keeps adding pres­sure and keeps push­ing, and slowly, as
I ex­hale, I can feel my body yield­ing.
Open­ing.
Sub­mit­ting.
His hand yanks my hair again, mak­ing me shriek into the panties gag­ging
my mouth.
The head pushes through.
FUCKKK.
My eyes roll back, an in­sanely tight sen­sa­tion grip­ping me from the in­side
out. My lungs feel like they’re work­ing over­time. My blood burns like na­‐
palm in my veins as Drazen works his huge cock into my ass.
“There’s a good girl,” he purrs. “Such a good lit­tle whore, tak­ing my fat
cock up your slutty lit­tle ass.”
Holy fuck­ing hell.
“Take it like a good lit­tle anal slut. Like the greedy, slutty, pretty lit­tle
princess get­ting her ass reamed out that you are.”
He groans and drives an­other inch into me.
Oh. My. GOD.
Bit by bit, he starts to sink his dick into me. My breath chokes as I moan
and whim­per and drool into my panties, my en­tire body shak­ing.
And then I feel it.
Warm metal again my clit.
Holy shit.
He starts to rub my clit with his gun as his cock sinks into me. Inch by inch.
Lit­tle by lit­tle.
The world blurs and my senses go numb. It hurts, but it’s such a fuck­ing
good hurt that I scream al­most in tri­umph into my gag. And then, through
the pain, some­thing warm be­gins to wash over me.
Some­thing out­ra­geously erotic and raw. Some­thing that has me squirm­ing,
my toes claw­ing at the ground as my knees shake. As my thighs clench to­‐
gether and en­dor­phins flood my sys­tem.
What is this.
It feels too good. It’s the ut­terly sub­mis­sive feel­ing of Drazen push­ing his
big cock deep into my ass, and the in­sane, lu­di­crous mad­ness of the gun
rub­bing my clit.
It’s all of that.
It’s him.
And mostly, it’s me, com­ing hard.
The scream rips from my throat as Drazen tugs on my hair, rub­bing me with
the gun.
“Theeeerre’s a good girl,” he snarls, slap­ping my ass as I ex­plode. “My
fuck­ing good girl,” he soothes, stroking my skin. “My good lit­tle ass slut.
Be a good fuck-toy and push back,” he groans. “Taken that huge dick, baby­‐
girl. Let me feel that tight lit­tle vir­gin ass swal­low my fuck­ing cock.”
He pushes deeper.
And deeper.
My eyes roll back and a silent scream erupts from my mouth as he pushes
all the way in, un­til I feel his abs again my ass. He leans over me, and I
shiver when his teeth clamp down on my ear­lobe.
“You’re fuck­ing MINE.”
Then, he truly starts to fuck me.
It’s pure delir­ium as Drazen eases his cock al­most all the way out of my ass
and then rams it back in. I cry out, moan­ing and writhing and whim­per­ing
into the panties. Then they’re plucked from my mouth, and I cry out loudly
as Drazen grabs my hair and starts to ream my ass.
“Scream for me, my lit­tle cum­slut,” he rasps as he fucks me. “I want the
whole fuck­ing world to know just how mine you are. I want them to know
all of you is mine. Scream it out for me, baby­girl,” he grunts, fuck­ing into
me hard. “Tell them who you be­long to.”
“You!” I choke, shud­der­ing as his gun rubs my clit again. “I be­long to
you!!”
“What’s mine,” he snarls, his hips pound­ing into me.
“Me!”
“This pussy?”
“Yes!” I scream, sob­bing and shak­ing as the plea­sure over­whelms me.
“This mouth?”
“Yessss,” I sob in ec­stasy as my mind breaks.
The gun slips be­tween my pussy lips.
It fuck­ing pushes into me.
Oh my sweet fuck­ing GOD.
“What else is mine, Tay­lor.”
My uni­verse goes up­side-down.
“My asssss!” I cry out, ut­terly shat­ter­ing at the seams.
“And where is my fuck­ing cock right now,” he hisses darkly.
“My ass!”
I lose all con­trol as I start to come again. His hips slam into me, his swollen
cock thrust­ing in and out as the gun pen­et­rates me. I’m vaguely aware of
com­ing again, then again, be­fore Drazen’s teeth are sud­denly clamp­ing
down my neck. His hand slides un­der me, yank­ing up my t-shirt and maul­‐
ing my breasts as he fucks me with his gun and buries his cock balls-deep in
my ass.
I feel his mus­cles clench—feel his pulse thud­ding in­side of me. Then, the
re­lease: the thick, throb­bing warmth as his hot cum spills deep in­side. He
roars his re­lease, sav­aging my neck with his teeth as I col­lapse against the
crum­bled wreck­age of the stone wall.
I’m shak­ing ev­ery­where as he slowly low­ers me to the ground on my side.
He goes to slide out, but I reach back to grab him, keep­ing him where he is.
“Not yet,” I choke in a hoarse whis­per.
“I’m not go­ing any­where, love.”
It’s like I’m lost. Float­ing out over the dark­ness. And yet wholly and com­‐
pletely held and pro­tected.
Cap­tured.
Caught.
Pos­sessed.
We just stay like that, his arms around me, his fin­gers teas­ing my skin and
his lips dust­ing my neck with kisses, un­til I turn and sear my mouth to his.
Gin­gerly, he slides out of me. With­out a word, he picks me up, wraps me in
his arms, and car­ries me into the house, toss­ing his gun and the mask some­‐
where in­side the front door. I cling to him as he brings me through his bed­‐
room to his bath­room, where he kicks on the hot wa­ter in the shower.
The spray burns when he car­ries me un­der it. But he stays wrapped around
me, only pulling away to peel the rest of his clothes off be­fore he pulls me
back into his arms. His mouth slowly de­vours mine, kiss­ing away the pain
and the in­san­ity as my body un­clenches un­der the heat of the wa­ter.
Drazen takes his time, wash­ing ev­ery part of me and then sham­poo­ing my
hair. Con­di­tioner fol­lows be­fore he wraps his huge arms around me, keep­‐
ing me tight to him as the wa­ter pours over us.
My eyes are drift­ing shut as he tow­els me off and car­ries me to bed: his bed,
which he gets into with me.
“What are you do­ing…?” I mum­ble.
We don’t share a bed. We don’t spend the night.
“For once in your fuck­ing life, coun­selor,” he growls. “Stop with the fuck­‐
ing ob­jec­tions.”
I smile as I snug­gle back into him, feel­ing his heat and his strength en­velop
me from be­hind.
“Sleep, love,” he mur­murs qui­etly.
And I do.

OceanofPDF.com
 27

DRAZEN

S ome changes hap ­p en grad ­u ­a lly : a slow evo­lu­tion from one state to an­‐
other. I know that when I look back now on the path my life has taken, and
see­ing the past ver­sions of my­self I have shed along the way.
But other changes do hap­pen overnight.
Some­times quite lit­er­ally.
One night, I was still sleep­ing alone, in my own bed. The next night, I
wasn’t the only one in it.
Since then, An­nika in my bed has be­come an ev­ery night thing. Or Tay­lor. I
don’t know what to call her any­more. It’s be­come in­creas­ingly clear to me
that the woman stay­ing in my home and shar­ing my bed re­ally is two dif­fer­‐
ent peo­ple. The first is the girl I mar­ried fif­teen years ago. The cold, closed-
off, quiet and un­cer­tain teenager who mum­bled “yes” to a prom­ise nei­ther
of us wanted to make.
The woman whom I wake up next to ev­ery morn­ing now is some­one else
al­to­gether. Bold and con­fi­dent. Tena­cious and un­flinch­ing. A woman who
faces the world on her terms and tells it ex­actly how to be­have. A woman
who looks me in the eye and says pre­cisely what she’s think­ing, no mat­ter
the con­se­quences.
It’s in­fu­ri­at­ing. But it’s also re­fresh­ing. And it’s be­come some­thing I look
for­ward to. A chal­lenge, to keep me sharp and on my toes.
So yes, she’s two peo­ple: the one from the past, and the one in the present.
Be­fore, she was An­nika, and now, she’s Tay­lor. So for the last few days,
that’s the name I’ve been us­ing with her. At first, she was sur­prised. But she
also couldn’t hide her smile when­ever I said it. And god­damn if I don’t en­‐
joy that smile. So I’ve kept say­ing it.
But then there’s an­other overnight change.
One lit­tle word that I never once in­tended to or thought about say­ing out
loud. But out it popped, with no way of putting it back in the box.
Love.
It wasn’t pre­ceded by an “I” or fol­lowed by a “you”. But still, it’s…out
there.
Come what may.
“Boss.”
I look up from my desk as Mi­los steps into my of­fice.
“Got a sec­ond?” I nod as he plops down in one of the chairs across the desk
from me, a manila folder in his hands. “There’s two things we need to dis­‐
cuss.”
I frown. “Is this a bad news first or good news first thing?”
He gri­maces. “They’re both shit. One in­volves a meal, though, if that
helps.”
Mi­los clears his throat as he drops the folder in front of me. I reach for it,
but he keeps his fin­ger pinned on it for a mo­ment.
“Can I speak freely?”
“By all means,” I grunt.
My friend in­hales slowly. “Is there a rea­son you haven’t just asked her who
she met the other night?”
I have, in fact. Once. But in­stead of say­ing a name, she looked me in the
eye and asked me to drop it. She asked me to trust her and said it was
merely some­one who might have an­swers to parts of her past.
And I agreed to let it go.
I do trust her. But that’s not why I agreed.
I agreed be­cause I al­ready knew who the fuck she’d met. I just needed con­‐
fir­ma­tion of it.
I nod at the folder un­der Mi­los’ fin­ger. “Can I as­sume you’re about to ‘sur­‐
prise me’ with cleaned-up night-vi­sion shots of Kenzo Mori sit­ting in my
row­boat talk­ing to my wife in the mid­dle of the night?”
Mi­los scowls darkly. “You fuck­ing knew?”
I say noth­ing as I slip the folder out from un­der his fin­ger and flip it open.
Sure enough, the some­what shit im­ages taken by a se­cu­rity cam­era on the
shore have been run through a com­puter pro­gram that uses AI to clean up
pho­tos, giv­ing me a clear shot of the man sit­ting in the bow of the boat,
talk­ing with Tay­lor.
Kenzo.
I know they were just talk­ing. I know from the pho­tos he didn’t touch her,
aside from pulling her out of the wa­ter, which not for noth­ing is en­rag­ing
enough.
But I don’t trust him. Specif­i­cally, his in­ter­est in her. And I sure as fuck
don’t like that he some­how had ac­cess to her and got her to come meet him
in the mid­dle of the night.
In a bathing suit.
In­se­cu­rity? No. Jeal­ousy? Per­haps. A mur­der­ous sen­sa­tion that some other
man was sneak­ing around in the night to meet up clan­des­tinely with what is
mine?
Fuck yes.
“Our guys are try­ing to track him down⁠—”
“They won’t,” I grunt.
I don’t know Kenzo that well. But I know enough to be sure that if he
doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be. The man is half Viking and half
samu­rai. He can charge at you with a god­damn axe and a bat­tle cry, or he
can slit your throat from the shad­ows be­fore you even know you’re dead.
I ex­hale. “But try any­way. If noth­ing else, he’ll know he’s be­ing tracked,
and it’ll oc­cupy a sliver of his at­ten­tion.” I drum my fin­gers on the desk and
raise my eyes to Mi­los. “What was the other shit news? In­volv­ing a meal?”
“You and An­nika have been in­vited to one. Din­ner, specif­i­cally.”
“With?” I ask cu­ri­ously.
His face dark­ens. “Vadik Belov.”
Fuck.
“Ob­vi­ously, this is where I ad­vise you what a ter­ri­ble idea it would be for
you to get within shoot­ing dis­tance of that fucker,” Mi­los mut­ters. “Af­ter
the other night.”
I turn to look out the door­way to the ve­randa and the ocean be­yond.
“We don’t know⁠—”
“Drazen,” Mi­los growls. “We know.”
The men I killed af­ter I found them chas­ing Tay­lor through the dark the
other night were hired guns—mer­ce­nar­ies from the Rus­sia-based Wer­ner
Group, made up of ex spe­cial forces from all over the world. Con­trac­tors
who’ll do dirty work for the high­est bid­der.
They’ve got two po­si­tions va­cant af­ter the other night.
“They were ob­vi­ously hired by Vadik. They knew the is­land, they knew
how to get past se­cu­rity⁠—”
“To be fair, she knew how to get past se­cu­rity,” I grin at him.
Mi­los doesn’t look re­motely amused.
“Don’t let other in­flu­ences in your life right now cloud your judge­ment,
Drazen,” he mut­ters. “You know what I’m talk­ing about.”
Busted. I stand from my desk and walk over to the door­way out to the ve­‐
randa.
“You’re prob­ab­ ly right, Mi­los. It prob­ab­ ly was Vadik. What we don’t know
is why.”
“Sim­ple: he hates you,” Mi­los mut­ters. “He hates your fam­ily. I mean, he
was the one who gave the or­der all those years ago, Drazen.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t know that I know that.” I turn to look at him. “And it
doesn’t ex­plain why would he choose now to try and…”
“What, take you out?” Mi­los growls. “Be­cause why not? No of­fence.”
I shake my head. “But it wasn’t me he was try­ing to take out. They were af­‐
ter her.” I look at him sharply. “When’s this din­ner?”
“To­mor­row.”
I gri­mace. “Fine. I’m go­ing.”
“Drazen—”
“We can as­sume it was Vadik who sent those men the other night. Maybe
be­cause he knows now that I know about his in­volve­ment with what hap­‐
pened. Or maybe he guesses why I want to join the Ta­ble. But we don’t
know any of this for sure. I’ll need to sit down with him and look him in the
eye to fig­ure that out. So yes, I’m go­ing.”
“The in­vite is for both of you…” he be­gins.
My jaw clenches. “Well, she’s not com­ing. Ob­vi­ously.”
Mi­los arches a brow. “Vadik is a dumb fuck, but he’s not stupid…if that
makes sense. If you come with­out her, he’s go­ing to won­der why.”
I scowl. He’s not wrong. That’s a red flag Vadik will see a mile away that I
don’t trust him, and he’ll throw up walls ac­cord­ingly.
“Fine,” I grunt. “She’ll come along. But a con­tin­gent of men will come with
us.”
Mi­los nods. “I’ll go with a team⁠—”
“Not you.”
He looks at me cu­ri­ously.
“I need some­one I trust on the out­side.”
“Just in case?” he smirks.
“Just in case.”

M y gaze swivels side­ways in the back of the Range Rover. But as it rum­‐
bles down the road from the pri­vate air­field to Vadik’s mas­sive sum­mer
house on the Black Sea, I’m not look­ing at the pris­tine beaches or the ocean
be­yond.
My gaze is firmly set­tled on some­thing much closer in the fore­ground.
Tay­lor.
She’s in a stun­ning black gown that looks painted onto her body. It’s some­‐
how both el­eg­ ant and taste­ful while also be­ing out­ra­geously sexy and al­lur­‐
ing.
Or maybe that’s just her. Maybe she could be wear­ing a garbage bag and I’d
be think­ing the same thing.
Ei­ther way, she looks gor­geous. Her hair is up in a high pony­tail, her long
red locks tum­bling down to her del­i­cate neck. She looks per­fect.
Al­most.
“Tay­lor?”
She star­tles, smil­ing in that way I’ve got­ten so fond of when I say her name.
Tay­lor.
“Here.”
I hand her a lit­tle vel­vet box, watch­ing her brows knit.
“What’s this?”
I lift a shoul­der. “Just a lit­tle some­thing sparkly for the evening. Not that
you need it. But Vadik is the sort of man who’s eas­ily dis­tracted by…” My
eyes drag up to hers. “Just open it.”
She does, and her eyes widen.
“Drazen…”
She pulls out the di­am ­ ond-stud­ded sil­ver bracelet with the large six-carat
di­am
­ ond cen­ter­piece fit­ted to the band. Her eyes fly to mine.
“I can’t wear this.”
“You can, and you will.”
“This must’ve cost a for­tune⁠—”
“There have to be some ben­ef­ its to be­ing forced to marry an in­ter­na­tional
crime lord, right?”
Her lips twist into a smirk and her cheeks flush as her big blue eyes lock
with mine.
“Some,” she shrugs, grin­ning.
I fas­ten it around her wrist just as our car pulls up to the gates of Vadik’s
sum­mer house with our en­tourage be­hind us. His men wave us all through,
and we drive to the mas­sive stone steps lead­ing to the dou­ble doors of his
es­tate.
I pull my gaze away from Tay­lor and look at the lav­ish home, man­i­cured
grounds, and garage full of price­less sports cars I know Vadik is fond of
col­lect­ing.
I smile to my­self.
I’ll en­joy slic­ing Vadik’s eye­lids off and mak­ing him watch as I burn this
en­tire es­tate to the ground one day soon.
Vadik greets us at the front doors, all af­fa­ble, glad-hand­ing host as he wel­‐
comes us into his home.
“Please! Come in!” the fucker chuck­les as we step in­side.
Yes, the Wer­ner Group mer­ce­nar­ies I killed the other night when they were
chas­ing Tay­lor were al­most cer­tainly hired by Vadik. But I’m not sit­ting at
the Iron Ta­ble yet. If I ac­cuse him of that with­out con­crete proof, he’ll be
able to twist it against me. In fact, by the very laws of the Ta­ble, Vadik
would be able to ini­ti­ate a ma­jor­ity vote for all the fam­i­lies to de­clare me a
per­sona non grata. Even to de­clare war on me.
I loathe the idea of bring­ing Tay­lor into this house, or any­where near this
ass­hole. But I need that proof. I need some­thing to con­nect him to the mer­‐
ce­nar­ies.
It’s not like I ex­pect to find some­thing sit­ting out on the din­ing ta­ble. But
Mi­los picked some of his best guys to ac­com­pany us tonight. A few of them
are cy­ber se­cu­rity ex­perts, too.
“It’s so good of you to ac­cept my in­vi­ta­tion, Drazen,” Vadik smiles at me.
“With you al­most sure to be voted onto the Ta­ble soon, I thought we could
take this time to be­come bet­ter ac­quainted. To be­come friends.”
I smile back at the snake. “Of course, Vadik. And thank you for your gen­er­‐
ous in­vi­ta­tion.”
He grins be­fore clear­ing his throat and nod­ding at my men as they fol­low us
up the stairs into the house. “I’m afraid I can’t al­low your men to en­ter my
home armed, though.”
No shit. That’s why I had them ar­rive armed to the teeth. Dis­tract him with
one weapon, so he doesn’t see the other one.
“Of course,” I smile be­fore turn­ing to my men and nod­ding. They know the
drill, and they al­low Vadik’s men to take their ri­fles and sidearms, stow­ing
them in a locked gun case.
What Vadik’s men don’t take, be­cause the com­po­nent parts are be­ing smug­‐
gled into the house in­side boot heels and hid­den pock­ets, are the wire­less
hack­ing tools that my men will be us­ing to crack Vadik’s home net­work and
glean ev­ery­thing they can.
“With your per­mis­sion, I’ve pre­pared a side room for your men while we
dine,” Vadik says with a wide smile. “With some of the finest vodka from
St. Pe­ters­burg for them to en­joy,” he chuck­les good-na­turedly. “If that is all
right with your boss, boys!”
I smile in amuse­ment, nod­ding to my men. “Of course! En­joy our host’s
gra­cious hos­pi­tal­ity, please.”
My men grin and el­bow each other ex­cit­edly.
It’s all an act.
Vadik leads Tay­lor and I into a sump­tu­ous sit­ting room with walls of book­‐
shelves and el­eg­ antly mas­cu­line leather fur­ni­ture. A blonde girl who barely
looks le­gal smiles awk­wardly at us as we en­ter. I re­mem­ber her as Vadik’s
“date” from the gala.
She looks just as happy to be here now as she did then.
“You re­mem­ber Polina, yes?” Vadik chuck­les lech­er­ously as he grabs the
girl’s ass and brings her closer.
“Of course,” Tay­lor says warmly, smil­ing at the poor girl. “So good to see
you again. I love your dress.”
Polina smiles shyly back. “Thank you. And your bracelet is beau­ti­ful.”
Tay­lor grins gen­uinely as she glances back at me. “Thank you. It was…a
gift.”
Vadik chuck­les. “Oh, this one knows all about gifts,” he snick­ers, rub­bing
Polina’s ass again as her face pales. “A neck­lace here, an apart­ment in Paris
there, fancy clothes…” He grins sala­ciously, turn­ing to wink at me. “And in
re­turn, she gifts me that tight lit­tle body and any hole I want, when­ever I
want it.”
Fuck­ing pig.
Polina looks mor­ti­fied as she drops her gaze to the ground.
“A toast, per­haps?” Vadik says, clap­ping his hands to­gether as he walks
over to the bar cart. He picks up a bot­tle of—holy shit, 2003 Petrus. He
turns to grin at me. “You’re a wine man, I hear?”
“I have mo­ments.”
“Then please, I in­sist. You open and pour for us. I don’t know how to pour
fine wine. I’m but a poor Rus­sian who grew up swill­ing bath­tub vodka,” he
chuck­les.
“It would ap­pear you can af­ford some im­pres­sive bot­tles now,” I smile
tightly.
He grins back. “In­deed, Drazan. For­tune has fa­vored both our fam­i­lies.”
I re­sist the urge to break his face against the near­est flat sur­face.
For­tune didn’t fa­vor my fam­ily. This piece of shit’s be­trayal and greed de­‐
stroyed my fam­ily.
But I push the im­pulse away, turn­ing to fo­cus on Tay­lor. On her eyes as
they meet mine. On the soft curve of her lips, and the feel of her hand as it
slips into mine and squeezes.
She knows what I’m think­ing and feel­ing.
I take the bot­tle from Vadik and open it, let­ting it breathe. Vadik hands out
glasses to the three of us and him­self, smil­ing as I pour the wine.
“To new friend­ships, and more for­tune for us all,” Vadik grunts, lift­ing his
glass. I wait with mine half­way to my lips, watch­ing as Vadik and Polina
drink first.
Poi­son­ing us ten min­utes af­ter en­ter­ing his home with eight of my men just
down the hall would be bold and reck­less even for this fuck. But you never
know.
Tay­lor and I glance at each other and drink our wine as well, sa­vor­ing the
in­sanely smooth and bold fla­vors.
“Now, I was hop­ing you and I could…” Vadik shrugs. “Dis­cuss some busi­‐
ness be­fore din­ner that is maybe best talked about with­out the com­pany of
our dates.”
I glance at Tay­lor.
“Oh, Polina and I would love some girl time, right?” She beams as she turns
to Polina. “With­out the men,” she laughs plas­ti­cally. Fuck, she’s good at
this.
“Y—yes,” the girl stam­mers, forc­ing a smile. “Of course.”
“Come,” Vadik nods with his chin for me to fol­low him out of the room.
“We can go to my study. Bring your wine.”
I glance back at Tay­lor. Be­fore I know what I’m do­ing, I’m pulling her into
me and lean­ing down to kiss her softly.
“Have fun,” I mur­mur.
“You too,” she breathes.
Vadik chuck­les, pat­ting my shoul­der in a way that makes me want to punch
him in the throat as we walk away down the hall.
“Quite mirac­u­lous for you to have found her again, Drazen.”
I smile and shake my head. “There was no find­ing nec­es­sary; she wasn’t
ever lost,” I shrug. “We were young when we got mar­ried and had things
we each wanted to do. We’ve…re­con­nected,” I mur­mur.
“Just in time for a vote onto the Ta­ble with the very woman who was god­‐
mother to your ‘not lost’ wife’s fa­ther.”
He’s dig­ging. Pry­ing. Pok­ing to see where there’s a weak spot.
He won’t find one.
I laugh as I clap him on the shoul­der, like we’re good bud­dies.
“You’ve been watch­ing too many spy movies, my friend,” I smile.
Vadik eyes me coolly. Then he grins. “What can I say. I’m a sucker for old
Bond films.”
“What sort of Rus­sian does that make you?”
He snick­ers. “A rich one who cares not for pol­i­tics, just get­ting paid.” He
turns to me. “You know, since you’re such a wine man, I’d love to show
you my col­lec­tion. Be­fore busi­ness.”
I feel my­self grin­ning widely.
“Sounds like a blast,” I chuckle.
The fuck. I’ve never once said “sounds like a blast” in my fuck­ing life. And
why am I smil­ing so hard?
“This way, then!” Vadik says, lead­ing me down an­other hall­way. We step
into a lav­ish room with glass walls, be­hind which sit hun­dreds of tem­per­a­‐
ture-con­trolled racks full of wine.
“Fuck me,” I whis­tle.
Vadik laughs. “You haven’t seen the best part. Come!”
He glee­fully walks over to a ta­ble. He looks at me like a kid show­ing off his
new Christ­mas present and twists the lamp sit­ting on it.
“You’ll love this.”
Be­hind him, one of the walls of glass slides back­ward and then to the side,
re­veal­ing a stair­case and a stone arch­way lead­ing down.
“This up here?” He snorts. “Good enough for stock­bro­kers and CEOs. But
for men like us? With power like ours?” He ges­tures with his head. “Come.
I’ll show you the re­ally good stuff.”
“If there’s not a bath­tub still crank­ing out vodka down there,” I chuckle,
grin­ning widely, “I’m go­ing to be very dis­ap­pointed in you, Vadik.”
He roars with laugh­ter. “I think that Petrus is go­ing to your head, my
friend!”
I chuckle as we start down the stairs. Then I frown as his words rip­ple
through my sub­con­scious.
I think that Petrus is go­ing to your head.
I think so, too. And I’ve only had like four sips.
When we reach the bot­tom of the steps, I’m even more con­fused. When I
turn to glance at Vadik, the lights blur. Trails of color tease across my vi­‐
sion.
My feet feel like they’re sink­ing into the ground be­neath them.
What the fuck is go­ing on.
“Are you okay, my friend?” Vadik’s not smil­ing now. There’s just a cruel,
thin smirk on his face. “You look un­well.”
“I—some­thing I ate…”
“We haven’t eaten yet.”
I shake my head, feel­ing like the very air is push­ing down on me. Like the
color bal­ance of the whole world is off. Like I can see those col­ors.
“The wine…” I mut­ter, turn­ing to stare into my glass. It throbs and bulges
like a soap bub­ble, sud­denly get­ting huge in my hand be­fore shrink­ing back
down.
Vadik chuck­les be­hind me. No, in front of me.
Fuck.
“I think maybe you should sit down, Drazen.”
Some­thing slams into the back of my knees. I crash to the floor, the glass
shat­ter­ing as I blink in con­fu­sion at the trails of light and color. I look
around, only now re­al­iz­ing that we’re not in a wine cel­lar. There’s no wine
here at all…
My eyes lock on shapes in the cor­ner, and my blood goes cold.
Not shapes. Bod­ies.
It’s all eight of the men we ar­rived with not twenty min­utes ago, all dead.
I try to scram­ble to my feet. But my legs aren’t work­ing. All I end up do­ing
is rolling around on my back like a flipped-over bee­tle. Vadik and three of
his men grin at me ghoul­ishly as they stand over me.
“Don’t blame your­self, Drazen,” he growls. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine.
I started a job fif­teen years ago, and I made the mis­take of not fin­ish­ing it.
Now, I’m cor­rect­ing my mis­take.”
No.
I try again to lunge to my feet. But it feels like I’m mov­ing through maple
syrup. One of his men laughs as he uses his foot to push me back to the
floor. It feels like I’m melt­ing into it.
“And don’t worry about your wife, Mr. Krylov,” Vadik smiles coldly. “She’s
in good hands….”
I roar and try and lurch up. But I can only lift my head maybe an inch be­‐
fore the floor sucks it back down.
The room turns neon pur­ple with blue dots drift­ing through it. The dots turn
to eyes.
Her eyes.
Watch­ing me fade. Watch­ing me sink into the depths as the lights swirl and
flicker around me and the floor swal­lows me whole.
“En­joy your trip, Mr. Krylov….”

OceanofPDF.com
 28

TAY­L OR

P olina is quiet as Vadik leaves the room with Drazen, clos­ing the door be­‐
hind him. When we’re alone, I turn to look at her with con­cern.
“Are you…?”
“It’s fine,” Polina says qui­etly. “He’s…” she looks away as her fin­gers play
with the stem of her wine glass. “He likes to pam­per me.”
“Is that all he likes to do?” I press.
Her throat works up and down, her gaze drop­ping.
“I’m a dancer,” she mum­bles. “Bal­let. I’ve danced my en­tire life. Mostly in
Rus­sia, where I’m from. But then I was in a com­pany that was tour­ing Eu­‐
rope. That’s where I met Vadik; in Aus­tria. He came to the show, took me
out af­ter­ward, and told me he’d make me a star.”
I wince, tak­ing a sip of my wine.
I don’t know this story per­son­ally. But fuck, ev­ery woman “knows” this
story.
“Vadik has ties to the Za­kharova Bal­let, in New York.”
I smile. “My friend Bianca dances with them.”
Her eyes light up. “Re­ally?”
I nod, feel­ing warm as I smile at her. “Yeah. She’s an in­cred­i­ble dancer.” I
reach out and rub her arm, sur­prised at how soft and silky her skin is. “Like
you.”
She looks away. “You’ve never seen me dance.”
“Well, you were tour­ing Eu­rope,” I laugh. “I think that puts you at a cer­tain
level.”
Polina smiles shyly and looks down.
“He was…” She shakes her head. “Sweeter at first. He gave me so many
presents, took me to fancy par­ties and din­ners. Nice clothes, cars.” She
sighs. “Now, I don’t even dance any­more.”
She looks away, brush­ing the back of one hand against the cor­ner of her
eye. I take an­other sip of the se­ri­ously amaz­ing wine, mon­et­ar­ily dis­tracted
by the gor­geous way the light slants in through the win­dows be­fore I look at
her.
When I do, I shud­der a lit­tle. Where she’s just wiped at her eye, she’s
smudged some of her foun­da­tion.
The ugly pur­ple bruise un­der­neath is sud­denly much more vis­i­ble.
Fuck.
“Look, Polina, we ob­vi­ously don’t know each other, and I don’t know your
life. But… Can I say some­thing?”
Her face has fallen a lit­tle as she turns back to me, nod­ding mis­er­ably.
“I was with some­one who didn’t ap­pre­ci­ate me, too,” I say qui­etly. “Some­‐
one who mis­treated me, didn’t re­spect me.” I shrug. “So I cut him loose and
kicked him to the curb.”
Polina smiles wanly. “I think that would not be so easy in my case.”
My brow fur­rows. “Do you need help? I mean, se­ri­ously.”
She starts to open her mouth. Then she looks away, wip­ing her eyes again.
“I—I’m so sorry,” she sud­denly says.
I frown. “Polina?”
I blink a lit­tle at the wild trails of light that stream from her hair as she
whirls back to­ward me. I flinch when she yanks the wine glass out of my
hand.
“You need to get out of here.”
My brow fur­rows, my skin tin­gling with light and en­ergy and color as I
push aside a pink but­ter­fly to be able to look at Polina di­rectly.
…Then ev­ery­thing I’ve just thought makes me freeze.
Skin doesn’t “tin­gle with en­ergy and color”.
There are no neon pink but­ter­flies liv­ing in Vadik’s house.
My gaze slides through the sea of jel­ly­fish swim­ming around me to lock
with Polina’s wide eyes that are turn­ing into two glow­ing suns.
“What…” I choke. “What’s hap­pen­ing…”
“You’ve been drugged,” she blurts, her face white with ter­ror. “Vadik put
some­thing on the rim of your and your hus­band’s glasses, be­fore he handed
them to you.”
My eyes swim through the sea of jel­ly­fish that are now back to but­ter­flies,
nar­row­ing on the wavy, puls­ing glass of wine in her hand.
“What?!”
“You have to get out!” She urges me. “Please! Come! I can help you⁠—”
“What…what about Drazen?” I blurt, hop­ing I’m curt­sey­ing deeply enough
to the gi­ant rab­bit sit­ting on the desk across the room dressed in a sump­tu­‐
ous vel­vet robe and a crown. I mean, he is roy­alty.
Holy shit, I am FUCKED UP.
What­ever I’ve been dosed with is mak­ing me lose my mind. The vi­su­als
and the sounds are trippy enough. But my very thoughts are wan­der­ing, go­‐
ing in­ward and deeper into my sub­con­scious­ness.
“Drazen…”
“I can try to help,” Polina blurts, tug­ging my arm and drag­ging me away
from King Fluffy. “I don’t know where Vadik has taken him, but I will⁠—”
The door to the room flies open. Or does it? But then I hear Polina scream
and see the fear on her face, and I know the door re­ally has just opened.
And that re­ally is Vadik stand­ing in the door­way with a few of his men.
“Ahh, Polina,” he growls. I flinch as he yanks her away from me, leav­ing a
trail of bleed­ing pur­ple and white that turns to or­ange in her wake. “Such a
will­ing host­ess, al­ways try­ing to help our guests.”
She cries out, and I flinch as he slaps her across the face and shoves her
back to­ward his men. My wide eyes lock with hers, panic flow­ing through
my veins as the guards drag her away.
Vadik turns back to me with a smile so wide it stretches past his ears. It’s
toothy and ter­ri­fy­ing, with teeth as big as wal­rus tusks chomp­ing at me as
he speaks.
“You don’t look so good, Mrs. Krylov,” he chuck­les. “Per­haps I used too
much.”
I back away from him, the jel­ly­fish mor­ph­ing back into but­ter­flies as they
swarm me, mak­ing me shud­der as I try to fend them off.
Vadik laughs. “Ly­ser­gic acid di­ethy­lamide, Mrs. Krylov.”
Oh fuck.
I’ve smoked pot like five times in my life, and that’s the only “drug” I’ve
ever taken.
Now I’m on fuck­ing LSD, and I’m trip­ping balls.
“My chemist mixed it with some sort of ac­cel­er­ant so you ab­sorbed it a bit
quicker.” He chuck­les. “Comes on stronger, too, I’m told.”
I cry out, cow­er­ing as the dream state around me de­volves into a night­mare.
“I think maybe you should stay right here for a while,” Vadik growls. “I’ll
be back soon, af­ter I’ve had my fun with your hus­band.”
His enor­mous T-Rex smile chomps down, bit­ing the now black and blood-
red jel­ly­fish swim­ming through the room, cut­ting a few in half as I scream.
“Af­ter that,” he chuck­les. “Per­haps you and I can have a dif­fer­ent kind of
fun.”
A jel­ly­fish zooms down to try and bite my eye out. I scream and drop to the
floor, cov­er­ing my face as Vadik laughs some­where near the ceil­ing.
“Good, you found the floor,” he snick­ers. “Hold on tight.”
The door slams be­hind him, rat­tling the uni­verse as he leaves me to my
night­mares.

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T ime has no mean ­i ng . I’m float­ing on a sea of ter­rors. At first, it’s just
night­mare fuel—gi­ant spi­ders, sting­ing jel­ly­fish, ravens who scream and
caw and try and peck my eyes out.
But then the night­mare evolves.
It gets worse.
I see friends stag­ger­ing into the room, blood pour­ing from their faces.
Gabriel screams for help, try­ing to hold the gash on his face closed as his
other hand tries to keep his brains from spilling out of the mas­sive hole in
the side of his head.
Fumi rushes to him. But sud­denly a gi­ant sword stabs through her heart
from be­hind. I sob and cry out, shak­ing and hug­ging my­self and scream­ing
as her body falls to the ground, re­veal­ing Kenzo stand­ing be­hind her.
You’re on drugs. This is just a bad acid trip.
You’re safe.
You’re okay.
Ex­cept the mantras don’t work. I’m not okay. I am not fuck­ing safe.
…Nei­ther is Drazen.
An­other sob wrenches my body as Al­is­tair stag­gers past me, hold­ing his
sev­ered arm in his good hand. The floor opens up be­neath him, and I start to
cry un­con­trol­lably as the mas­sive jaws of some mon­strous beast bite him in
two and drag his bot­tom half into the pit.
I whirl, and my throat re­leases wrench­ing sobs as Drazen ma­te­ri­al­izes in
front of me.
His face and his body are rid­dled with a hun­dred slowly bleed­ing bul­let
holes as his eyes lock with mine.
“What have you done,” he roars, charg­ing to­ward me. Right be­fore he gets
to me, I scream when he shat­ters into a thou­sand shards of bloody glass. I
flinch and hug the floor, shak­ing and cry­ing as the ter­rors rip through me.
A hand lands on my shoul­der. A soft touch slips un­der my arm to pull me
gen­tly from the floor.
“You have to get up. Get up, Tay­lor.”
“I can’t,” I choke to the night­mare.
“You have to,” the voice hisses, more ur­gently. “GET. UP.”
I look up, and my face goes numb. This time, it’s not any of my friends
look­ing at me with blood all over them.
It’s me.
I stare at the dream re­flec­tion, my red hair mat­ted with blood that trick­les
down the side of my face. There’s more on my arms and hands, and still
more splat­tered over my shirt.
“Get up, Tay­lor,” I say to me. “I can save you.”
“I—I can’t leave this room⁠—”
“Do you want to save him?” I hiss, peer­ing into my own face.
I start to cry help­lessly again, nod­ding my head.
“Of course.”
“Then come with me, Tay­lor. Trust me.”
I do. I’ve al­ways trusted my­self.
It’s a blur as the drug-in­duced dream ver­sion of my­self leads me out of the
room. I know it’s just my sub­con­scious act­ing as a guide to get my wak­ing
brain to lurch into ac­tion, but it’s work­ing.
I fol­low my­self out of the room. Hor­ror stabs into me as I stum­ble over
bleed­ing and blood­ied bod­ies of men who look like Vadik’s sol­diers. I stag­‐
ger af­ter my re­flec­tion, down a hall­way and into a huge wine room.
“This way.”
I balk when I try to lead my­self into the gap­ing black maw in the wall.
It looks like the gates of Hell. But just as I think that, just as the night­mar­ish
fear threat­ens to break me, I shake it away with a snarl.
No.
He’s in there. And even if it’s Hell it­self, I’m not leav­ing with­out him.
I push past my re­flec­tion, stag­ger­ing into the black­ness and al­most los­ing
my foot­ing as the floor dis­ap­pears.
“There are stairs,” I tell my­self. “Don’t fall.”
I clutch the ban­is­ter for dear life, shuf­fling and stum­bling down the stair­‐
case into the dark­ness. I get to the bot­tom, turn­ing and feel­ing the wall for a
light switch. I find it, fo­cus­ing all my brain power on one fin­ger to flick it
on.
And I scream.
He looks dead.
Drazen is strung up by the arms, hang­ing from chains em­bed­ded in the ceil­‐
ing. His legs are limp, his feet barely touch­ing the floor. He’s shirt­less, head
bowed and eyes swollen shut. Blood drips from his mouth and from a dozen
weep­ing cuts on his body.
But he’s breath­ing.
“I need your help,” I hiss to my­self. “I can’t do this alone.”
“Of course,” I choke back.
“The wall. There’s a winch.”
I stum­ble to it, try­ing to ig­nore the spi­ders crawl­ing over my skin and the
moun­tain of bod­ies bleed­ing in the cor­ner as I grap­ple with the me­chan­i­cal
switch on the wall. A mo­tor whines to life. The chains clink and rat­tle be­‐
hind me. I spin and rush back over, help­ing me to catch him as he sinks to
the floor.
I yank the chains off him, cradling his head in my lap. Drazen’s eyes flut­ter
open and shut, his lips mov­ing with­out mak­ing sound.
He’s not just beaten to hell. He’s drugged, like me.
“Help me get him up the stairs,” I urge my­self.
I don’t know how, but I man­age to get him up the steps.
Drazen is half walk­ing, half be­ing car­ried by me with his arm over my
shoul­der as we shuf­fle down the hall­ways of Vadik’s man­sion. More ter­rors
fly out of ev­ery cor­ner, snarling in my face. The walls drip and the floor
melts. I ig­nore it all as we keep go­ing.
We step over more bod­ies in the foyer. A cloud of blue but­ter­flies rip­ples
through my hair as I kick open the front door drag Drazen out­side. I lean
him against the wall and go through his pock­ets, pulling out his phone.
Mer­ci­fully, his last four phone calls were from Mi­los, so it’s hard to miss as
my thumb stabs the con­tact.
“Boss?”
“Help…” I croak. “Mi­los…help.”
“An­nika?” he hisses.
“Vadik…drugged us. We’re free. We…we need help,” I wheeze.
“Where the fuck are you,” he hisses qui­etly as my vi­sion melts to swirls of
color.
“Vadik’s…” my breath­ing slows. “House.”
“Drazen is with you?”
“Please…”
“IS DRAZEN WITH YOU?!” he roars, his voice spew­ing from the phone
in rib­bons of blood red and black.
“Yes…”
“Stay where you are. Leave this phone on. I’m on my way.”
“Come,” I tell my­self, help­ing my­self back to my feet. “We can’t stay here.”
I nod, not even able to talk as the full force of the LSD starts to hit me. But
I stag­ger on­ward, drag­ging Drazen across the field next to Vadik’s house.
The woods loom dark and ter­ri­fy­ing, and it would be so tempt­ing to stop.
My dream self won’t let me.
“There’s a place you can hide, Tay­lor. Wait for your help to come. You’ll be
safe.”
I drag Drazan past the tree line and un­der a fallen log, where there’s a lit­tle
hol­low.
“Stay here,” I tell my­self.
Our eyes lock—me and my sub­con­scious­ness. Me and the me I used to be,
maybe. Who knows. I’ve lost track.
“Who am I?” I whis­per to my­self as I slip un­der the log and into the lit­tle
hol­low along­side Drazen’s still form.
“You’re you,” I say back. “And I am me.”
“And who are you?”
I smile at my­self as I touch my cheek.
“I’m your in­vis­i­ble friend.”
Dream me melts away as the riot of light and color and sound en­gulf me.
My hand finds Drazen’s, and I hold on tightly.
“Stay with me,” I whis­per. “Be­cause I’m stay­ing with you.”
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TAY­L OR

My eyes flut ­t er open and then closed. In­stantly, they fly open again.
“Morn­ing,” Drazen growls, a lazy, sleepy smile on his scruff-cov­ered jaw as
he leans over me.
“What are you do­ing!?” I blurt, sit­ting up quickly, now to­tally awake as I
plant my hands on his shoul­ders and try and gen­tly push him back down.
“You’re sup­posed to be rest­ing,” I mut­ter, shak­ing the last of sleep from my
head.
Drazen winces as he low­ers him­self back to the sheets, grunt­ing.
“How…” He frowns, blink­ing as he set­tles into the bed.
“Mi­los,” I mur­mur, my eyes glanc­ing at all the ban­dages over the many
wounds on his body. “He came and got us out af­ter the fight­ing and brought
us home. Your doc­tor got flown in. You’d been…” I grit my teeth.
“Tor­tured,” he growls.
I nod, my chest tight­en­ing as my mind re­plays the hor­ror of fol­low­ing my
sub­con­scious through a night­mare into a base­ment to find Drazen hang­ing
bleed­ing from chains.
“Yeah,” I choke. “You—” my voice breaks. His hand comes up to cup my
cheek.
“Not the first time,” he smirks. “And hon­estly, not the worst.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any bet­ter,” I mut­ter, slap­ping his hand.
He chuck­les. Then his face dark­ens.
“LSD?”
I nod. “Yeah. Dr. Kruger ran our blood-work⁠—”
He hisses, his face lined and pained. “That fucker drugged you, too?”
“Oh, now he’s up­set about me be­ing drugged against my will.”
Drazen’s face doesn’t move. I grin weakly.
“That was…a joke, by the way.”
His eyes darken. “Did they…”
I shake my head. “No. Polina tried to help me, once I started to trip. Then
Vadik came back and took her away and locked me in the room.” I shake
my head. “Dr. Kruger said it was a mix of high po­tency LSD and an ac­cel­‐
er­ant to speed up the way the drug is me­tab­o­lized, mak­ing it hit faster and
harder.”
He looks away, his nos­trils flar­ing. “I’m go­ing to de­stroy him. With or with­‐
out the Iron Ta­ble.” His eyes flick back to mine, his face soft­en­ing a lit­tle as
he cups my cheek. “How did you get out?” He frowns. “Wait—did you say
af­ter the fight­ing?”
A chill runs through me as I re­mem­ber the bod­ies and the blood.
Then I think about the hard truths I learned af­ter Mi­los was able to dis­en­‐
tan­gle re­al­ity from my night­mar­ish drug-in­duced hal­lu­ci­na­tions.
“Your men who came with us,” I say qui­etly. “They’re dead.”
Drazen’s jaw clenches.
“So are a lot of Vadik’s men.”
He frowns. “Mi­los?”
I shake my head. “Vadik had an­other en­emy at­tack the house that day too.
Mi­los and your men didn’t find any sign of Vadik, but there was a fight of
some kind. It might ac­tu­ally be a small mir­ac­ le that I was locked in one
room, and you were in that base­ment.”
“You got us out, Tay­lor,” Drazen mur­murs qui­etly. “You got us free.”
I tip my head back and forth. “Sort of. I guess. I had help.”
He frowns. “Polina?”
“No, I mean…” I roll my eyes. “It’s stupid, be­cause it’s just the drugs. But I
imag­ined what I think was a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of my sub­con­scious­‐
ness?” I laugh as I shake my head. “I mean, there were also neon but­ter­flies
and jel­ly­fish and hor­ri­fy­ingly vivid im­ages of my friends dy­ing in front of
me, so who the hell knows.”
Drazen’s mouth tight­ens. “I saw night­mares, too.”
I wince. “Of?”
He shakes his head. “Noth­ing that I need to re­mem­ber.”
“Af­ter I found you,” I say as I slip my hand into his, “we got out of the
house. I think there was still fight­ing go­ing on, but I got us into the for­est
af­ter I called Mi­los.”
We must have been there a while, since Mi­los was back here, on the is­land,
and we were on the Black Sea. But the drugs went ther­monu­clear once
Drazen and I were hid­den away, and I hon­estly have no idea how many
hours I spent hud­dled against him, hold­ing on for dear life as I tried to push
the ter­rors away.
Drazen ex­hales, sink­ing back into the pil­lows. “How long was I out?”
I take a breath. “Three days.”
His eyes snap to mine.
“What.”
“You were in…bad shape,” I mum­ble, squeez­ing his hand. “Some of the
wounds they in­flicted on you were deep. And we were in the woods for
maybe a day, ly­ing in the dirt. There was some in­fec­tion.”
He looks away. Then he turns back to me. His eyes soften as his hand
squeezes mine.
“Why did you help me?”
I shrug. “Job se­cu­rity?”
He grins.
“Also,” I say gen­tly, bit­ing my lip. “I might kind of like you.”
“Funny,” he growls. I gasp when he sud­denly rolls on top of me, his hands
go­ing to ei­ther side of my head as he hov­ers over me.
“Drazen—”
“I might kind of like you, too.”
“You’re sup­posed to be rest­ing⁠—”
“Fuck that,” he growls.
“Your wounds⁠—”
“I’ve had worse.”
I shiver as some­thing heated throbs in my core. The mus­cles of one of his
arms bulge and rip­ple as he shifts his weight onto it, lift­ing the other hand
from the bed to cup my cheek.
“Ac­tu­ally, that wasn’t true.”
I frown. “About hav­ing had worse?”
“About kind of lik­ing you.”
I wince. “Oh…”
“More like, I might be in love with you.”
Time stops. Ev­ery­thing in my body tenses and goes still, in­clud­ing the
breath in my lungs.
“For­get the ‘might’,” he growls. “I love you, Tay­lor.”
“I—”
His mouth sears to mine, kiss­ing away the pain and the night­mares. Brand­‐
ing the prom­ise and the words on my lips as I moan into his mouth. My
back arches, my chest press­ing to his as I wrap my arms around his neck
and kiss him with ev­ery­thing I have.
Drazen groans, his hand slid­ing into my hair as he kisses my mouth hard
enough to bruise. His lips and his teeth nib­ble and suck their way down my
jaw­line, mak­ing me gasp sharply as he nips at my skin.
He moves to my neck, my pulse roar­ing and a fever ex­plod­ing through my
body as he shoves my tank top up over my breasts.
His lips fas­ten around a hard, pale pink nip­ple, and I cry out when his teeth
sink into the del­i­cate flesh.
“Drazen…”
He bites my other nip­ple, his hands all over me. His mouth drags down my
stom­ach, lick­ing and suck­ing and leav­ing bruises on my skin as he makes
his way to my hip.
My pulse sky­rock­ets when his fin­gers slip into the waist of my sleep shorts
and panties. When he goes to peel them down, I sud­denly flinch and stop
him.
“Wait—“
“No.”
I moan as he bites the soft, ten­der flesh where my hip delves to­ward my
pussy.
“It’s just…” I make a mor­ti­fied face. “I’m on my pe­riod.”
Slowly, his face lifts to mine, his eyes slid­ing up my throb­bing, tin­gling
body to lock with mine.
“I was born in blood, baby­girl.”
His fin­gers start to pull at my shorts again. I try to stop him, but he eas­ily
knocks my hand away. I shiver, my breath com­ing hard and fast as he peels
the boy shorts away from my throb­bing pussy.
“I was bap­tized in blood.”
I bite back a soft moan as he lifts my legs and slips my shorts and my
panties down and off my feet. He tosses them away, and my face throbs
with heat as he shoves my thighs wide apart and set­tles be­tween them.
“I just⁠—”
“I’ll gladly take your com­mu­nion, love.”
His mouth dips be­tween my legs. His tongue ea­gerly drags through my lips,
push­ing deep with­out a sin­gle fuck­ing care.
Holy. Shit.
I cry out, moan­ing as he drags his tongue through my lips and then swirls it
around my clit. He teases lower again, push­ing the tip into me as I writhe
and choke in plea­sure.
Then he starts to de­vour me.
His mouth hums over my throb­bing pussy, his tongue shov­ing deep be­fore
his lips wrap around my clit. He swirls his tongue around, eas­ing two of his
fin­gers against my open­ing. He drives them in­side of me, mak­ing me clench
and groan in ec­stasy as my hips rise from the bed. His fin­gers curl against
my g-spot, thrust­ing and stroking as I cry out, beg­ging for more.
His mouth drops back be­tween my lips, his tongue thrust­ing into me as his
fin­gers slide out. His hand slips up my stom­ach to grab and maul my
breasts, his fin­gers twist­ing and teas­ing my nip­ples as he licks my clit.
I look down, flinch­ing for a mo­ment when I see the blood—my blood—
streaked up my torso and over my breasts. It’s jar­ring at first. But as he con­‐
tin­ues to de­vour my pussy and run his hands all over me, the odd­ness goes
away.
It’s not jar­ring any­more. It’s just us: pri­mal, vi­o­lent, and raw.
His tongue works my clit faster and faster, his lips tight­en­ing around the
throb­bing nub as my back arches and my screams of plea­sure fill the room.
My fin­gers tan­gle in his hair as he shoves my knees back to my chest,
spread­ing my thighs wide as he eats my pussy like he’s starv­ing.
My core tight­ens and clenches, my head fall­ing back as my vi­sion blurs.
“I—I’m gonna come,” I whim­per. “You’re gonna make my pussy come!”
He doesn’t say a word. He just dou­bles down, driv­ing two fin­gers deep into
my clench­ing pussy and stroking my g-spot as he hums and sucks on my
clit.
It’s like pulling a trig­ger.
My body arches and jerks off the bed, my en­tire be­ing go­ing numb with
white light and an ex­plo­sive force. I throw my head back, gasp­ing and
moan­ing in ec­stasy as I come hard against Drazen’s mouth and tongue.
He slides up, his big, mus­cled body cov­er­ing mine as he wraps my legs
around his grooved waist. I whim­per as he shoves my arms over my head,
pin­ning them against the head­board.
His huge, fat cock cen­ters against my open­ing, the swollen, leak­ing head
eas­ily slip­ping be­tween my lips as his eyes lock with mine. He wraps one
blood­ied hand around my throat as his face hov­ers inches from mine.
“Kiss me,” I choke. “Kiss me and then fuck me like a slut.”
“With plea­sure.”
His huge cock rams into me, the wind knock­ing out of my lungs from the
sheer size and power of him. His mouth crushes to mine, and I moan when
our tongues duel, the taste of cop­per and my own sweet­ness coat­ing my
lips.
We de­vour each other’s mouths and lips as his fat cock rams into me over
and over. He slides it wetly out, only to fuck back into me with a sav­age­‐
ness that ig­nites my soul. He keeps one hand pin­ning mine above my head,
tak­ing away my con­trol, like I love. The other one tight­ens around my
wind­pipe, chok­ing me just enough to send fire­works ex­plod­ing through my
head as he fucks me like a wild an­i­mal.
I scream into his shoul­der when I come a sec­ond time. The third time, my
throat is ragged and my body scream­ing for mercy as I ex­plode around him.
But I don’t want to stop.
I can’t stop.
I never want to stop with him.
“Shame you’re on your pe­riod, my lit­tle slut,” he hisses into my ear as he
pounds his gor­geous dick into me over and over, oblit­er­at­ing the last of my
re­al­ity.
“W—w—why,” I choke, moan­ing as my bruised thighs shake and quiver
around his hips.
Drazen’s teeth sink sharply into the side of my neck.
“Be­cause I’m about to fill this slutty lit­tle pussy with ev­ery fuck­ing drop of
my cum.”
The im­pli­ca­tion hits me like a mil­lion volts.
“Next time, baby girl,” he rasps darkly. “I’m go­ing to breed this messy lit­tle
cunt.”
Sweet. Fuck­ing. GOD.
With a wrench­ing cry from my mouth and a snarled roar from his, he buries
ev­ery inch of his fat, throb­bing, veined cock deep in my pussy and ex­‐
plodes. The feel of him puls­ing and throb­bing in­side me, feel­ing the warmth
of his cum flood my in­sides, sends me ca­reen­ing over the edge. My teeth
clamp down on his mus­cled shoul­der as I scream my re­lease and ex­plode
into a bil­lion pieces around him.

OceanofPDF.com
 31

DRAZEN

O ur first meet ­i ng at D’A tella , Tay­lor and I sat across from each other,
eye­ing each other like en­em
­ ies.
Things have…changed.
Rad­i­cally.
To­day, here on my is­land, she sits at my side, where she be­longs. Her fin­‐
gers are laced with mine on top of the ta­ble for all to see.
What they don’t see is my cum still leak­ing out of her freshly fucked pussy
into a pair of sheer black thong panties I se­lected for her to wear un­der her
classy, el­eg­ ant Chanel skirt suit.
At the ta­ble that I’ve had set up in one of the court­yards of my home, I look
around at all the fam­ily heads that make up the Iron Ta­ble.
Well…al­most all of them.
“Thank you for sit­ting down with us to­day, Drazen,” Kir Niko­layev says
with a nod to me.
“My apolo­gies that I kept you wait­ing,” I re­ply, lift­ing the cane at my side.
It’s been two weeks since Vadik drugged Tay­lor and me, and tor­tured me.
The wounds from his knives on my torso are heal­ing well. But the slash the
swine gave me on the back of my thigh has taken longer. Hence the cane,
which I loathe.
The cane wasn’t re­ally the rea­son Tay­lor and I were ten min­utes late to meet
the rest of them here. But I’m not go­ing to tell them my wife was bounc­ing
her sweet lit­tle cunt up and down my cock like a good girl with my hand
squeezed around her throat and my thumb buried in her ass.
“No apolo­gies nec­es­sary, my friend,” Kir growls solemnly.
“Ob­vi­ously, this meet­ing could have hap­pened over the phone, or via
Zoom,” Yeliza­veta says. “But we agreed that this should be done face to
face.” She glances at the rest of the heads be­fore turn­ing her vi­o­let eyes
back to me. “We’ve had a vote. Two, ac­tu­ally.”
I re­sist the urge to let my lips curl into a smile.
“Oh?”
She nods with a small smirk. “In­deed, we have. The first was whether we
were ready to bring new blood…so to speak…to the Ta­ble.”
I feel Tay­lor’s hand grip mine in ex­cite­ment.
“And I’m pleased to in­form you that you, Drazen, have been voted to a
chair at the Iron Ta­ble, by unan­i­mous vote.”
This time, I do al­low my­self a grin.
“Unan­i­mous with one ab­sten­tion,” Niko­lai Antonov grunts.
“Yes…which brings me to the sec­ond vote we held. Also unan­i­mous.”
Yeliza­veta arches a sil­ver brow as her eyes stab across the ta­ble into mine.
“We are in agree­ment that Vadik Belov has no place any longer at our Ta­‐
ble. What­ever busi­ness he had with you, good or bad, is be­tween the two of
you. But there’s an honor code that comes with sit­ting at the Iron Ta­ble. The
re­spect our Ta­ble com­mands from ev­ery Bratva fam­ily on the planet de­‐
pends on fol­low­ing that code.” Her eyes nar­row. “Invit­ing some­one to your
home as a guest, and then drug­ging and tor­tur­ing them does not fit with that
code.”
“Nor does back­stab­bing,” Kir hisses, glanc­ing at Yeliza­veta who nods for
him to con­tinue. “On the same night that Vadik at­tacked you two, there
were as­saults on sev­eral as­sets be­long­ing to var­i­ous mem­bers of this Ta­ble.
I had a ware­house raided by fake cops in Paris. Pavel”…he in­di­cates the
head of the Nikitin fam­ily…“had his pent­house in Slove­nia at­tacked by a
rocket-pro­pelled ex­plo­sive.”
Pavel’s eyes nar­row darkly. “My daugh­ter was stay­ing there at the time. It
is a mir­ac­ le she sur­vived.”
Je­sus.
“In our in­ves­ti­ga­tion into your re­ports of what oc­curred at Vadik’s home,
we dis­cov­ered ev­i­dence that he was be­hind all these other at­tacks,” Kir con­‐
tin­ues. “As such, he’s been ex­com­mu­ni­cated from this Ta­ble. Fur­ther­more,”
he growls, lev­el­ing a cold smile my way, “you have not only our com­plete
en­dorse­ment to do what you will to Vadik and the Belov or­ga­ni­za­tion…”
His brow cocks. “You have our aid, should you need or wish it.”
A smile creeps over my face as my fin­gers tighten with Tay­lor’s. I bow my
head re­spect­fully to them all.
“You have my grat­i­tude, all of you,” I growl. “I’ll be sure to let you know if
I need any as­sis­tance with deal­ing with him.”
But I won’t. I’ll be deal­ing with Vadik per­son­ally.
Very, very per­son­ally.
With my bare hands…and per­haps a rusty fork.
“And you,” Yeliza­veta says qui­etly, turn­ing on Tay­lor. “You have our
thanks for help­ing your hus­band get out of that house alive. I hear it was
you who found him, cut him down, and dragged him out of the house be­‐
fore call­ing for help.”
Tay­lor smiles, nod­ding. “I can’t imag­ine do­ing any­thing else.” Then I see
her brow fur­row.
“Some­thing you’d like to add?” Yeliza­veta asks.
“Ac­tu­ally, yes.” Tay­lor frowns. “I was ob­vi­ously se­verely un­der the in­flu­‐
ence of what Vadik slipped us. But it re­ally did ap­pear that there’d been a
bat­tle of some kind at the house when I got out of the room where I was be­‐
ing held. There was a lot of blood, and the bod­ies of Vadik’s men.” She
takes a breath. “When you were in­ves­ti­gat­ing at the house, did you find
any­thing that would lead to an­swers about what hap­pened?”
“That, I’m afraid,” Kir mut­ters, “is still a mys­tery. But we be­lieve what­ever
hap­pened is the rea­son Vadik him­self took flight be­fore you both were able
to get free.”
“All the more rea­son to find him, then,” I growl. “I’ll add it to the list of
ques­tions I have for him be­fore I cut his tongue out and feed it to him.”

I in ­v ite them all to stay for din­ner be­fore my he­li­copter takes them back to
their re­spec­tive planes at the air­field on Elba. Af­ter they’re gone, I of­fi­cially
tell Mi­los to re­lease the prover­bial hounds to find that slimy fuck Vadik.
“Alive, Mi­los,” I growl.
“I’ll do my best,” he hisses darkly be­fore he leaves the is­land as well.
It’s late by the time Tay­lor and I are alone just the two of us. Out on the ve­‐
randa giv­ing off my—our—room, I join her on the loveseat over­look­ing the
ocean. She gig­gles, squeal­ing as I haul her into my lap.
“I have some­thing for you.”
Her brows shoot up. “Oh?”
I nod. My hand slips into my pocket, pulling out the folded check and hand­‐
ing it to her.
“I think you should be the one to hand de­liver this to the Crown and Black
of­fices.”
She tenses as she re­al­izes what I’m say­ing.
“Is that…?”
I nod. “The full amount to get you out from the debt your ac­qui­si­tion owes
Roger Fairchild.”
“Drazen—”
“You have my per­mis­sion to go back to New York,” I growl qui­etly.
The ve­randa goes pin-drop silent ex­cept for the soft crash­ing of the waves
down be­low.
Tay­lor’s brow knits. Slowly, her eyes lift to mine, look­ing slightly pained.
“Oh.”
“Tay­lor—”
“It’s…so soon,” she says, her voice empty. “I thought our ar­range­ment was
for three months.” Her throat bobs as she swal­lows. “It’s only been two and
a half.”
I smile. “I’m re­leas­ing you early.”
She nods, her face pal­ing a lit­tle as she looks down. Her hand ex­tends,
pluck­ing the check from my fin­gers as she swal­lows again.
“I, um…” She keeps her eyes down­cast. “I could, uh…I could also⁠—”
She whim­pers as I grab her jaw and slam my mouth to hers in a bru­tal, pos­‐
ses­sive kiss.
“I think you should,” I growl.
“Stay?” she whim­pers, kiss­ing me fiercely.
“Yes,” I groan, kiss­ing her harder be­fore I pull back, our eyes locked. “That
doesn’t have to mean phys­i­cally here. You have a ca­reer and an em­pire in
New York. But I’d like it if you stayed with me,” I hiss. “I want you to stay
with me.”
“I want to stay with you, too,” she whis­pers qui­etly. Her lips curl as her
damp eyes stay on mine. “So you’re not ‘re­leas­ing me early’?”
“That was a joke.”
She gig­gles. “Oh, you joke now?”
“It was worth a shot. Don’t ex­pect it to hap­pen again, ever.”
She laughs as she col­lapses into my arms, our lips sear­ing to­gether in an­‐
other kiss as the waves crash against the rocks down be­low.

OceanofPDF.com
 32

TAY­L OR

C om ­i ng back to New York is wild. I’ve called this city home for years, but
af­ter two and a half months at Drazen’s is­land par­adise, I feel like a tourist
when I step out of the car in mid­town. Then I look up at the build­ing that
houses Crown and Black.
I grin to my­self. Okay. Now I’m home.
“Bitch!!”
I laugh as Fumi sprints across the main floor of the of­fices to­ward me. She
squeals as she plows into me, hug­ging me tight as we both al­most go crash­‐
ing to the floor in fits of laugh­ter.
“What the fuck!” she blurts. “You said you were com­ing back to­mor­row!”
I shrug. “Wanted to keep ev­ery­one on their toes?”
“Well, mis­sion ac­com­plished. I’m guess­ing I just failed spec­tac­u­larly call­‐
ing my boss a bitch in front of the en­tire staff…”
I grin at her. “Tech­ni­cally speak­ing, you’re an eq­uity part­ner, not to men­tion
an act­ing co-man­ag­ing part­ner for an­other…what, eleven days?”
“I mean, twelve, but who’s count­ing.”
I laugh. “So, I’m not re­ally your boss right now.”
“Phew.” She mimes wip­ing her brow.
Up­stairs on the ex­ec­u­tive floor that rings the first level of our of­fices, Al­is­‐
tair is al­ready wait­ing for me in my of­fice, shak­ing his head.
“You know, the Tay­lor I re­mem­ber wasn’t a fan of dra­matic en­trances.”
“Dude, I lit­er­ally just walked in.”
“Yeah…a day early,” he smirks.
“That’s what I said too!” Fumi laughs be­hind me.
I roll my eyes. “You know, I think the thing it might be nice if you were
both fo­cus­ing on is that I’m home?”
Fumi sighs. “The thing is, I re­ally thought you were com­ing back to­mor­row,
so I have a clean­ing team sched­uled to hit your place tonight to make it look
ex­tra ti­died up. I think they only quoted two hours, though. So if you want,
maybe we can go out and grab din­ner while they do their thing?”
I bite my lip, my cheeks flush­ing. I’ve been de­bat­ing how to broach this
sub­ject the whole way back to New York, and I still can’t think of what’s
best. So, seems like I’m go­ing to go with the band-aid ap­proach.
As in, rip it right off.
“Din­ner sounds great,” I smile ner­vously. “But, I…” I clear my throat. “I
won’t be stay­ing at my apart­ment.”
Fumi frowns.
“Where will you be stay­ing?” Al­is­tair asks.
I laugh qui­etly. “Wanna take an early lunch?”

“I mean , shit , girl …”

It turns out that none of us could, in fact, take that early lunch. So I kept go­‐
ing band-aid style and just let it rip that I was maybe-sort-of-kind-of-ac­tu­‐
ally-for-real in a re­la­tion­ship with Drazen.
A re­la­tion­ship. I didn’t men­tion the mar­riage years ago, be­cause that opens
a whole can of worms I’m still not com­pletely sure about: my past. The fact
that I’m An­nika Bran­covich. The fact that I might not be. Meet­ing Fumi’s
brother in a freak­ing row­boat in the mid­dle of the night like a Mis­sion Im­‐
pos­si­ble movie plot.
Ba­si­cally, a litany of things I still need to fig­ure out my­self be­fore spring­ing
on my friends be­fore ten o’clock in the morn­ing, at the of­fice, with­out the
ben­ef­ it of cock­tails.
Fumi freaked when I told them about Drazen. Al­is­tair laughed and crowed
that Gabriel now owed him five grand for a bet they’d made.
Thanks, pricks.
But now, hours later af­ter work, Fumi and I are get­ting drinks, and I’m giv­‐
ing her a few more de­tails about the last few months.
Well, some of the de­tails.
Okay, broad strokes, if I’m be­ing hon­est.
“It’s…com­pli­cated, to say the least,” I gig­gle, rolling my eyes.
“No shit.” Fumi smirks at me over the rim of her mar­garita. “But…I get it.”
“You do?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, no, it’s su­per hard to imag­ine why you would be at­‐
tracted to a tall, mus­cled, dark-haired, blue-eyed man with tat­toos, power,
and a heavy sprin­kling of dan­ger. So weird that you wanted to tap that.”
I snicker. “Don’t for­get the money.”
“Right,” Fumi rolls her eyes. “Be­cause boss bitches pulling mid seven fig­‐
ures a year in their cor­ner of­fices in Mid­town and driv­ing Porsches are such
no­to­ri­ous gold-dig­gers.”
“Busted.”
She laughs. I grin at her.
“Just kid­ding. It’s not the money.”
“Just the rest of it?”
“To­tally. That, and the god-like dick.”
Fumi ex­plodes in laugh­ter, al­most spit­ting out her mar­garita as my face
burns.
“WOW,” I groan, cov­er­ing my face. “That’s me cut off. I’m done.”
“Oh no-no-no you’re not,” she laughs. “De­tails.” She taps the ta­ble with a
peremp­tory fin­ger. “Right the fuck now.”
I blush fiercely as I shake my head. “Not hap­pen­ing. Trust me, you can’t
han­dle the de­tails..” I say do­ing my best Jack Nichol­son Few Good Men im­‐
pres­sion.
Fumi smirks, arch­ing a mis­chievous brow. “Wanna bet?”
“Mean­ing?”
She grins. “Mean­ing deets right now, or I’ll start spilling the ex­tremely sor­‐
did de­tails of Gabriel’s and my…pri­vate lives.”
I make a face. “Oh my God, please don’t. Lest you for­get, you’re mar­ried to
some­one who is ba­si­cally my brother?”
“So that’s a no to hear­ing about the masks and the break­ing-and-en­ter­ing
role-play?”
“Oh my fuck­ing God,” I groan, cov­er­ing my face again as Fumi cack­les. “I
hate you.”
“Nah, you love me.”
I roll my eyes, sigh­ing. “Good thing.”
But also, that’s…in­ter­est­ing to know about her and Gabriel. Not that I need
to think about it too much. Or at all.
My friend shakes her head as she sips on her mar­garita. “But damn, girl.
You prob­ab­ ly had quite the last few months over there with him.”
I bite my lip, my cheeks burn­ing. “You could say that.”
“Good,” she smiles, squeez­ing my hand. “I’m happy for you. You de­serve
it…es­pe­cially those sor­did de­tails you won’t tell me about.”
“Not hap­pen­ing.”
She smirks. “Is it rope play? Maybe a lit­tle shibari ac­tion?”
“Oh my God, Fumi…”
“I mean he’s got Dom writ­ten all over him.”
“Please stop talk­ing.”
“Is it a Daddy kink? Is he Daddy Drazen?”
I groan, drop­ping my face into my hands again. “You need psy­chi­atric
help.”
“And you need to tell me what sort of wild shit you got up to over there,”
she gig­gles. “Be­cause I can do this all night. C’mon, hot and scary-dark
with a mys­te­ri­ous past and con­trol­ling a Bratva em­pire?” She whis­tles.
“He’s to­tally Daddy Drazen, isn’t he?”
“Only when she needs me to un­tie her and take her panties out of her
mouth.”
Fumi al­most has a heart at­tack as she spins to­ward the deep, vel­vety bari­‐
tone voice.
Hon­estly, so do I.
My face burns like molten lava as I whip around and lock eyes with Drazen.
He’s in char­coal gray dress pants and a per­fectly fit­ted black dress shirt, no
tie, with the top but­ton un­done and the sleeves rolled up his veined, mus­‐
cled fore­arms.
His brow is quirked up in amuse­ment, a smug grin on his face as his gaze
pierces into me.
“Isn’t that right, dear.”
Fumi snorts as my face goes crim­son.
“He’s…jok­ing,” I mum­ble.
“I’m not.”
I groan as Fumi howls with laugh­ter and stands from her stool to face him,
a hand ex­tended. “Good to see you again, Mr. Kry⁠—”
“I think first names are fine once you’re dis­cussing some­one’s sex­ual tastes,
wouldn’t you agree?” Drazen in­ter­rupts, firmly shak­ing her hand. “And yes,
good to see you again, Fumi.”
Her face turns dark red as she glances at me, then back to him. “So you…
def­i­nitely just heard all of that.”
“Ev­ery word.”
He lets that sink in for a mo­ment.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I need to bor­row Ms. Crown for a mo­ment.” He
turns to me, his face un­read­able. “Let’s step out­side.”
As he turns away, I take a gulp of mar­garita and glance at Fumi. “Be right
back.”
“Un­less he ties you up and gags you with your undies,” she mut­ters un­der
her breath.
“Oh, that only hap­pens when she mis­be­haves, Mrs. Black,” Drazen says
mildly.
I cringe as Fumi howls with laugh­ter. She eyes me, jerk­ing a thumb at
Drazen. “Okay, I like him.”
Out­side the bar, I gasp when Drazen turns and pulls me tight against his
chest. With­out a word, he cups my face, leans down, and kisses me bru­tally
and deeply. The air leaves my lungs. My feet feel like they leave the ground
as I melt against him hun­grily.
He pulls back, and I ex­hale a shaky breath.
“For the record,” I mur­mur, “you can in­ter­rupt me lit­er­ally any time if that’s
what you want to talk pri­vately about.”
“Noted,” he grins be­fore his face dark­ens a lit­tle. “Un­for­tu­nately, that’s not
the only rea­son I needed to see you.”
My brow knits at his se­ri­ous tone of voice. “What’s go­ing on?”
“I think we found Vadik.”
My face in­stantly hard­ens. “Oh?”
He nods.
“So… What hap­pens now?”
He shrugs. “I go make sure, drag him out of what­ever hole he’s hid­ing in,
and skin him alive.”
A shud­der rip­ples through me.
Some­how, I don’t think that last bit was hy­per­bole.
“When are you leav­ing?”
He sighs. “Now, ac­tu­ally.”
My mouth twists. But then I flush when he cups my face. “I won’t be gone
long. A day. Two at the most. And while I’m gone, I want you to stay at my
place. It’s well-pro­tected and guarded.”
My brow fur­rows. “Are you wor­ried about any­thing?”
It’s funny. Now that I’m…well, with Drazen, there’s an el­em
­ ent to all of
this I’ve never con­sid­ered be­fore.
Dat­ing—or what­ever I’m do­ing with him—a crim­i­nal king­pin cer­tainly
comes with a healthy dose of ex­cite­ment. But it also comes with a huge side
or­der of real, ac­tual dan­ger.
He shakes his head. “Not at all. But given that I’m go­ing to be openly
declar­ing war on the Belov Bratva…” He lifts a shoul­der. “I just want to be
ex­tra care­ful with the things that mat­ter most to me.”
My face burns hotly.
“So…your house­plants, right? You need me there to wa­ter and fer­til­ize⁠—”
I whim­per when he grabs my face and bruises his mouth to mine, si­lenc­ing
me as he steals my breath and my words.
“You,” he growls. “I was talk­ing about you.”
“Oh, well…” I grin as I bite down on my bot­tom lip. “In that case…”
“There’s noth­ing to worry about, at all. But I’ll feel bet­ter know­ing you’re
there. Mi­los is fly­ing in as we speak. He’ll be on-site to help with any­thing
you need.”
I frown. “Mi­los isn’t re­ally my big­gest fan.”
He snorts. “He’s just a grump.”
“What, your best friend is a grump? Go fig­ure.”
Drazen eyes me with a look that makes me grin as much as it sends a heated
throb through my core.
“Yes. He’s also who I’d pick ev­ery time to watch over you if I wasn’t there
to do it my­self.”
I sigh. “Fair enough. I’ll buy him cook­ies or some­thing to try and win him
over.”
“He’s a fan of white choco­late.”
I make a face. “In that case, he and I are mor­tal fuck­ing en­em
­ ies. For­ever.”
Drazen chuck­les as he pulls me to him. I stick out my lower lip as I look up
at him.
“You re­ally have to go tonight?”
He nods.
“This sec­ond?”
“Oh no,” he frowns, shak­ing his head. He leans down, his mouth brush­ing
my ear. “No, first I need to drag you back through the bar, past your friend,
into the bath­room so I can bend you over the sink and fuck your slutty lit­tle
pussy un­til you come all over my cock like a good girl.”
“What are we wait­ing for?” I breathe.
“Ab­so­lutely noth­ing.”

OceanofPDF.com
 33

TAY­L OR

T he next day af ­t er work , I stop over at Elsa’s and Hades’ place to meet
baby Bella in per­son. We man­aged a quick Face­Time weeks ago when she
was first born. But they were ex­hausted, plus Elsa was deal­ing with some
painful new-mom mas­ti­tis.
Now, though, even though they’re in the thick of it, and they do still look
ut­terly ex­hausted, it’s like en­ter­ing a world of smiles when I stop by. Elsa is
all glows. Hades, fig­u­ra­tive king of the un­der­world that he is, can’t stop
grin­ning, or nuz­zling his new­born daugh­ter. It’s a mir­ac­ le he even lets her
out of his arms long enough for me to hold her.
Their place is pure chaos, but it’s a lov­ing chaos. Plus, Elsa’s much younger
sis­ter, Nora, is on-hand play­ing the very proud, ex­cited aunt, and help­ing
out wher­ever she can.
Elsa, of course, wants to talk busi­ness im­me­di­ately, and tries to tell me
she’ll be back in the of­fice full time by next week, lat­est.
I tell her if I see her in­side the Crown and Black of­fices be­fore two months
from now, I’ll for­mally ask the board to fire her.
Hades grins and gives me a big thumbs up from be­hind his wife’s back.
I get home late, and cranky. Not at all be­cause of the adorable baby girl I’ve
just had sleep­ing soundly against my shoul­der, and all the feel­ings that stirs
up. Okay, maybe. But also, Drazen’s just called to let me know it’s look­ing
more like a three- or even four-day trip.
With Mi­los here watch­ing me—even though I don’t need that at all—
Drazen’s had Zo­ran, one of his other top guys, with him as they zero in on
the head of the Belov Bratva. They had Vadik’s where­abouts pinned at a
safe house in Slove­nia. But when they broke down the door, it was clear
they’d just missed the fucker.
“We’ve got a lead that he’s in Ser­bia now,” Drazen growls into the phone as
one of his men opens the front door of the mas­sive pent­house for me.
“We’re headed there now.”
“I just miss you,” I blurt, feel­ing like a com­plete dork. “I mean, I know it’s
stupid, you’ve been gone for like one⁠—”
“I miss you, too,” he growls.
I feel my­self smile. “What are the odds.”
Drazen chuck­les. “Where are you?”
“I just got home—” I pause. “I mean, your place.”
“Keep call­ing it home,” he mur­murs. “I like it.”
I smile. “Me too.”
“Are you alone?”
I feel heat throb in my core. “Yes…” I mur­mur qui­etly, suck­ing my lip be­‐
tween my teeth.
“Then I’d like you to walk into the liv­ing area.”
I gig­gle. “Which one?”
Drazen’s New York pent­house is mas­sive. It’s at the very top of one of the
new­est ul­tra high-rises on “bil­lion­aire’s row” by Cen­tral Park, look­ing out
over all of Man­hat­tan from near cloud-level.
And by “Drazen’s pent­house”—sin­gu­lar—I mean pent­houses, plu­ral:
Drazen bought three of the mega-ex­pen­sive units and had them ren­o­vated
and merged into what has got to be one of the most ex­pen­sive pieces of real
es­tate in the city. There are lit­er­ally three “liv­ing ar­eas”, and they’re each
al­most as big as my en­tire apart­ment.
And I’ve got a nice apart­ment.
“The one with the pi­ano.”
I walk through the stun­ning home with the sky-high views un­til I get to the
con­cert grand Stein­way sit­ting near a mas­sive dou­ble-height wall of win­‐
dows over­look­ing Man­hat­tan.
“I’m there,” I whis­per.
“Good. Take your clothes off, get up on top of the pi­ano, spread your legs,
and send me a pic­ture.”
My pulse thuds.
“Of?” I tease.
“Of your pussy. My pussy.”
Some­thing dark and heated throbs in my core, fol­lowed by the loud, gnaw­‐
ing rum­ble of my stom­ach. It’s so loud that I ac­tu­ally gig­gle into the phone.
“What joke am I miss­ing?”
“No, it’s…” I sigh. “I’m sorry, but can my pho­to­shoot wait un­til af­ter I’ve
eaten some­thing and fresh­ened up a bit? I was over at Elsa’s and Hades’
see­ing Bella af­ter work and I’m starv­ing.”
He chuck­les. “Of course, love.”
My pulse skips.
I re­ally, re­ally love when he calls me that.
“Give me half an hour,” I purr. “I’m go­ing to feed my stom­ach and then
shower. And then…”
“I’ll be wait­ing,” he growls.
“Good,” I grin.
When I hang up, I wan­der into the mas­sive, pro­fes­sional-grade kitchen. I
mean I’m pretty sure I have all the tools in here to make the most com­plex,
so­phis­ti­cated Miche­lin-starred cui­sine I could pos­si­bly want.
I slap to­gether a tur­key and cheese sand­wich with av­o­cado and spicy mayo.
I stand at the kitchen is­land, wolf­ing down my food. My phone dings. I
glance down and grin when I see the texts from Elsa: a heart­warm­ing photo
she took of me cud­dling with Bella.
ELSA GUIN:
SO FREAK­ING CUTE!! OMG! Thank you so much for com­ing
over!!

I grin as I pick the phone up.

ME
Lit­er­ally ANY time! She’s so beau­ti­ful! If she goes miss­ing, you
know who to ques­tion first :P
ELSA GUIN
Yes of­fi­cers, this text mes­sage right here
ME
LOL
ELSA GUIN
So, I didn’t want to get into it with Hades right there, but…I
heard a ru­mor about you… ;)

I groan. Yeah, I was won­der­ing how long it would take Al­is­tair, Gabriel,
Fumi, or Eloise—those who are “in the know” so far about Drazen and I—
to spread that news a lit­tle wider. It’s not like I wasn’t go­ing to tell Elsa, ei­‐
ther. I just…haven’t yet.
ME
Lol….oh boy. Who squealed?
ELSA GUIN
My lips are sealed

I roll my eyes.
ME
Fumi.
ME
Fi­nal an­swer
Elsa sends back a gif of Roy Kent from Ted Lasso zip­ping his mouth shut.
ME
It’s….com­pli­cated?
ELSA GUIN
Lol, preach­ing to the choir, lady. Don’t I know it. Are you guys
just hav­ing fun? Or…?

I flush as I chew on my lip.

ME
Or.
ELSA GUIN
YAY!!! That makes me so happy for you!

She sends an­other pic­ture of me hold­ing Bella.

ELSA GUIN
Ba­bies. When.
ME
Lol, down girl

But as I put the phone back down and go to roll my eyes, some­thing stops
me. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never thought about the idea of hav­ing kids.
Es­pe­cially af­ter I turned thirty.
Thanks, fuck­ing bi­o­log­i­cal clock.
But I had, and still do very much have, my ca­reer. More im­por­tantly, I
never had any­one I could even re­motely think of as a life part­ner or some­‐
thing to raise a fam­ily with.
My brows knit.
Do I, now? With Drazen? The bru­tal Bratva king­pin that other hard­ened,
scary Bratva lead­ers fear?
The thought sim­mers in my head as I ex­hale slowly. I might need a drink if
I’m go­ing to con­tinue this line of think­ing.
Af­ter I text good­bye and an­other “thanks for hav­ing me” to Elsa, I shove
down the last of my sand­wich. I’m about to text Drazen a teas­ing cleav­age
shot with a note about wish­ing he was here to help me shower to get ready
for my pho­to­shoot when the lights go out.
At first, it’s pure fear that I feel ex­plod­ing through my veins. But then I hear
the soft click of the front door, and a man’s steps com­ing slowly and qui­etly
down the hall­way from the foyer into the kitchen.
A grin pulls at the cor­ners of my lips, and a heated throb tugs at my core.
That fucker.
My face floods with heat as I turn to press my back against the counter,
wait­ing for Drazen to make his dra­matic, scary en­trance. That dick to­tally
had me be­liev­ing he was on his way to freak­ing Ser­bia. In­stead, he was
prob­ab­ ly al­ready in a car in Mid­town.
The foot­steps pause just around the cor­ner. My core clenches and tight­ens,
my pulse siz­zling.
The si­lence and the still­ness drag on, un­til I just can’t take it any­more.
“Gee,” I gig­gle. “I thought you had busi­ness to take care of.”
Even though I know it’s him, my pulse skips as the dark, sil­hou­et­ted shape
steps from around the cor­ner, back­lit by the lights of New York.
“I do.”
Ev­ery­thing jan­gles and cur­dles. My blood turns to pure ice as the words
sneer from the shad­owy fig­ure.
It’s not Drazen.
I scream as he lunges at me and whirl to bolt away. But he grabs my an­kle
as he dives for me, yank­ing and twist­ing. I cry out as I crash to the floor,
flail­ing and hit­ting and punch­ing as the man slams me to the ground, pin­‐
ning me there with the weight of his body.
“I do have busi­ness,” the man snarls. “The un­fin­ished kind.”
Sud­denly, the lights hit him, and my heart seizes as I stare up in hor­ror at
Mi­los’ leer­ing face.
“With you.”
He stuffs a damp rag in my mouth. I fight back, slap­ping and claw­ing at his
face. I man­age to get a good gouge in, rak­ing my nails down one of his
cheeks as he hisses in pain.
But my head is al­ready spin­ning. My vi­sion is dark­en­ing at the edges from
what­ever is on the rag.
The last thing I see is the pure mal­ice and fury in his eyes. And the last
thing I think of be­fore it all goes dark is Drazen.

OceanofPDF.com
 34

DRAZEN

I pull out my phone and glance at the blank screen.

It’s been two hours since we talked, and Tay­lor still hasn’t texted me back.
It’s not en­tirely about not get­ting a pic­ture of her pretty lit­tle pussy, which
I’m sorely miss­ing right now—though I do want her to send that.
It’s that I haven’t heard from her at all.
Okay, she’s just come home from a long day. She needs to shower and re­lax
—maybe even take a bath. Prob­ab­ ly pour her­self a glass of wine. And
maybe she wants to…primp a lit­tle be­fore she takes that pic­ture for me, not
that I’d give a soli­tary shit if she sent me those types of shots with her cov­‐
ered in dirt af­ter spend­ing a week in the woods.
Still, two hours is…odd.
Feel­ing like a com­plete id­iot, I text Mi­los any­way, ask­ing him to check in
with the men on duty at the pent­house. He sends me a quick thumbs up
emoji back, and I ex­hale into the dark­ness.
I put the phone away, mak­ing sure it’s still on silent be­fore I glance over the
top of the Jeep at the farm­house set back from the coun­try road. It’s al­ways
weird for me to be back in Ser­bia. I don’t hate it, but I don’t par­tic­u­larly en­‐
joy the mem­o­ries of war that come with it. I know Mi­los feels the same way
—Zo­ran, too. He was also in­volved in those con­flicts, though our paths
never crossed then.
The farm­house is where our in­tel has Vadik hid­ing out. I had ev­ery in­ten­tion
of storm­ing in there my­self. But Zo­ran—prob­ab­ ly wisely—sug­gested I
hang back and let him and his men do the ini­tial breach. Just in case.
They’d bet­ter not kill the sneaky lit­tle shit hid­ing in the house, though.
My ear­piece squawks.
“Boss,” Zo­ran mut­ters qui­etly in his heavy ac­cent. “We’re ready.”
I can’t see them, be­cause they’re in all black. But Zo­ran and three of my
guys are right by the front and back doors to the farm­house, ready to go in
guns blaz­ing.
“Just re­mem­ber,” I growl. “I want him alive, Zo­ran.”
“Un­der­stood.”
I nod, peer­ing into the dark­ness. It’s al­most four in the morn­ing, but the
lights are still on in­side the farm­house. Our in­tel said Vadik was hid­ing out
with only three of his men. They’re all dead in a ditch be­hind me from
when we first snuck up on them.
“Okay,” I grunt into the mic. “Go.”
There’s a bang and a flood of light as Zo­ran and the guy by the front door
kick it open and surge in­side. I hear a crash, then the un­ex­pected shriek of a
woman’s scream.
There’s an­other crash­ing sound, and I start to run to­ward the house.
“Boss,” Zo­ran sighs in my ear­piece. “I got good news and bad.”
Shit.
“Yes?”
“The good news is, he’s here. The bad news is, he’s fuck­ing dead.”
My teeth grit as I close the dis­tance to the house. “God­dammit, Zo­ran⁠—”
“It wasn’t us, boss.”
I frown. “What?”
“You can come on in. She’s un­armed.”

“H e ’ s in the cel ­l ar ,” Zo­ran grunts as I walk through the door to the

farm­house.
I nod, glanc­ing around at the frankly breath­tak­ing amount of blood ev­ery­‐
where. My gaze swivels to the blonde girl sit­ting on the couch in the liv­ing
room, a blan­ket around her shoul­ders and one of my guys stand­ing watch.
Polina. The girl who was there at the house the night Vadik drugged Tay­lor
and me, and tor­tured me. I scowl at her, be­fore re­mem­ber­ing Tay­lor telling
me how this poor young woman tried to help when ev­ery­thing was go­ing
down. How she tried to free Tay­lor be­fore Vadik came back and dragged
her away.
How she had clearly been abused by that fuck. The bruises Tay­lor saw
when Polina’s foun­da­tion smudged.
Vadik’s body is down­stairs in the base­ment. Ac­cord­ing to Zo­ran, it doesn’t
look like he died re­cently. Maybe a day ago.
It also doesn’t look like he died…quickly.
But Polina doesn’t look hor­ri­fied, like she’s wit­nessed a grue­some mur­der.
She sits calmly and with­out emo­tion on the couch, star­ing straight ahead.
“Did she say any­thing?”
Zo­ran shakes his head. “Only ‘Don’t shoot. I al­ready killed him’,” he says
with a wry smile.
I turn back to Polina and walk over. I nod for my man be­side her to leave
us. Then I crouch down in front of her, meet­ing her gaze.
“Do you re­mem­ber me?”
She nods. She looks tired and worn out. But oth­er­wise, not bad.
“Of course,” she says qui­etly. “I’m so sorry about⁠—”
“You don’t have to apol­o­gize for any­thing,” I growl. “I know what hap­‐
pened. I also know you were as much a pris­oner at that house as my wife
and I were.” My eyes soften slightly. “She told me you tried to help her.
You have my thanks for that.”
Polina smiles a lit­tle wider as she fi­nally truly fo­cuses on me.
“How is she?” she asks softly. “Your wife, I mean.”
I nod. “She’s fine. She’s good.” I clear my throat. “Polina, do you want to
tell me what hap­pened here? I’m not an­gry. In fact, you’ve ar­guably done
me a fa­vor.”
Not re­ally. I would have vastly pre­ferred to have taken Vadik to a hole
some­where and drawn out his suf­fer­ing via drugs and painful but man­age­‐
able in­fec­tions and am­pu­ta­tions over the course of months.
But it is what it is.
Polina frowns, turn­ing to look over at the closed base­ment door.
“He liked to hit me,” she says qui­etly. “And hurt me. Your wife, An­nika…”
she swivels her gaze back to me, smil­ing a lit­tle. “She told me I shouldn’t
let a man treat me that way. That I de­served to be re­spected.”
I smile to my­self.
Yeah, that sounds like Tay­lor.
“So this time, when he hit me…I hit him back,” she says coldly. Her head
turns, look­ing into the next room. Zo­ran found a blood­ied metal spat­ula
there—the kind you flip fuck­ing pan­cakes with—ly­ing on the floor.
“With the pan­cake thing,” she says. “In his throat.”
My brows lift as I glance around. It’s caked and dried now, but the blood is
ev­ery­where—splat­tered over the walls, win­dows, and ceil­ing. Soaked into
the fur­ni­ture and rugs. Pooled on the floor un­der smeared, bloody hand­‐
prints on door­frames.
“He didn’t die right away,” Polina says qui­etly. “He…ran around a lot.” Her
face dark­ens. “Like a chicken with its head cut off,” she spits. “I couldn’t
get near him to cut him again. But when he ran past the base­ment door, I…”
She looks away. “I pushed him down the stairs.”
“I hope the fall didn’t kill him,” I growl.
She shakes her head. “It didn’t.”
Good. Maybe I didn’t get to tor­ture and skin him alive over the course of
months. But at least the fucker didn’t get a quick death. He bled out slowly,
prob­ab­ ly with shat­tered bones, breath­ing in fear and dark­ness in a dank root
cel­lar.
Rot in hell, Vadik.
Polina looks up at me with con­cern, like some­thing’s just oc­curred to her.
“Am I go­ing to get in trou­ble with the po­lice for this?” she asks ner­vously.
I shake my head. “No. In fact, if it’s okay, for your own safety, I’m go­ing to
claim re­spon­si­bil­ity for what hap­pened here. If any­one has a prob­lem with
Vadik’s death, they’ll come to me, not you.”
She nods, swal­low­ing. “Thank you.”
“My wife tells me you’re a dancer.”
She smiles weakly. “I was. Be­fore him,” she spits.
“I might be able to help, if you want to get back to it.”
Kir has con­nec­tions with the Za­kharova Bal­let in New York. I fully in­tend
to ask him to do what he can there.
“Polina, could you wait here a mo­ment?”
She nods.
“Do you need any­thing? Cof­fee? Wa­ter?”
She smiles wryly. “A shower. I…” She glances at the base­ment door. “It
hap­pened al­most a day ago. I was frozen and not sure what to do un­til your
men sur­prised me.”
I nod. “Go. Shower up­stairs. Take all the time you need. My men will stay
down here.”
“Thank you,” she says softly, smil­ing at me. “She’s lucky to have you. Your
wife.”
“I think it might be the other way around.”
Af­ter Polina dis­ap­pears up­stairs, Zo­ran walks over.
“What do you want to do with her, boss?”
“Set her up for life,” I grunt. “I still haven’t heard back from Mi­los. But get
in touch with him and ask him to ar­range for the pur­chase of an apart­ment
in New York. Big, but not gaudy. On the park, maybe. Near the bal­let at
Lin­coln Cen­ter.”
He nods. “On it.”
“And have him open an ac­count in her name and trans­fer ten…” I frown.
“Twenty mil­lion dol­lars into it.”
Zo­ran nods, un­fazed. He pulls out his phone and walks out the back door.
My other men set up a perime­ter around the house and move the cars from
the road to be­hind the barn.
I check on Vadik’s corpse. I al­ways make sure those who I think are dead
are ac­tu­ally dead. Af­ter all, that was this ass­hole’s sec­ond mis­take af­ter de­‐
cid­ing to slaugh­ter my fam­ily.
He thought I was dead, too.
But Vadik is in­deed very, very dead. The in­sane amount of blood around
him and the bro­ken bones from his tum­ble down the stairs pro­trud­ing out in
places, not to men­tion the va­cant look in his star­ing eyes, make it pretty ob­‐
vi­ous he’s not go­ing to be seek­ing re­venge.
I stalk through the rest of the ground floor of the farm­house, look­ing for
any­thing I might be able to use. There’s a lap­top and tablet I have my guys
scoop up for Dim­itri to crack into later. There are a few busi­ness pa­pers in a
lap­top bag in the home of­fice, but noth­ing re­mark­able. I find cash, a few
guns, and an amus­ing amount of Vi­ag­ ra stashed in a kitchen cup­board
above the fridge.
But when I walk into the down­stairs bath­room, I see a phone with bloody
fin­ger­prints all over it.
In­ter­est­ing.
The phone is ob­vi­ously Vadik’s. And from the pat­tern of the fin­ger­prints,
I’m guess­ing he was try­ing to un­lock it to call for help as he was dy­ing in­‐
glo­ri­ously from a spat­ula wound to the neck. He must have failed, and the
phone locked af­ter mul­ti­ple failed at­tempts. But those fin­ger­prints…
I peer closely to see what num­bers he hit, then bring the phone out to the
kitchen. There’s a pen in one of the draw­ers, and I take ev­ery­thing over to
the kitchen ta­ble, writ­ing zero-one-two-eight on the sur­face and then star­ing
at it.
That’s his four dig­its, but I don’t know the or­der. And not even Dim­itri can
hack an iPhone.
I’m star­ing at the num­bers as I hear Polina come down­stairs from her
shower. She walks into the kitchen dressed in jeans and a hoodie, a towel
wrapped around her hair.
“I don’t sup­pose you know that ass­hole’s phone pass­word, do you?” I grunt
hope­fully.
Polina shakes her head. “Sorry.”
Fuck.
I stare at the num­bers, con­sid­er­ing what I know about Vadik. He’s…sorry-
not-sorry, was…a prick. Loud. Ob­nox­ious. Not to men­tion rude and lazy…
I freeze.
Lazy.
I’ve al­ready tried zero-one-two-eight. I’m guess­ing Vadik’s lazi­ness would
stop him from adding more than the four num­bers re­quired to set a pass­‐
word.
Je­sus, he can’t have been THAT stupid…
“Polina, what was Vadik’s birth­day?”
She scowls. “Au­gust some­time. I re­mem­ber that.”
Maybe he was that stupid.
“Would it have been the twelfth?”
She shakes her head. “No, I have a cousin with that birth­day. I would have
re­mem­bered if they were the same.”
“How about the twenty-first.”
She thinks for a sec­ond. “I…maybe?”
Worth try­ing.
I mean, it’s been a day now. The lock­out timer must have re­set by now. I
pick up the phone and tap in zero-eight for Au­gust, and two-one for the day.
Fuck­ing. Bingo.
The phone un­locks.
I check his calls first, to make sure help isn’t on the way. But it looks like
even if he did get the phone un­locked as he was bleed­ing out, he never di­‐
aled any­one. I make sure there aren’t any re­mote ac­cess apps in­stalled to
delete the phone in case of theft. Then I change the pass­word just to be sure,
so when I give it to Dim­itri to look at, there’s no chance of any­one else get­‐
ting ac­cess and lock­ing us out of any in­for­ma­tion.
Then, I check his texts.
Je­sus Christ, Vadik…
The first few text ex­changes are clearly with women and in­volve Vadik
send­ing pho­tos of his com­i­cally sad “pe­nis” and of­fers of money. There are
a few other busi­ness ex­changes with var­i­ous of his men. But there’s one
that gives me pause.
The con­tact name is Svin’ya; “pig” in Rus­sian. It even has a lit­tle pig emoji
in­cluded in the con­tact name.
The KGB, Rus­sia’s se­cret po­lice, used to call traitors “pigs”, and Vadik was
once a KGB of­fi­cer, be­fore he turned crim­i­nal.
Who the fuck is his traitor?
And who or what are they a traitor to?
I tap on the con­ver­sa­tion, which looks to be from just be­fore Polina at­‐
tacked Vadik.
ME
Time­line?

An hour later, Vadik texted this “pig” again.

ME
An­swer me. I’m stuck here un­til you se­cure the in­sur­ance, and
I’m tired of be­ing cooped up with this dumb bitch
SVIN’YA
Re­lax. It’s all go­ing to plan. When he comes to you, that’s when
I’ll take the in­sur­ance.
ME
You’d bet­ter. I’m pay­ing you a for­tune for this.
SVIN’YA
You’ll get what you want. I prom­ise.

I ex­hale, scrolling. This is bull­shit. I don’t need to know about what­ever

scam or heroin deal Vadik was try­ing to pull while hid­ing from me. I just⁠—
My en­tire be­ing goes still as my eyes drop to the next line.
SVIN’YA
Drazen still thinks you’re in Slove­nia. I’ll make my move when
he leaves.

Oh fuck.
It’s me. This per­son is a traitor to me.
I yank out my phone and call Mi­los so he can start lock­ing ev­ery­thing
down. Clearly, we have a mole. And fur­ther­more, Vadik and this mole were
af­ter some­thing of mine. For “in­sur­ance” of some kind.
Mi­los’ phone goes to fuck­ing voice­mail, though.
“An­swer your god­damn phone, ass­hole,” I hiss, leav­ing him a mes­sage be­‐
fore I hang up and re­dial. Voice­mail again.
I drag my eyes back to Vadik’s text ex­change with the traitor.
ME
Good. Call im­me­di­ately once it’s done
SVIN’YA
Of course
ME
Don’t fuck up
SVIN’YA
Look, it will go EX­ACTLY as I told you. He trusts me with his
life. That’s why he left me to watch her. And when he’s gone,
that’s when I’ll grab An­nika and de­liver her to you

My world goes side­ways. The air leaves my lungs as my brain screeches to

a halt, try­ing to force this up­side-down re­al­ity I’m star­ing at into some­thing
that makes sense.
But it re­fuses to. I refuse to ac­cept the re­al­ity star­ing me in the face.
Then, sud­denly, I un­der­stand why Mi­los isn’t an­swer­ing my calls.
And, more alarm­ingly, why Tay­lor hasn’t texted me back.
I’m barely aware of Zo­ran and my other men shout­ing my name and run­‐
ning af­ter me as I jump be­hind the wheel of one of the SUVs. Just as I start
the en­gine, my phone rings with a call from a blocked num­ber.
“Who is this,” I snarl as I roar away from the farm back to­ward the air­field.
“Drazen,” a young Rus­sian voice grunts. “It’s Dim­itri.”
The fuck. Dim­itri, as a hacker, never uses phones. He’s that para­noid about
se­cu­rity and sur­veil­lance.
Yet here he is, call­ing me.
“Dim­itri—”
“I gotta keep this quick,” he blurts. “But I found some­thing you should
know about. Some­thing huge.”
My pulse speeds up as I tear down the road.
“Tell me ev­ery­thing.”

OceanofPDF.com
 35

TAY­L OR

B lack waves crash be ­n eath me .

For a mo­ment, I think I’m still asleep, and dream­ing. It feels like I’m float­‐
ing out over the ocean, or fly­ing.
But when the dark, surg­ing surf smashes against the rocks again, my pulse
jan­gles, and re­al­ity claws shriek­ing into my heart.
I’m not fly­ing.
I’m fall­ing.
I choke on the scream as it all bub­bles up into re­al­ity. I flinch, jerk­ing
around, feel­ing for some­thing to grab onto be­fore I slam into the ocean. But
I re­al­ize I’m still wrong.
I’m nei­ther fly­ing nor fall­ing.
I’m…dan­gling.
I shud­der, my eyes wide as my head jerks side to side, see­ing my arms
spread wide and bound with thick rope to the metal at my back. That’s
when I look down again, and I re­al­ize where I am.
Sweet Je­sus…
“I hope you can ap­pre­ci­ate the po­etry of killing you here.”
I gasp sharply as I snap my head around, my eyes go­ing wide when I see
him.
“Mi­los!” I scream, “Mi­los, help me! I⁠—”
And then it slams into me as the fi­nal fog clears from my head: Drazen’s
apart­ment. The man in the shad­ows that I thought was him.
The chem­i­cal smell as I faded out of con­scious­ness.
Oh fuck.
Mi­los’ lips pull to a dark grin as he sees recog­ni­tion slic­ing into me like a
blade.
“Why?!” I choke, my eyes wide as my heads shakes side to side. “Why are
you do­ing this?! Why here?!”
His eyes nar­row coldly.
“Be­cause this,” he snarls, “is where my fam­ily died. This is where your
fam­ily got them fuck­ing killed.”
The surf un­der the bridge from Elba to Drazen’s is­land crashes be­low. The
moon is out, glint­ing like sharp blades off the waves as they slam into the
rocks. The wind whips my hair around, and my pulse thuds as the tug of
grav­ity pulls at my shoul­der sock­ets where I’m tied to the metal guardrail
on the edge of the bridge, my legs dan­gling over the abyss.
“Mi­los,” I choke, turn­ing to stare at him with wide, ter­ri­fied eyes. “Mi­los,
please!”
He just shakes his head, star­ing at me.
“That night, af­ter those bas­tards got in­side, I lost my fa­ther.” His fu­ri­ous
gaze blazes into me. “He was my world, my fa­ther. He taught me ev­ery­‐
thing. He saved me time and time again through the hor­ror I grew up in. Af­‐
ter the war took my sis­ter and my mother, he was the only fam­ily I had
left.”
Tears trickle down my face.
“I’m so sorry,” I whis­per into the wind. “Mi­los, I⁠—”
“I don’t want your fuck­ing apolo­gies,” he says evenly. “They mean noth­ing.
But what does mean some­thing to me is the big­gest les­son my fa­ther ever
taught me.” His gaze lev­els lethally with mine. “When they take some­thing
from you, you take some­thing more from them. When they cut you, you cut
them back, deeper,” he snarls. “I lived those words through­out the war. I’ve
al­ways lived them,” he hisses. “And tonight, I’m fi­nally go­ing to cut back,
af­ter I was cut.”
“Mi­los—” I choke. “Mi­los, I⁠—”
“Your fa­ther’s men mas­sa­cred ev­ery­one I knew that night. Ev­ery­one I had
left in the world. Friends. Men­tors. Men who were like fam­ily to me.” He
pauses. “My fa­ther took a bul­let to the stom­ach when the first at­tacks came.
And when the car car­ry­ing the fuck­ing traitor tried to es­cape, he gave his
last breath in ser­vice to his duty to pro­tect the Krylov fam­ily.”
Mi­los’ throat bobs as he looks up and down the length of the bridge.
“Did Drazen ever tell you that those same se­cu­rity mea­sures from be­fore
are still in place?”
I shake my head, my stom­ach knot­ting.
“When we re­built his is­land, with the new house, and the new bridge, I
made sure that ev­ery pos­si­ble sce­nario was ac­counted for. So that what hap­‐
pened here could never fuck­ing hap­pen again.”
He turns to level a cold look at me.
“Just as the first one was, this bridge is rigged to det­o­nate. In case of a
breach, if things are crit­i­cal, some­one with the trig­ger…this trig­ger…can
blow the bridge into the waves be­low, cut­ting the is­land off.”
He holds up some­thing that looks like the re­mote con­trol for a toy car, with
an an­tenna stick­ing out the top of it.
“No…” I whis­per be­fore I fi­nally find my voice. “NO!” I scream. “NO!
HELP!”
Mi­los shakes his head.
“We’re alone,” he growls qui­etly. “I run the se­cu­rity for the is­land. I make
the sched­ules of who guards where, and when.” He turns to look over the
waves. “Scream all you like. No one will hear you. We’re alone tonight.”
“Drazen thinks of you as a brother!” I hurl at him. “How⁠—”
“Drazen is my brother!” he snaps at me. “We be­came blood the first time
we spilled it to­gether. When we fought a war as fuck­ing chil­dren to­gether!
You’re god­damn right he’s my brother!” he snarls. “Tonight, I’m do­ing my
brother a fa­vor. I’m re­mov­ing you from his life. I’m cleans­ing him of the
trai­tor­ous poi­son.”
“He’ll kill you,” I hiss, my voice trem­bling.
Mi­los shakes his head. “He’ll em­brace me, as a brother, af­ter I show him
the proof that your death was the last work of Vadik, to hurt Drazen by
killing his wife. Drazen gets full jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for killing that snake. And I
rid him of you.”
“Please don’t do this,” I choke as my eyes tear. “Please!”
Mi­los just looks away. “My fa­ther was my whole world,” he growls qui­etly.
“And when some­one cuts you, you cut them back. Deeper. An eye for an
eye.”
“I didn’t kill your fa­ther!!!” I scream. “I don’t re­mem­ber any­thing about
that night!! Even if it was me who tried to drive across that bridge⁠—”
I choke as Mi­los surges into me, bring­ing the blade in his hand to my jugu­‐
lar.
“Please,” he snarls vi­ciously. “Please tell me that it’s his fault. Please try
and tell me that him blow­ing the bridge, and do­ing his sworn duty, makes it
his own do­ing that he died!”
Tears start to roll down my face.
“Mi­los,” I whis­per hoarsely as he whirls and stalks away an­grily. “I’m so,
so sorry for what hap­pened to your fa­ther. But I didn’t kill⁠—”
“I know you didn’t.”
I shud­der as his eyes nar­row to thin, vi­cious slits as a cold smile curls his
mouth.
“Your twin sis­ter did.”

OceanofPDF.com
 36

TAY­L OR

T here are some mo­ments in life that are too big to truly grasp. Too real.
Los­ing my great-aunt was one of those mo­ments—some­thing bril­liantly,
blind­ingly harsh that is al­most im­pos­si­ble to ac­cept as real.
One minute, I had fam­ily liv­ing. The next, I was truly and ut­terly alone in
the world.
Or maybe I wasn’t.
This, too, is one of those mo­ments.
When those words come out of Mi­los’ mouth, I hear them, but I don’t re­ally
hear them. It’s too big a con­cept for my mind to ac­cept, too for­eign, like
some­one try­ing to tell you grav­ity isn’t real even as you’re fall­ing, or that
the tiger isn’t ag­gres­sive while it’s lac­er­at­ing your tra­chea.
My first re­ac­tion is a gut one: he’s ob­vi­ously ly­ing, and this is all⁠—
Why.
That’s the sec­ond re­ac­tion: if he’s ly­ing, why. He’s just told me he’s go­ing
to kill me by blow­ing me to hell on the very bridge where I lost my mem­ory
the first time.
I know that now. I’ve made peace with it now, even if I still don’t re­mem­ber
it.
There was no “drunk driver”.
My par­ents weren’t “spies work­ing for the gov­ern­ment”.
I opened a door on this is­land. I let Drazen’s en­em
­ ies in, and they slaugh­‐
tered his en­tire fam­ily.
I tried to flee over a bridge that stood where this one does now.
That’s what hap­pened. And now I’ll die here, to pay for a sin I don’t re­‐
mem­ber.
But through all of that, and the ex­plo­sive, gut-wrench­ing emo­tions that re­al­‐
iza­tion drags out of me, I’m able to fix­ate only on what Mi­los just said.
Some­thing that shat­ters all of that.
Your twin sis­ter did.
A thud­ding, roar­ing sound grows louder and louder in my ears. At first, I
think it’s the surf be­low. Or maybe that a truck is ap­proach­ing, or a fuck­ing
train.
Then I re­al­ize it’s my pulse, wail­ing through my veins like a ban­shee.
I have a sis­ter.
I…
Play with me, An­nika! Come play with me!
Shh! Hide so Papa doesn’t find us! Don’t say a word. Let’s prac­tice not be­‐
ing found.
I’m happy that I’ll never for­get your birth­day.
They’ll never sep­a­rate us, An­nika.
This is my in­vis­i­ble friend…
A scream­ing, gut­tural, an­i­mal­is­tic sound rips me from the haze of half-re­‐
mem­bered mem­o­ries and whis­pered words. My eyes are star­ing, my body
shak­ing and my mouth wide open.
That’s when I re­al­ize the sound is me.
“Fuck…”
I turn to stare at Mi­los with hag­gard grief blar­ing through my skin. He
squints at me, his mouth open in sur­prise as he slowly shakes his head.
“You re­ally didn’t re­mem­ber, did you,” he breathes.
I blink, try­ing to wake up. Try­ing to drag my psy­che out of what­ever frozen
lake it just fell into.
“Je­bote,” Mi­los breathes as he stares at me. “I…I didn’t be­lieve it. I thought
there was no way you could for­get ev­ery­thing⁠—”
The same crack­ing sound that makes Mi­los flinch rips my mind out of the
frozen hole. I choke, gasp­ing as my gaze yanks past Mi­los, ducked be­hind
one of the bridge py­lon posts, and into the dark­ness of the is­land. That’s
where the bang came from.
Sud­denly, he emerges from the shad­ows, like a black wraith. Like Death
and all four horse­man of the Apoc­al­ypse, with pure fury in his eyes.
Drazen.
He storms out of the shad­owy mist with a ri­fle on his shoul­der, his eye to
the scope. His chest heaves, like he’s been run­ning.
“MI­LOS!” he roars. “MI­LOS!!”
I want to call to him, but part of me is still frozen. I blink, still in shock as I
watch Mi­los yank a pis­tol out of his waist­band and then step out from be­‐
hind the pole.
“Stay right there,” Mi­los grunts, lev­el­ing the gun at Drazen and lift­ing the
re­mote det­o­na­tor high. “You know what this is.”
“Yeah,” Drazen spits, not low­er­ing the ri­fle as he snarls. “I know what that
is.”
His fierce gaze flicks from Mi­los to me, stay­ing there for a mo­ment. I can
feel my heart thud­ding as I lock eyes with him, my psy­che thaw­ing from its
icy plunge slightly be­fore he rips his eyes back to Mi­los.
“What are you do­ing, Mi­los,” he rasps.
“You were my brother!” Mi­los yells at him.
“I still am!” Drazen screams back.
Mi­los’ fin­gers clench and un­clench around the stock of his gun.
“Blood for blood, Drazen,” he chokes. “Re­mem­ber? That’s what we al­ways
said to each other those nights we were on watch, up in a ru­ined church
steeple or an of­fice build­ing with a sniper ri­fle and binoc­u­lars.”
“That was war, Mi­los,” Drazen hisses.
“LIFE is war!” Mi­los fires back.
“We were fuck­ing kids!” Drazen snaps. “We had no busi­ness⁠—”
“We’re not kids any­more, my friend.”
“Friend?” Drazen snarls in­cred­u­lously. “You call your­self my friend with
my wife tied up be­hind you, in dan­ger that you fuck­ing put her in your­‐
self?!”
“She’s not your wife!!”
The words echo through the night like a slap.
Some­thing snaps in my head. An ice-cov­ered river break­ing. A door splin­‐
ter­ing. A wall col­laps­ing.
They’ll never sep­a­rate us, An­nika.
They’re go­ing to.
No. I won’t let them.
You have to. You have to let me go. I’m the one that must do this.
Please. Don’t leave me.
I’ll never leave you. You’re my sis­ter.
Your in­vis­i­ble friend.
I think I have to go.
I love you, An­nika. I won’t leave you there.
I know you won’t. I love you, Tat­jana.
When my eyes snap open, and re­al­ity comes crash­ing back into me like a
truck, some­thing claws into my heart.
A truth I’ve al­ways known, but never re­mem­bered.
A half-for­got­ten dream.
An im­print of a mem­ory.
It’s not me.
I’m not An­nika.
I’m not Drazen’s wife.
“Her fam­ily, Drazen!” Mi­los screams. “Her fuck­ing fam­ily be­trayed⁠—”
“We were all be­trayed!” Drazen roars back. “You! Me! Your fa­ther! My fa­‐
ther and my fam­ily! Her and her fam­ily!!”
He keeps his hand on the ri­fle trig­ger, his eye to the sights, and reaches into
his pocket with his other hand and yanks his phone out to hold it high.
“I have proof, Mi­los! Vadik played us all! He was in hot wa­ter with the Iron
Ta­ble. They were catch­ing on to his back­stab­bing. With the union of my
fam­ily and hers, and with Yeliza­veta be­ing Mi­ha­jlo’s god­mother, he was
wor­ried about his seat!” Drazen shakes the phone in his hand. “I have hard
ev­i­dence, Mi­los!” he pleads.
“My fa­ther…” Mi­los chokes. “He lived through so fuck­ing much! What
they did to my sis­ter! To my mother! He sur­vived all of it, and served your
fa­ther his en­tire life⁠—”
“Mi­los—!”
“And then died be­cause of her! Her fam­ily!”
“No!” Drazen roars. “No, Mi­los! The at­tack…that was Vadik! Those were
his men, made to look like her fa­ther’s to make it look like a war be­tween
my fam­ily and hers. Vadik’s men came for her fam­ily and slaugh­tered her
par­ents the same night, pre­tend­ing to be my fa­ther’s men.”
My throat squeezes closed.
The acrid smell of smoke fills my nos­trils.
The crack­ing of tim­ber beams. The screams. The stac­cato tap-tap-tap of
gun­fire.
The fire ev­ery­where, singe­ing my hair and blis­ter­ing my fin­gers as I scram­‐
ble to open a door.
The boom I feel in my very soul as the whole world goes end over end. The
win­dow shat­ter­ing as I fly through it, punched out into the night in a belch­‐
ing hail of blood, glass, and fire.
Oh God…
“Mi­los!!”
Drazen’s voice grabs my mind by the col­lar and yanks it back from the
dark­ness of mem­ory.
Mi­los is shak­ing as he holds the det­o­na­tor up high.
“Don’t do this, Mi­los!” Drazen roars.
“I…I have to,” Mi­los whis­pers. “I⁠—”
“Don’t make me do it!” Drazen hisses. “Don’t you fuck­ing make kill you.”
Mi­los smiles weakly. “We do what we must, my brother. You choose your
path.”
He smiles a cold, far­away, re­signed smile.
“I’ve cho­sen mine⁠—”
The harsh crack of the ri­fle splits the night. The im­pact of Drazen’s bul­let
slams Mi­los’ body back­ward. I scream as the det­o­na­tor falls from his hand
as his body goes tum­bling back­ward to top­ple onto the pave­ment stretch­ing
over the bridge.
Drazen is run­ning to me be­fore the body even lands. He throws the ri­fle
away, his eyes blaz­ing with mad­ness as he charges over. I sob when he gets
to me, his arms cir­cling my body as he buries his face in my neck.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he chokes fiercely. “I thought you’d been taken
from me.”
I’m sob­bing as he yanks a blade out and starts cut­ting my ropes free—one
arm, then the other, then my torso. He hauls me over the guardrail to safety,
wrap­ping his arms around me as I col­lapse into him.
“We will go to­gether, my brother.”
The two of us whirl. The color drains from my face as I see a bleed­ing, pale
Mi­los stretch his hand out and wrap his fin­gers around the re­mote on the
ground.
“Like it was al­ways meant to be…” he gur­gles, blood drip­ping from his
mouth.
It feels like ev­ery­thing goes into slow mo­tion. Drazen grabs me, throws me
over his shoul­der, whirls and starts to fuck­ing run for the Elba side of the
bridge, away from Mi­los. My stom­ach bounces against his shoul­der in a
thud­ding, syrupy slow­ness as time sim­ply comes to a stop.
I watch as Mi­los’ eyes close, his arm draw­ing the re­mote against his chest
as his lips mum­ble a prayer.
Oh God…
The world goes white and or­ange. It’s ut­ter si­lence as the bridge bub­bles
and surges un­der us, un­til sud­denly, liq­uid fire belches out in a howl­ing roar
that deaf­ens the whole world.
Drazen keeps run­ning. My body bangs against his shoul­der as the ex­plo­sion
surges out­ward in all di­rec­tions like a Cher­nobyl night­mare.
And then sud­denly, ev­ery­thing splits.
Grav­ity turns off.
Heat slams into me, fire, rock, and metal punch­ing me into the dark­ness as
the bridge col­lapses be­neath us.
And the dark­ness and the black surf be­low swal­low me whole.
OceanofPDF.com
 37

DRAZEN

A ll I can see is dark­ness. All I can feel is pain. All I can breathe is ash
and smoke.
The ring­ing in my ears is so loud it’s like my head is in­side a train whis­tle.
My fin­gers scrape against rub­ble and ash. My jaw works, try­ing to clear my
ears as a dim light flick­ers on and off be­hind my eyes.
…Drazen…
Yes.
I’m here.
I can hear you.
Maybe.
I’m not sure.
I groan, pain ex­plod­ing through my chest, my side, my leg, my ev­ery­thing
as I try and move. I blink and see only stars and su­per­novas, nau­sea and a
lack of sense of grav­ity churn­ing my stom­ach and spin­ning my head in a
vor­tex.
Drazen.
Get up.
Get. The fuck. UP.
More pain rips through me as I roll onto my back. I blink again, the light
flash­ing in my eyes flick­er­ing in and out be­fore the light catches and takes
hold. Shapes roam through the blur­ri­ness. Some­thing moves closer to me,
mak­ing my face scrunch up as I try to fo­cus.
Or­ange.
Pale peach.
Two dots of blue…
“Drazen!”
With a chok­ing rasp and a wrench­ing pain that al­most kills me, I lurch up to
a sit­ting po­si­tion, in­hal­ing smoke and grit. In­stantly, I fall back­ward again.
But this time, when I blink, the blur­ri­ness fades.
The world stops rock­ing back and forth.
And sud­denly, I can see.
“Drazen!”
My heart lurches as Tay­lor comes into fo­cus, lean­ing over me, scream­ing
my name through the deaf­en­ing ring­ing in my ears.
And yet… Some­thing’s wrong. My thoughts are jum­bled, my mem­ory
crooked. It’s Tay­lor lean­ing over me, press­ing some­thing soft against the
wet­ness on the side of my head. But it’s also…
Not.
Her hair is shorter. She’s changed her clothes. She’s found a medic’s bag,
which she’s slung over one shoul­der.
When did she get that tat­too on her arm…
“Drazen!”
She’s still scream­ing my name as she rips my shirt open, scat­ter­ing the but­‐
tons. I want to tell her that I’d like to be able to fuck­ing speak be­fore we get
to that. I also want to ask her about the tat­too and her hair.
“I need you to get the fuck up, Drazen!”
I blink again, my jaw open­ing and clos­ing, mak­ing some­thing pop in my
ears. The ring­ing fades a lit­tle.
Sud­denly, I can hear.
“GET UP!” she screams at me. Her eyes drop to my chest, a wor­ried look
on her face as she grabs some­thing out of her bag: gauze, and a nee­dle and
thread.
What the fuck…
With a groan, I force my eyes to fo­cus and lift my ring­ing head, look­ing
down to see where her hands are mov­ing.
Fuck.
My eyes land on the jagged piece of metal stick­ing out from be­tween my
ribs. That would ex­plain the agony and hellish pain.
“What are you…”
“Shut up,” she snaps coldly, frown­ing and push­ing gauze against my body.
“Just don’t talk.” Her eyes snap to mine.
Tay­lor’s eyes. Tay­lor’s face. Tay­lor’s voice.
And yet not Tay­lor.
“Who…?”
She jams a piece of splin­tered wood be­tween my teeth.
“Bite down,” she rasps out hur­riedly. “Or you’ll bite your tongue off. Do it
now.”
Yeah, I’ve been to war. I know what comes next.
I bite the fuck down.
The pain is delir­ium, agony in­car­nate when she grips the piece of metal and
yanks it out of my body. Her hand grabs mine, pin­ning my palm over the
gauze staunch­ing the blood.
“Hold that.”
She grabs her nee­dle and thread. A fresh wave of pain washes over me as
she pulls my hand away and pushes the nee­dle through my flesh, lac­ing the
gash closed. She works quickly, per­haps a lit­tle clum­sily. But when I glance
down again, she’s bit­ing off the string and tap­ing heavy gauze to my side.
She looks up, her Tay­lor eyes that aren’t Tay­lor lock­ing with mine.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood, and I think your leg might be bro­ken. But
you’re still stronger than me, and I need that strength right now. Un­der­‐
stand?”
I frown. “Who the fuck⁠—”
“Do you love her?!” she blurts, her eyes wildly search­ing mine.
She’s not wrong about the blood loss. My head is swim­ming, and there’s
three of her com­ing in and out of fo­cus. But I could be dead and still an­swer
that ques­tion.
“Do you love Tay­lor?!”
“Yes,” I choke.
“Good,” she replies. “Be­cause she needs our help. Get the fuck up.”
Yeah, that does it. With a stab of pain, I take her out­stretched arm and
wrench my­self to my feet.
Holy fuck.
I’m stand­ing on the very edge of Hell. The bridge is blown to shit, with a
mas­sive chunk in the mid­dle gone. Fiery piles of wreck­age and what might
be spilled oil give the whole scene a blood-chill­ing look as the flames and
the smoke cast flick­er­ing, night­mar­ish shad­ows over ev­ery­thing.
“This way.”
She grabs my arm, yank­ing me al­most off my feet as I stum­ble af­ter her. We
scram­ble over rub­ble and wreck­age, smoke and ash and fire chok­ing my
throat and burn­ing my eyes. Sud­denly, even be­fore the woman says any­‐
thing, I see her.
Tay­lor.
“Wait—”
I ig­nore her warn­ing, lurch­ing for­ward down a crooked slab of con­crete. At
the last sec­ond, I re­al­ize it drops off at the end. I leap, hiss­ing in pain as I
jump across the gap­ing di­vide and go crash­ing against the op­po­site side.
FUCK that hurts.
I claw at the ground, my feet kick­ing thin air. My teeth grit, and with a cry
of agony, I wrench my­self back up over the edge.
My stitches have ripped out. Blood is pour­ing down my side. But I don’t
care. I go stag­ger­ing to­ward Tay­lor, slumped on the ground.
Her eyes closed.
Her body cov­ered in ash.
A huge slab of con­crete on her leg.
An ex­plo­sion and a crum­bling sound rip my at­ten­tion be­hind me. The other
Tay­lor screams, lurch­ing back­ward as part of the con­crete slab slides off the
bridge and into the wa­ter be­low.
“I can’t jump that!” she screams at me. “But she’s bleed­ing out!!”
“So throw me the bag!” I roar. “THROW ME THE FUCK­ING BAG!”
She yanks the med bag off her shoul­der and hurls it over the abyss to­ward
me. I catch it, whirling to kneel next to Tay­lor.
My Tay­lor.
“Stay with me, my love,” I hiss, my hand shov­ing rocks and ash off her
body un­til sud­denly my fin­gers touch warm, sticky wet­ness. My teeth grit
as I brush more ash off her, scram­bling to find where she’s bleed­ing from as
I yank the med bag open.
Oh fuck.
I’ve found the wound. It’s un­der the mas­sive piece of stone pin­ning her leg.
Be­neath me, the wreck­age of the bridge rum­bles and shakes.
We’re run­ning out of time.
My fin­gers grip the edge of the stone. I suck in black air, my teeth grind­ing
as I crouch down, tight­en­ing my scream­ing stom­ach mus­cles.
Then, I lift.
I lift with ev­ery­thing I have, ev­ery­thing I’ve ever been. I lift with all the
agony of war and the raw pain of my fam­ily’s screams.
Joints pop. Blood flows down my fin­gers. My vi­sion goes black as my
shoul­der dis­lo­cates from the socket.
I don’t. Stop. Strain­ing. Us­ing ev­ery sin­gle drop of strength I have left.
She will not fuck­ing die here.
Not again.
The bridge shakes. Some­one is scream­ing. Slowly, the mas­sive piece of
con­crete shifts with a rasp­ing, grat­ing sound be­fore it fi­nally tips away from
her.
Tay­lor stirs, dusty breath chok­ing from her cracked lips.
“She’s free!” I roar over my shoul­der as I crouch next to her, press­ing gauze
to the huge gash on her leg.
“Get her off the bridge!!” Tay­lor-not-Tay­lor screams back. “I have a boat!
I’ll meet you on the Elba side.”
I just nod, my mind too fo­cused on Tay­lor, my hands too busy ap­ply­ing
pres­sure to the wound.
The bridge rum­bles and wob­bles again vi­o­lently as I wrap gauze around her
leg.
The bleed­ing won’t stop. It’s get­ting worse.
“Stay with me,” I hiss as I yank my shirt off and start to wrap it around her
thigh. “FUCK­ING STAY WITH ME, TAY­LOR!”
The bridge starts to sag and groan.
We have to go.
Now.
I leave ev­ery­thing else be­hind as I grab her, lift her in my arms, and stand.
Pain ex­plodes though my side and leg. But I don’t care. I lift her in my arms
and start to run as the ground caves in around us.
She’s ter­ri­fy­ingly weak and limp in my arms, barely cling­ing to me as I
lurch over a pile of rub­ble and skid down a rocky con­crete slope dot­ted with
roar­ing fire.
I see the edge be­fore we hit it—the ragged cliff where this ru­ined sec­tion of
the bridge ends. Be­yond it lie sta­ble ground and the road.
I don’t stop. I don’t slow. I use ev­ery­thing I have left in my sys­tem as I hit
the edge, lurch, and leap for­ward into thin air.

OceanofPDF.com
 38

DRAZEN

“I hope you take it black .”

I look up, slowly pulling my eyes away from Tay­lor’s sleep­ing form in the
hos­pi­tal bed to look up at An­nika. She makes a face.
“I couldn’t find any sugar, and the milk in the nurses sta­tion looked…” She
win­kles her nose. “Well, cur­dled would have been an im­prove­ment.”
“Black is fine,” I grunt. “Thank you.”
She nods as she passes me the Sty­ro­foam cup and sinks into the chair on the
other side of Tay­lor’s hos­pi­tal bed. Her eyes drop to her twin, a slightly
wor­ried ex­pres­sion on her face.
“You saved her life, you know,” I growl qui­etly. “Both of ours.”
An­nika looks up, her mouth twist­ing. “Oh, I don’t know about that. You
were Cap­tain Hero jump­ing over fire with your damn or­gans prac­ti­cally
fall­ing out of a hole in your side.”
I smile wryly, glanc­ing down at the bulge un­der my hos­pi­tal scrubs top
where the ban­dage is wrapped around my mid­dle.
“You were there, though,” I shrug, glanc­ing back up at her. “You pulled me
back into con­scious­ness.”
She nods, look­ing back at her sis­ter.
“I’m not go­ing to ask now,” I say cau­tiously. “But I do want to know at
some point how it is you were there.” My brow fur­rows. “Not to men­‐
tion⁠—”
“Nine thou­sand other ques­tions?”
“Give or take a thou­sand, yeah,” I grunt.
She smiles wryly, her gaze drop­ping back to Tay­lor.
“She’s re­ally go­ing to be okay?”
I nod. “She is.”
“And we’re…” An­nika glances ner­vously at the door to the hos­pi­tal room.
“Safe here, yes,” I growl. “My men are po­si­tioned all over this build­ing.
And be­sides, the guys at the lo­cal po­lice de­part­ment are…friends.”
An­nika smirks. “I bet they are.”
“What the fuck is go­ing on,” I grunt.
She frowns. “I thought you weren’t go­ing to ask your nine thou­sand ques­‐
tions yet.”
“Not eight thou­sand, nine hun­dred and nintey-nine of them,” I mut­ter. “But
that one I need an an­swer to. And now would be best.”
An­nika looks down, her lip catch­ing in her teeth in—holy shit, a very Tay­‐
lor way—as her fin­gers twist.
“Could you be a lit­tle more spe­cific, then?”
“For starters…” My eyes meet hers. “Who the fuck did I marry fif­teen
years ago.”
She smiles weakly. “Happy an­niver­sary, dear.”
My face dark­ens.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, “I had it an­nulled af­ter I dis­ap­peared.”
“Good,” I grunt. A hint of smile touches my lips. “I did, too, ac­tu­ally.”
An­nika laughs qui­etly.
“That’ll make for an in­ter­est­ing Christ­mas card.”
I smirk, shak­ing my head be­fore I fo­cus on her again. “What the hell hap­‐
pened to you that night? And Tay­lor⁠—”
“Tat­jana,” she says qui­etly. She reaches out and slips her hand into her sis­‐
ter’s. “Her name is Tat­jana. Or…it was.” Her lips twist as she looks up at
me. “What you re­ally want to know is how, right? How there’s two of us.
How no one knew…”
“I think that might be a good place to start.”
She nods, sip­ping her cof­fee with a gri­mace. I take a swig of mine, and
scowl.
Yeah, it re­ally is ter­ri­ble.
“Our par­ents—our fa­ther, es­pe­cially—were re­ally pro­tec­tive. And a lit­tle
para­noid.” She sighs. “Okay, a lot para­noid. There were con­stant threats
against our dad and his ex­tended fam­ily, and I guess it only got worse when
he and our mom got mar­ried. So when they had us—twins that no one ex­‐
pected—they made a de­ci­sion to…min­i­mize risk.”
Holy shit.
“They kept one of you a se­cret?” I mur­mur.
She nods slowly.
“When we were kids, it was a fun game, re­ally. Some days one of us would
get to play the princess, while the other stayed hid­den out of sight. Other
days, we’d switch. It wasn’t that hard: our fam­ily was fairly reclu­sive, and
we had all those walled grounds. Only our par­ents, our house­keeper, and
our dad’s most trusted sec­ond-in-com­mand, Rus­lan, knew. No­body else
guessed. That’s how good we were at it.”
She ex­hales slowly.
“But then you came along. Well, your fam­ily did. You were al­ways our
sworn en­em
­ ies, and then sud­denly one day, our fa­ther and yours were talk­‐
ing. We heard our par­ents dis­cussing in hushed tones late at night about a
truce. There was just one prob­lem.”
“My fa­ther thought there was only one Bran­covich daugh­ter,” I grunt. “And
if there was a sec­ond one…”
She nods. “Then your fam­ily would prob­ab­ ly not go ahead with the mar­‐
riage. Be­cause an­other daugh­ter⁠—”
“Meant an­other al­liance, po­ten­tially to a fam­ily mine was still in con­flict
with.”
“See? I knew you weren’t just a tough guy.”
I smirk. Then my smile fades as I turn to look at Tay­lor. I reach out and take
her other hand in mine, squeez­ing.
“What the fuck hap­pened that night,” I growl. “And how is it that you’re
fine, and she’s the one with no mem­ory af­ter the car crash?”
“For a start, there was no car crash,” An­nika mur­murs. “My sis­ter was
never on your is­land un­til you brought her there.”

OceanofPDF.com
 39

AN­N IKA

I wake to smoke and scream­ing.

The bed­room is dark, but through the win­dows, I can see the flash of muz­‐
zle fire. The sharp burst of shad­ows as an ex­plo­sion thun­ders some­where
close. Very close.
Ter­ror rips me the rest of the way out of sleep. Shak­ing, I slip out of bed,
pulling on sweat­pants and a hoodie be­fore I creep to the door. It opens a
crack, and I peer out with one eye.
A shot rings out, loud and deaf­en­ing, and some­thing warm sprays the out­‐
side wall next to the door and mists across my fore­head. I lurch back,
quickly shut­ting the door and bolt­ing across the room to cower be­hind the
bed.
I hear more screams of pain. The cries of men fall­ing, and the stac­cato
bang-bang-bang of au­to­matic gun­fire.
We’re un­der at­tack.
Or at least, they are. There’s no “we” here. I’m a pris­oner in this house—the
silent ac­ces­sory to a dark prince who nei­ther speaks to me, nor even looks
at me. Which I’d be fine with, if not for the fact that I’m trapped here and
can’t leave.
That I miss my par­ents and my sis­ter ter­ri­bly, and haven’t seen them in a
month, since the wed­ding.
As gun­fire con­tin­ues to thun­der from out­side, some­thing oc­curs to me.
We are not be­ing at­tacked. My hus­band in noth­ing but name is, as is his
fam­ily. To them, yes, it’s an at­tack.
To me, it’s a dis­trac­tion.
An op­por­tu­nity.
The mist on my fore­head starts to drip down my face. I reach up to wipe it
off. When I pull my hand back, and the moon­light glints in through the win­‐
dows, hor­ror shakes me.
The back of my hand is smeared red.
It’s blood.
I have to get out of here.
I don’t pack; there’s noth­ing I want to bring with me. I change into dark
jeans and a black hooded sweat­shirt, shov­ing my hair back into a tight bun
be­fore pulling the hood up over my head and creep­ing to the door again.
This time, when I go to push it open more than a crack, there’s some­thing
block­ing it.
I look down, and nau­sea churns my stom­ach as my hand flies to my mouth.
There’s a body on the ground—a man I vaguely rec­og­nize as one of the
Krylov guards. Or at least I rec­og­nize the half of his face that’s still there.
The rest of it is sprayed across the wall and the door, and prob­ab­ ly still
misted over my fore­head.
Don’t think. Just go.
I man­age to push him aside, the blar­ing twin alarms of adren­al­ine and fear
throb­bing in my ears as I step over the body. I keep to the wall, hug­ging the
shad­ows, flinch­ing when­ever I hear a burst of gun­fire else­where in the
house, or out­side.
I find more dead Krylov guards, and a few bod­ies of masked men in black
tac­ti­cal gear. But I keep mov­ing, head­ing to­ward the back of the house and
the garage full of cars. I could swim, but it’s night, and I know there’s
sharks out there. Be­sides, I’m not that strong a swim­mer.
No, if I’m leav­ing here tonight, it’s over the bridge: the only way off this is­‐
land. I have no idea if it’s still be­ing guarded, since it’s clear the is­land is
un­der at­tack by one of the Krylov fam­ily’s many en­em ­ ies. But if it is, I
won’t get across on foot.
I’ll need to drive.
En­route to the garage, I pass by my fa­ther-in-law’s study. Miroslav isn’t in­‐
side, ob­vi­ously. But the door is wide open.
So is the safe he keeps in the bot­tom cup­boards of the book­shelves be­hind
his desk. A suit­case full of bun­dles of mag­az­ ine clip­pings lies over­turned on
the floor.
Part of me won­ders if who­ever opened that safe and the suit­case felt anger,
fear, or maybe both when they saw what was in there. An­other big­ger part
of me feels guilty for the part I played in that.
I’ve had a lot of time to my­self in my month here. I’ve done a lot of ex­plor­‐
ing. My hus­band’s sis­ter, Maria, gave me binoc­u­lars a few weeks ago, when
she saw me watch­ing birds on my fre­quent walks around the is­land. I did
use them for that—at first. But then I re­al­ized what else I could see, if I
climbed some of the trees out­side the back of main house.
…Like through Miroslav’s of­fice win­dow. Like the front of the elec­tronic
com­bi­na­tion safe with the LED num­ber pad on it.
Like the code to that safe, when my fa­ther-in-law opened it in the se­crecy of
his of­fice.
Late one night, I went into that of­fice, dodg­ing pa­trol guards along the way.
I opened that safe and found the suit­case brim­ming with Amer­i­can cash,
with a cashier’s re­ceipt la­bel­ing it as twenty-two mil­lion dol­lars.
A week later, I did the scari­est thing I’ve ever done. I went back to that of­‐
fice and opened the safe. I emp­tied the cash out into a back­pack and re­‐
placed it with lit­tle bun­dles of mag­az­ ine clip­pings I’d tied up with tape.
A few days later, Flo­rence, my fam­ily’s house­keeper and ba­si­cally my sec­‐
ond mother, came to bring me an­other suit­case full of my things, and to take
home any­thing I’d brought with me be­fore that I had sub­se­quently dis­cov­‐
ered I didn’t need.
The back­pack full of cash went back with her, hid­den in the bot­tom of one
of my lug­gage trunks full of cold-weather clothes I’d packed with­out re­al­iz­‐
ing how warm Elba was.
Flo­rence didn’t know what she was bring­ing home along­side my sweaters.
But I know she got the note I in­cluded later, be­cause she texted me.
FLO­R ENCE
I got your note, Anni. You’ve al­ways been such a clever girl. I’ll
keep it safe!

I’ve never trusted my ter­ri­fy­ing hus­band and his ter­ri­fy­ing fam­ily. This way
if any­thing hap­pens to me, if they try any­thing, Flo­rence will let them know
she’s got twenty-two mil­lion of their money.
Con­sider it my in­sur­ance pol­icy.
Too bad it doesn’t cover what’s hap­pen­ing now.
I scurry past the of­fice door, hur­ry­ing to­ward the garage. Just as I get there,
the door bangs open. I scream as three men in tac­ti­cal gear and masks surge
out, lev­el­ing guns at me. One of them grabs me and pushes me against the
wall, fac­ing it. He yanks my hands be­hind my back. Then he chuck­les
darkly.
“Looks like we found us some fun,” he leers.
My heart drops as I feel him press against me, reach­ing be­tween us to fum­‐
ble with his belt.
“I get first⁠—”
I scream when the shot rings out. The man slams into the wall next to me,
his eyes and mouth gap­ing wide, a mas­sive hole in his fore­head. I whip
around just in time to see Miroslav squeeze off four more shots, drop­ping
the two other men. My fa­ther-in-law glances at me be­fore he storms over
and grits his teeth, putting an­other bul­let into each of the heads of the three
men just to be sure.
“Come,” he snarls, grab­bing my arm. “I need to get you⁠—”
He hisses, and I scream as an­other shot rings out in the dark hall­way be­hind
us. Miroslav whirls, stag­ger­ing against the wall be­fore he raises his arm and
fires two shots, killing the man who’s just snuck up on us.
I gasp, drop­ping to my knees next to Miroslav as he sinks to the floor, a trail
of blood drip­ping down the wall be­hind him.
“You need to get out,” he hisses through clenched teeth.
“I can help you⁠—”
“No,” he chokes. “You can’t.” He grunts as he grabs my hand. “But you can
as­sist me in stand­ing right now.”
I nod, my skin crawl­ing and the fear scream­ing in my ears as I pull
Miroslav to his feet. I put his arm over my shoul­der as he nods to­wards a
con­trol panel on the wall next to the door to the garage.
“En­ter the code nine-seven-two-two-eight-nine-zero-six.”
I do, my hands shak­ing. The con­trol panel beeps, and a warn­ing mes­sage
pops up.
“This…” I swal­low as I turn to him. “But this is the over­ride for the whole
se­cu­rity sys­tem. It’ll open ev­ery⁠—”
“They’re al­ready in­side, An­nika,” he grunts, winc­ing as he raises his other
arm and jabs a bloody fin­ger on the “con­firm” but­ton. “But now you can get
out.”
Miroslav winces, his legs giv­ing out as he slumps against the wall and then
slides to the floor. He grabs my hand, look­ing up into my face. “Please, An­‐
nika. Please for­give me for drag­ging you into this car­nage. Take the Land
Rover in the garage. It’s got the strong­est front grill. My men at the bridge
will try and stop you, but I need you to get through. Get home, An­nika,” he
wheezes, cough­ing up blood. “Tell your fa­ther I’m sorry for the vi­o­lence
be­tween our fam­i­lies and for tak­ing his only daugh­ter away from him.” He
winces as he squeezes my hand. “Drive fast, An­nika. If they think all is
lost…” his eyes roll back be­fore he forces them back to me. “They’ll blow
up the bridge. You have to get over be­fore they⁠—”
Gun­fire thun­ders down the hall­way, send­ing plas­ter dust into the air as shots
hit the wall be­hind us.
“GO!” Miroslav hisses. “Now!!”
I bolt to the garage as I hear him fir­ing back on the at­tack­ers. I slam the
door shut be­hind me, then go to the wall with the keys to Miroslav’s car
col­lec­tion. I find the one for the Land Rover, hit the but­ton to open the door,
and then jump be­hind the wheel and start the en­gine.
The garage door rolls up in front of me. Two men in black whirl in sur­prise
and raise their ri­fles. Scream­ing, I floor the gas and duck, flinch­ing as the
car lurches for­ward and the wind­shield ex­plodes into a mil­lion pieces. I
hear the dou­ble thunk-sh sound as I hit the men, and then I scream in ter­ror
as one of them flies up over the hood and comes crash­ing through the bro­‐
ken wind­shield into the seat next to me.
His eyes stare wildly and blank up at the ceil­ing.
He’s dead.
With­out think­ing, I just keep driv­ing, roar­ing off down the stone drive.
The scene out­side is pure chaos. Bod­ies and blood are ev­ery­where. The
trees I climbed to peer into Miroslav’s of­fice are on fire. So is the house.
Gun­fire pep­pers the night, and an­other ex­plo­sion blows out the win­dows of
the kitchen.
I floor it, roar­ing to­ward the bridge, try­ing to ig­nore the body bleed­ing in
the pas­sen­ger seat next to me.
There’s only one guard as I ap­proach. He’s clutch­ing his stom­ach with one
hand and wav­ing a gun with the other. I honk and flash my lights, try­ing to
tell him to move.
At the last sec­ond, he steps aside. Our eyes lock in a hazy, slow-mo­tion mo­‐
ment of con­fu­sion.
I see the black box with a trig­ger and an an­tenna in his hands.
They’ll blow the bridge.
Oh God…
I slam the gas down, scream­ing as the Land Rover roars across the bridge.
I feel the rum­ble. I hear the thun­der. I shriek as a wall of heat erupts be­hind
me, slam­ming into the back of the car and blow­ing out the win­dows.
I’m so close.
I’m al­most there.
…The bridge gives out be­neath me, and I plum­met into the black wa­tery
abyss.

I choke , suck­ing in ragged breaths of oxy­gen as hands pull me from the

waves onto the rocky shore. I cough and sput­ter, vom­it­ing sea­wa­ter onto the
rocks be­fore I drag my hag­gard gaze up.
“Come, An­nika. We need to hurry.”
It’s Rus­lan, my fa­ther’s most trusted man, and one of the two peo­ple out­side
my blood fam­ily who knows our se­crets.
“What…how—?” I whim­per as he pulls me to my feet and hugs me close.
“I have to get you to safety,” he hisses.
My brows fur­row. “Are we go­ing home?”
He says noth­ing, pulling me af­ter him as he stag­gers up the em­bank­ment to
the road.
“Rus­lan,” I ask again. “Are we⁠—”
I flinch when we get to the road and I see the five bod­ies ly­ing on the
ground in pools of blood. Three of them are in black tac­ti­cal gear. Two of
them are in reg­u­lar clothes; I rec­og­nize those two as my fa­ther’s men.
“What…”
I go still when I see the mark­ings on the tac­ti­cal gear of the dead men.
It’s my fam­ily crest, stitched onto the arms.
In hor­ror, I pull my gaze to Rus­lan. “They’re⁠—”
He shakes his head. “No, An­nika. They’re Vadik Belov’s men.”
“But these are the same men who just at­tacked⁠—”
My eyes go wide. My hand flies to my mouth.
“Vadik wants to make this look like proof that the mar­riage truce isn’t
work­ing,” he hisses, gri­mac­ing. “They’re pre­tend­ing to be your fa­ther’s
men. And they’re…” He shakes his head, pulling me to­ward a car with a
bul­let hole in the door. “We have to go, now.”
“Are we go­ing home?”
He doesn’t an­swer, just opens the pas­sen­ger door and bun­dles me into the
seat.
“Rus­lan!” I cry. “Are we go­ing⁠—”
“No,” he mut­ters, his head shak­ing as he reaches across and buck­les me in
with a wince. “We’re not go­ing home, An­nika.” He pulls back, his eyes
lock­ing with mine. “There’s noth­ing for you there.”
“I don’t un­der­stand. What⁠—”
“An­other group of Vadik’s men at­tacked your fa­ther’s house ear­lier tonight.
They were dressed as Krylov men.”
My heart shat­ters.
“Did—”
“There weren’t any sur­vivors, An­nika,” he says qui­etly. “I’m sorry.”
The pas­sen­ger door shuts with a soft click. I stare blankly through the wind­‐
shield as Rus­lan slips be­hind the wheel and starts the en­gine. He winces
again, and it’s only when I turn to him that I re­al­ize he’s wounded.
Badly.
The LED glow of the dash­board il­lu­mi­nates the red wet­ness seep­ing from
his side and his neck as he guns the en­gine and roars off down the road,
away from the chaos.
I look back in the side mir­ror, watch­ing the flames en­gulf the Krylov house
like a fu­neral pyre.
That’s when the tears come.
There weren’t any sur­vivors.
Tat­jana…
Rus­lan is barely con­scious by the time we get to the pri­vate air­field. The
plane wait­ing for us isn’t my fa­ther’s, and the pi­lot and the other man on
board aren’t his men. But they take the bag of money from Rus­lan’s shak­ing
hand, look­ing at us both with deep con­cern as they nod and usher us on.
They take us as far as Athens.
Rus­lan is dead by the time we land.
Then, I’m truly alone.
For the first time ever, I’m with­out the other half of me. With­out my in­vis­i­‐
ble friend.
With­out Tat­jana.

OceanofPDF.com
 40

TAY­L OR

I wince as I open the door and try to step out of the car.
“Let me help you.”
I grit my teeth, not wait­ing for her to come around to my side be­fore I try
again.
“Fuck,” I hiss, a dull ache shoot­ing up my leg.
“I did say I would help you,” An­nika mut­ters as she gets to me.
She slides an arm un­der­neath mine and loops it around my back, sup­port­ing
me as I climb out of the car.
“Have you al­ways been this stub­born?”
I shrug, flash­ing her a grin. “You tell me.”
She smirks as she reaches into the car and re­trieves my cane.
Yes… My cane.
I have to use it for the next month in con­junc­tion with the walk­ing cast on
my leg. Af­ter that, and a mil­lion hours of phys­i­cal ther­apy, I’ll have a sec­‐
ond surgery so they can re­move some of the pins cur­rently hold­ing to­gether
my shat­tered fibula from the bridge.
I fuck­ing hate it.
Fumi was kind enough to tell me it made me look ‘dis­tin­guished”. Gabriel
im­me­di­ately ob­served it might help in­flu­ence ju­ries by ap­peal­ing to their
sense of com­pas­sion.
Al­is­tair, the fucker, told me I should try out for the role of Tiny Tim in an
am­at­eur the­atre pro­duc­tion of A Christ­mas Carol.
But I push all of that aside for now as An­nika and I slowly climb the hill to
the grave.
“It’s right up here…” I grunt, winc­ing a lit­tle as I tot­ter up the rocky foot­‐
path of the ceme­tery.
“I know.”
I roll my eyes as I glance at her side­ways.
There’s a lot I’m learn­ing about the sis­ter that the fire and the ex­plo­sion
deleted from my mem­ory.
There never was a car crash—well, not that I was in. No drunk driver. No
se­cret CIA jobs that my par­ents couldn’t talk about.
Mi­ha­jlo and Jus­tine Bran­covich, my Ser­bian fa­ther and my Amer­i­can
mother, were killed by bul­lets from guns car­ried by Vadik Belov’s men, pre­‐
tend­ing to be Krylov sol­diers. They died in Ser­bia when I was eigh­teen, on
the same night I lost my mem­ory. Which was also the same night Belov’s
men at­tacked and mas­sa­cred Drazen’s fam­ily, dressed as mine.
And the same night An­nika es­caped the is­land only to go crash­ing into the
ocean when Mi­los’ fa­ther blew the bridge as his last act of duty to­ward the
Krylov fam­ily.
We’ve had a few weeks now for her to tell me her side of things.
Af­ter she landed in Greece, my twin slowly made her way back home to our
fam­ily’s es­tate in Ser­bia. When she got there, she found noth­ing but death
and hor­ror: a half-burned home, our par­ents shot dead, and both me and our
house­keeper pre­sumed dead from the fire or bul­lets.
She picked what she could out of the wreck­age of her life, and she did what
she had to do.
She sur­vived.
We haven’t re­ally talked too much about that part yet. I know she moved
around a lot, and worked some weird jobs. But when I men­tioned that
Kenzo Mori had been look­ing for her, she froze and shut down. And when I
tried to lighten the mood by telling her that Fumi, whom An­nika had al­‐
ready met twice by that point, hap­pened to be Kenzo’s half-sis­ter, she al­‐
most went cata­tonic.
She hasn’t told me what’s go­ing on there, but I did sit down with her and
Fumi to­gether, where my friend swore she wouldn’t men­tion An­nika to her
half-brother, whom she’s re­ally only just get­ting to know her­self.
That seemed to sat­isfy An­nika. For now.
But there’s no way I’m let­ting that go with­out more ques­tions at some point
soon.
An­nika spent close to fif­teen years think­ing I was dead. I spent those years
not even know­ing she ex­isted. But then a few months ago, she saw me on
in­ter­na­tional news, stand­ing be­hind my best friend, co-man­ag­ing part­ner,
and new Gov­er­nor-elect of New York, Gabriel Black.
She saw her­self on that TV screen and im­me­di­ately came to New York to
in­ves­ti­gate.
I haven’t been go­ing crazy. The stresses of my life were never mak­ing me
lose my mind or do crazy things in my sleep.
It wasn’t me at all.
It was my in­vis­i­ble friend.
It turns out, one of An­nika’s sev­eral “weird jobs” is “pro­fes­sional thief”.
She says she did it to sur­vive when she was first on her own. But the ease
and skill with which she does it sug­gests that’s not en­tirely the truth.
It was her who broke into my apart­ment at night, go­ing through my taxes to
see who the hell this “Tay­lor Crown” was who looked so much like her
dead twin. It was her who slipped into my of­fice at night to poke around.
And yes, it was her who made a sand­wich in my kitchen one night while I
slept and didn’t clean up af­ter­ward. That one, she claims, was a to­tal over­‐
sight on her part.
I’ve asked her if the stolen yel­low Lam­borgh­ini was an “over­sight” as well.
…Still wait­ing for an an­swer on that one.
In a lot of ways, as I’ve got­ten to know her again, I’ve re­al­ized how ridicu­‐
lously alike we are. We think sim­i­larly. We have a lot of the same man­ner­‐
isms and quirks.
But in a lot of ways, we’re very dif­fer­ent peo­ple.
That said, she’s still my sis­ter.
We fi­nally get to the head­stone at the top of the lit­tle hill. I grunt as I stoop
to place the bou­quet of flow­ers on Flo­rence’s grave.
Flo­rence wasn’t my great-aunt. She wasn’t my blood at all.
But in the end, she might have been closer than blood re­la­tions.
The woman who saved me from the fire and the vi­o­lence the night our
house was at­tacked had ac­tu­ally been our mother’s nanny and house­keeper
when she was grow­ing up. Jus­tine Bran­covich, née Michaels, was the only
daugh­ter of a con­gress­man and his so­cialite wife.
Need­less to say, they were ap­palled when their daugh­ter in­formed them that
she was go­ing to be mar­ry­ing the Ser­bian crime lord she’d fallen for while
back­pack­ing through East­ern Eu­rope af­ter col­lege. They threat­ened to cut
her off, she called their bluff, and they fol­lowed through, dis­own­ing her and
delet­ing her en­tirely from their lives.
Her nanny didn’t.
Flo­rence Crown, who’d raised our mother since she was a baby, came with
her to Ser­bia. She found a new life in our fa­ther’s house, and helped our
par­ents raise their twin girls.
When Vadik’s men at­tacked our house that night, she was the one who
pulled me from my bed. She was try­ing to get me out through a side door,
to es­cape to the woods, when a grenade went off, par­tially col­laps­ing the
room we’d been in and bury­ing me un­der rub­ble and fire, knock­ing me out.
But Flo­rence didn’t leave me. She dug me out with her bare hands, hauled
me to the woods, and car­ried me to safety. She bribed a few of­fi­cials at a lo­‐
cal gov­ern­ment of­fice, de­clared me her great-niece, got me fake pa­pers re­‐
nam­ing me from Tat­jana Bran­covich to Tay­lor Crown, and then went to the
US em­bassy, claim­ing we’d been vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing.
The US gov­ern­ment flew us back home, and Flo­rence spent the next six
months help­ing me re­mem­ber how to live. She put the money that An­nika
had sent her into a trust in my name, and used the cash and jew­elry she’d
dug from the wreck­age of our home to bribe school of­fi­cials and any­one
else she needed to bribe to get me into NYU with­out a tran­script or any real
back­ground in­for­ma­tion.
When it be­came clear my mem­o­ries weren’t com­ing back, she started the
story about my spy par­ents to shield me from the hor­ri­ble truth—es­pe­cially
since she thought An­nika had died in the at­tack on the Krylov is­land.
None of this has “come back to me”. What­ever dam­age was done to my
brain in that ex­plo­sion dur­ing the es­cape is def­i­nitely per­ma­nent.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
What I know all comes from An­nika. She’s pieced all of this to­gether. And
she’s the one who’s told me fun sto­ries about our child­hood, leav­ing out the
bad parts.
My fa­vorite so far has been about the first time I met Drazen.
As her.
She’d been be­trothed to him by then, but they hadn’t ac­tu­ally met. We were
play­ing in the pool house the day he came over with his fa­ther, and I went
to go hide out in Rus­lan’s cot­tage. But then, An­nika ap­par­ently com­pletely
chick­ened out.
“I was ter­ri­fied,” she ex­plained. “I didn’t want to meet the scary dark-haired
boy with the blue eyes and the vi­cious fam­ily name that I was go­ing to have
to marry one day.”
So she didn’t. She hid in the hedges while I pre­tended to be her.
That day, she played the in­vis­i­ble friend, and I got to play the princess.
I watch in si­lence as An­nika places her own bou­quet of flow­ers on Flo­rence
Crown’s grave.
“Thank you,” she whis­pers qui­etly. “Thank you for sav­ing my sis­ter. Thank
you for ev­ery­thing that you did for her.”
My hand finds An­nika’s. I squeeze, and she squeezes back.

OceanofPDF.com
 EPI­L OGUE

DRAZEN

I used to ex­ist for re­venge. It was the fuel that drove me and churned
through me like molten lead. I was sav­age and bru­tal. Ruth­less and un­‐
flinch­ing. I had a sin­gle-minded ap­proach to life and treated each day like it
was a dragon I had to slay.
In many ways, that still sum­ma­rizes who I am. I am still ruth­less, bru­tal,
and at times sav­age. I am still sin­gle-minded in my ap­proach to life.
But I no longer sub­sist on a diet of vengeance and mal­ice. I no longer feel
the need to van­quish ev­ery sin­gle day that has been given to me.
I want to sa­vor them now. Be­cause now, for the first time in a long, long
time, I can ap­pre­ci­ate how pre­cious a day is. How valu­able each and ev­ery
mo­ment is.
That is, how pre­cious each day with her is. How valu­able ev­ery mo­ment
with Tay­lor is.
I’m not com­pletely done with my vendetta against those who slaugh­tered
my fam­ily. I have not cho­sen a path of com­pas­sion and for­give­ness. That
would be like ask­ing a lion to stop it’s de­sire for blood.
But I don’t have to rush it any­more. I don’t feel the need to pour my ev­ery­‐
thing into de­struc­tion and in­flict­ing pain.
Fuck it. Let the few en­em
­ ies I have left out there wait around ner­vously,
dread­ing the day I’m ready to seek them out again.
I have far more im­por­tant things to do right now: like at­tend my own wed­‐
ding, which be­gins in about⁠—
I lift my wrist to glance at my watch.
Ten min­utes.
At the al­tar, as I drop my wrist back down, I glance over to where Gabriel
and Al­is­tair are sit­ting in the front row, next to their re­spec­tive wives. Al­is­‐
tair nods slowly at me, giv­ing one more seal of ap­proval. Gabriel smiles in
a way that sug­gests he’ll be com­ing af­ter me with a flay­ing knife should I
fuck this up.
I can re­spect that. I also ap­pre­ci­ate the pro­tec­tive zeal of these men. They
met Tay­lor when she was alone in the world. They be­friended her. They
pro­tected her. They built an em­pire with her.
More im­por­tantly, they were like broth­ers to her.
Broth­ers, and noth­ing more.
I might be singing a dif­fer­ent tune if that wasn’t the case, but I di­gress. As it
is, if they’re wait­ing for me to fuck this up, or even look­ing for­ward to it so
that they can get their pound of flesh, I’m afraid they’re go­ing to be bit­terly
dis­ap­pointed.
I’ll never fuck this up. I’ll never hurt Tay­lor. I’ll never leave her. I’ll never
wrong her.
I never want an­other day of my life with­out her in it, at my side.
My gaze shifts to the maid of honor, stand­ing across the dais from me. Be­‐
hind An­nika, the waves crash softly against the shore of my is­land as she
gives me a small smile.
Tay­lor wasn’t quite sure if this is where we should get mar­ried. Af­ter all,
this is where I lost my fam­ily, and where we both al­most lost each other.
But it’s also where I fell in love with her.
We’re still go­ing to live in New York, of course. Tay­lor has her firm there,
newly ex­panded in the wake of the ac­qui­si­tion, and I have most of my busi­‐
ness there these days too. Plus, we’ve got An­nika there now, liv­ing in Tay­‐
lor’s apart­ment.
Stu­diously avoid­ing the sub­ject of Kenzo Mori.
I have my own the­o­ries about that. I have my own in­for­ma­tion about that,
too, hav­ing dug into it my­self. I’ll be in­ter­ested to see where that all goes.
But like I said, for now?
…I have far more im­por­tant things to think about.
The drap­ing vines of flow­ers cov­er­ing the top of the aisle be­tween the
guests’ chairs part. The warm Mediter­ranean sun beams down as she walks
through: her eyes shin­ing, her face ra­di­ant, her hair piled into a stun­ning
and elab­o­rate twist on top of her head, and her gor­geous white silk dress
fan­ning out be­hind her.
There’s still a slight limp to her step. The bridge col­lapse a few months ago
crushed her fibula in three places, re­quir­ing surgery and a bunch of metal
pins. But she’s walk­ing these days—with­out the cane she hated so much.
And phys­i­cal ther­apy is help­ing a lot.
The…recre­ational run­ning I’m help­ing her with, per­son­ally, seems to be
help­ing things along as well. So much so that I fully ex­pect to get more
“recre­ational run­ning” in this very night af­ter the fes­tiv­i­ties.
In case that isn’t clear, I don’t mean marathon train­ing.
I mean chas­ing her through the dark.
Catch­ing her.
Sav­aging her.
The dress will be stay­ing on for that.
She grins at me as she comes to a stop in front of me. Our hands lock as the
cel­eb­ rant be­gins to say the words.
She says I do.
I say it, too, with the most con­vic­tion I’ve ever felt about any­thing in my
life.
Then I’m scoop­ing her into my arms and plant­ing a mer­ci­less, bru­tal kiss on
her mouth as the small crowd stands and ap­plauds. The string quar­tet to the
side starts to play “Into the Mys­tic”, Tay­lor’s fa­vorite Van Mor­ri­son song,
as I take her hand in mine.
I tell her I love her.
She tells me she’ll re­mem­ber that, no mat­ter what.
And I’m smil­ing widely as we turn and face the world.
To­gether.

Kenzo and An­nika’s story is next in

Em­peror of Wrath.
Same world, new se­ries.

Haven’t got­ten enough of Drazen and Tay­lor?

Get their ex­tra scene here, or type this link into your browser:
http://Bookhip.com/GVB­JAXT

This isn’t an epi­logue or con­tin­u­at­ion to Mon­strous Urges. But this ex­tra

hot “fol­low-up” story is guar­an­teed to keep the spice go­ing.

OceanofPDF.com
 DE­V IANT HEARTS

Thank you so much for read­ing Mon­strous Urges! If you en­joyed the book,
I’d be in­cred­i­bly grate­ful if you could leave a re­view!
As men­tioned, the Jag­ger Cole uni­verse con­tin­ues with Kenzo and An­nika’s
story in Em­peror of Wrath. You can also get a glimpse of some of the other
char­ac­ters men­tioned in this book (the Drakos and Kil­dare fam­i­lies) in the
Dark Hearts se­ries, start­ing with De­viant Hearts, a dark en­em
­ ies-to-lovers,
forced mar­riage mafia ro­mance. There’s even a sneak peek of that book on
the fol­low­ing pages for you.

You can find com­plete book lists and sug­gested read­ing or­ders on my web­‐
site.
www.jag­ger­colewrites.com

Scroll on for a sneak peek of De­viant Hearts.

Chap­ter 1
Neve

Fuck. Me.
He’s do­ing it.
Again.
I tell my­self not to look. I tell my­self to keep my eyes on the book and the
study notes in front of me, be­cause NYU se­ri­ously does not care what my
last name is, and they’ll have no is­sue fail­ing my sorry ass from my gov­ern­‐
ment and pub­lic pol­icy mas­ter’s pro­gram if I don’t fo­cus.
I tell my­self it’s high time I bought some fuck­ing cur­tains, so I can avoid
this…dis­trac­tion…since it’s clearly shap­ing up to be a fre­quent thing.
But the prob­lem with telling your­self not to do some­thing that deep down
you re­ally want to?
The “deep down” part al­ways wins. Al­ways.
Or, at least it does with me. Which might say more about me and my own
self-con­trol…or lack thereof.
No. It’s def­i­nitely eas­ier to go ahead and blame my new neigh­bor across the
street. Let’s go with that.
I mean, he’s the one that keeps walk­ing around naked in a pent­house made
out of fuck­ing glass.
Mark Twain once said, “There is a charm about the for­bid­den that makes it
un­speak­ably de­sir­able.” But, smart as he was, it’s clear Mr. Twain never had
the neigh­bor I do. If he had, I’m pretty sure he’d have taken a whole lot of
the whim­si­cal “charm” out of that state­ment.
And sure enough, de­spite my best—or, okay, let’s be real, medi­ocre—ef­‐
forts, soon enough, my gaze shifts from the notes in front of me to the man
across the steel canyon from me.
Sweet Je­sus.
He’s a freak­ing god. Tall and lean, and as mus­cled as a su­per­hero. Shoul­‐
ders and arms built to take away your abil­ity to speak. Chis­eled abs and
those grooved hip-mus­cle things that I don’t even know what they’re called
but they seem to be evo­lu­tion’s way of mak­ing even smart women go fuck­‐
ing stupid.
Tat­toos for days. Deeply tanned, Mediter­ranean skin, with a shadow on his
ra­zor-sharp jaw, and dark, per­fectly tou­sled hair.
It’s like liv­ing next to a god­damn Avenger who mod­els for Ar­mani while
he’s not busy sav­ing the world from Thanos. No won­der he seems to have a
prob­lem with wear­ing clothes.
Heat floods my cheeks as I glance across the chasm be­tween us. The morn­‐
ing light streams right through his pent­house, which is an­other an­noy­ance.
Two months ago, my place was a dream apart­ment. A mod­ern, light-filled
loft at the top of a thirty-eight-story build­ing. So high up that I didn’t even
have neigh­bors who could see into this place.
Is it more than a lit­tle os­ten­ta­tious? Well…yeah. It’s a thou­sand square feet
of mod­ern glass and steel on the West Side over­look­ing the Hud­son. Was it
ab­surdly ex­pen­sive? Also, yeah. But there’s gotta be some perks that come
with be­ing a Kil­dare to off­set the down­sides.
Is­sues mak­ing friends my en­tire life be­cause my fam­ily is the Irish Mafia?
Check. Prob­lems hav­ing any sort of ro­man­tic re­la­tion­ships, for the same
rea­son? Check and dou­ble check.
Aim­less, drift­ing, ut­terly un­sure of what I want to do with my life, be­cause
what ex­actly do mafia princesses do all day?
Check and fuck­ing mate.
For the last year, I’ve been throw­ing my­self into this gov­ern­ment and pol­icy
mas­ter’s pro­gram at NYU. But af­ter that? Who knows. For now, I’m at least
fi­nally liv­ing on my own.
But life still sort of feels just like some­thing I’m drift­ing through.
Truth be told, I was pretty sure my un­cle Cil­lian was go­ing to shut down my
plans of fi­nally mov­ing out of the main fam­ily house and into this place. Es­‐
pe­cially with all the vi­o­lence and up­heaval in the last few months as the
fight­ing be­tween the Irish Kil­dare and Greek Drakos fam­i­lies es­ca­lated to
world-war-three lev­els.
But my dream apart­ment and the build­ing it­self are in­cred­i­bly se­cure and
easy to de­fend. Es­pe­cially when there’s a ro­tat­ing crew of four Kil­dare guys
con­stantly guard­ing the lobby—much, I’m sure, to the cha­grin of the other
ten­ants.
Yet that whole “dream apart­ment” thing quickly lost some of its lus­ter when
they com­pleted con­struc­tion on the build­ing across the street, next to mine.
The build­ing with the dou­ble-height glass pent­house that rises two floors
above my thirty-eighth-floor apart­ment, that now blocks part of my view of
the river.
His glass pent­house.
The man with the god-like body and the aver­sion to cloth­ing. The man with
the sen­sual tat­toos and the swarthy, lean look of a Tro­jan war­rior.
The man I have ab­so­lutely no busi­ness gawk­ing at and think­ing these sort
of sin­ful thoughts about. Not just be­cause it makes me a spy­ing creep. But
be­cause he’s a man I should have ev­ery rea­son in the world to hate.
He’s not just my neigh­bor.
He’s the en­emy.
But try telling that to my un­der-sat­is­fied li­bido and clenched thighs.
At last he moves from where he’s been stand­ing at the win­dows star­ing out
at the Hud­son with a cup of cof­fee in his hand and, mer­ci­fully, dis­ap­pears
from view.
Fi­nally.
Dis­trac­tion gone, I man­age to pull my at­ten­tion back to the study notes in
front of me. Nina Si­mone croons over the sound sys­tem as I lose my­self in
the books. But a hand­ful of min­utes later, move­ment at my pe­riph­eral vi­sion
drags my eyes back up again. He’s back. And won­der of won­ders, he’s
dressed—in an im­pec­ca­bly-tai­lored dark suit. I yank my eyes back to my
notes, then back to him.
This time, he’s fi­nally gone.
I ex­hale slowly, swal­low­ing as I drag my at­ten­tion back to my gov­ern­ment
pol­icy books. I don’t have time for these dis­trac­tions. Not when I’ve got
two weeks of notes to mem­o­rize and also a Kil­dare fam­ily meet­ing in…
I glance at my phone and groan.
Shit. In, ba­si­cally, now. As if on cue, the buzzer goes off for my front door.
Sigh­ing, I close the books and pad across the liv­ing room. I glance through
the peep­hole out of habit. Then I grin and open the door wide.
Eil­ish’s brows fur­row as she looks me up and down.
“Neve, what the fuck. We’re go­ing to be late, and you’re not even dressed?”
My brow scrunches as I glance down at my­self.
“You need to get dressed, Neve,” my younger sis­ter sighs.
“I’m dressed!”
“Those look like pa­ja­mas.”
“So? They’re comfy.” I raise my gaze past her to the tall guy stand­ing be­‐
hind her. “Cas, back me up here.”
But Cas­tle just shakes his sandy blonde head and lifts a mus­cled shoul­der
apolo­get­i­cally.
“Cil­lian wants you dressed prop­erly, kid.”
I roll my eyes at the word kid, but I let it go. Cas­tle’s been Eil­ish’s and my
—I sup­pose the word is “body­guard”—for the last ten years. Grow­ing up,
all of our friends drooled over the six-and-a-half-foot tall, built-like-a-quar­‐
ter­back shadow that was al­ways with us. That, or they were sure one of us
was go­ing to get scan­dalously tan­gled up in some steamy, x-rated tryst with
him.
But, no way. No way to an “eww” de­gree. Yes, Cas­tle is ridicu­lously hand­‐
some. But to Eil­ish and me he’s al­ways been the older brother we never
had. And we’re the per­pet­u­ally an­noy­ing-but-love­able kid sis­ters he never
had.
Which is why he can still get away with call­ing me “kid” or do­ing an­noy­ing
big brother-type shit like mess­ing up my hair even though I’m twenty-four.
I stick my bot­tom lip out, giv­ing Cas­tle my best puppy-dog eyes.
“But Caaaas­tle⁠—”
“Enough with the waif eyes. Go get changed, Neve,” he grunts. “Your un­cle
isn’t ex­actly one to mince words, and he wants you dressed up.”
“But why? What’s this meet­ing even about?”
Eil­ish shrugs. “Beats me. Bet it has some­thing to do with your new neigh­‐
bor, though.”
An­noyed as I am to be forced to give up my sweat­pants and hoodie, I know
Cas­tle well enough to know there’s no way he’s budg­ing on this. And I
know my Un­cle Cil­lian well enough to know that one, there’s no wig­gle
room here, but more im­por­tantly two, there’s a rea­son he wants us look­ing
sharp. Even if I have no idea what that rea­son is.
I root around in my dis­as­ter zone of a bed­room, strip­ping out of my hoodie
and sweats and pulling on clean un­der­wear and clothes. Five min­utes later, I
emerge in a green puff-sleeve top, black jeans, and heeled black boots,
shov­ing my long red hair up in a loose pony­tail.
Eil­ish, pre­dictably, rolls her eyes.
“That’s dressed up?”
“I could go back to my ex­ten­sive sweat­pants col­lec­tion, if you pre­fer.”
Eil­ish sighs, reach­ing up to smooth the sin­gle er­rant lock of blonde back be­‐
hind her ear. She’s right. I’m still fairly ca­su­ally dressed. Es­pe­cially next to
my princess of a lit­tle sis­ter, who looks like a mod­ern-day blonde Jackie-O
in a pink Chanel jer­sey dress and heels, her hair and makeup im­mac­u­late.
At nine-thirty in the freak­ing morn­ing, no less. So sue me, this is the best I
can do.
Fi­nally, she grins as she rolls her eyes again.
“Okay, okay, fine. C’mon. We shouldn’t be late.”
“Hey, I’m not the one get­ting bent out of shape about the dress code.”
I glance to Cas­tle for at least a chuckle. But he’s look­ing even more grim
and stoic than usual.
“What’s up with you?”
He shrugs, turn­ing away.
“Just don’t want to be late. C’mon.”
I frown. “Cas, se­ri­ously, what’s up?”
There’s a glint in his eye when he glances back at me for half a sec­ond. But
still, he gives noth­ing away.
“Let’s get where we need to go, kid,” he mur­murs qui­etly.
I shoot Eil­ish a puz­zled look as we fol­low him out the door. But she just
shakes her head and gives me an “I have no idea” face. Given that my sis­ter
is in­ca­pable of be­ing any­thing but cheer­ful, talk­ing shit about any­one no
mat­ter how ter­ri­ble they are, or ly­ing in any ca­pac­ity, it’s clear she’s also in
the dark.
Twenty min­utes later, Cas­tle is pulling the white ar­mored Range Rover up
to the curb out­side O’Ban­non’s. The mid­town Irish pub has been our un­‐
cle’s tem­po­rary cen­ter of busi­ness and war room since he moved to New
York from Lon­don a few months ago, af­ter the petty scuf­fles be­tween the
Kil­dare fam­ily and the Drakos fam­ily turned into all-out war.
Af­ter things went nu­clear, when the Drakos fam­ily lost Vasilis, their head of
op­er­at­ions in New York, and we lost De­clan, the head of ours.
De­clan, as in, my fa­ther.
The side door to O’Ban­non’s, which leads up to the sec­ond floor where Cil­‐
lian’s been hold­ing court the last few months, is guarded by four Kil­dare
men with not-so-hid­den bulges of sidearms un­der their dark jack­ets. One
nods stiffly at Cas­tle and goes to open the door to the bar for us, when sud­‐
denly there’s the sound of a car screech­ing to a stop at the curb be­hind us.
The hairs on the back of my neck start to prickle as I slowly turn to frown at
the black Es­calade. And when the back door opens, and a man in a dark suit
with pure mal­ice on his face steps out, my heart leaps into my throat.
“RUN!” I scream as I grab Eil­ish’s arm, whirling to bolt into O’Ban­non’s
be­fore the bul­lets start fly­ing.
Be­cause I know damn well who the man who just stepped out of the SUV
is. Hades Drakos: a dan­ger­ous, cer­ti­fi­able psy­chopath and sec­ond-in-com­‐
mand of the Drakos fam­ily. Ba­si­cally, pub­lic en­emy num­ber two if your last
name is Kil­dare.
As I yank my sis­ter to­wards the door, I re­al­ize some­thing odd: the guards
aren’t launch­ing into ac­tion. Cas­tle him­self is just stand­ing there, glow­er­ing
at the sec­ond-old­est Drakos brother as he grins sav­agely at me.
“Cas?” I hiss hoarsely, my pulse thud­ding. Clearly, Eil­ish is just as out of
the loop as I am, be­cause she’s still cow­er­ing be­hind me, shak­ing.
“It’s okay, kid,” Cas­tle mut­ters qui­etly. He glances be­hind me, his look soft­‐
en­ing as it fre­quently does when it comes to Eil­ish. Which is to­tally un­der­‐
stand­able. I’m the sis­ter with a chip on her shoul­der and an axe to grind.
Eil­ish is the sweet one. The one who’s ar­guably way too soft for this dan­‐
ger­ous world that we live in.
“But that’s⁠—!”
“Boo,” Hades chuck­les thinly, wink­ing at me in a way that sends a shiver up
my spine. He rolls his mus­cled shoul­ders, the tat­too ink that curls up from
in­side the col­lar of his dress shirt rip­pling as he but­tons his jacket.
“Well, Pil­low Fort. Can we go in­side now?”
The creases in Cas­tle’s brow deepen as he squares off with Hades.
“It’s Cas­tle.”
“I re­ally don’t give a shit. Are we do­ing this or not?”
I frown as I turn to Cas­tle again.
“Do­ing what, Cas? What are we⁠—”
“Open the doors.”
I stiffen at the deep, pow­er­ful voice that rum­bles be­hind me. A voice that
causes a tin­gling sen­sa­tion to creep over my skin, elec­tri­fy­ing me as deeply
as it scares me. The feel­ing grows and throbs deeper and warmer, un­til I can
feel my cheeks red­den­ing as some­thing wicked pools be­tween my thighs.
I turn, and my core clenches tight.
It’s him.
My neigh­bor. The for­bid­den dis­trac­tion. The man with the god-like body
built for sin who I have no busi­ness fan­ta­siz­ing about, but God help me I
do.
Be­cause my neigh­bor isn’t just eye candy.
He’s Ares fuck­ing Drakos, the brand-new king of the en­tire Drakos fam­ily.
I’m vaguely aware of more peo­ple get­ting out of a sec­ond and a third SUV
that pull up be­hind the first—the other sib­lings in the Drakos fam­ily, and
var­i­ous other guards. As the sec­onds tick by, and as Ares’ pierc­ing, dark-
eyed gaze con­tin­ues to stab right into me, the ques­tion of why he’s here
fades into the back­ground.
And the ques­tion of why he’s look­ing at me like he’s try­ing to fig­ure out
how to swal­low me in one bite comes to the fore.
“In­side, all of you,” he growls qui­etly, his voice filled with un­ques­tioned
power. Two of his three broth­ers—Hades and Kratos—and his sis­ter Cal­‐
liope glance at me with slightly raised eye­brows as they file past me into
O’Ban­non’s. Their guards and the Kil­dare men fol­low.
Cas­tle clears his throat, tak­ing Eil­ish by the shoul­ders as if to es­cort her in­‐
side. I know I should go too. But some­how, I’m stuck. It’s as if my gaze is
bound to Ares. Or as if his gaze has me pinned to the very pave­ment be­‐
neath my feet.
We’re on a busy New York side­walk. And yet, it’s as if we’re sud­denly in a
bub­ble of si­lence. As if the en­tire rest of the world fades away to a low
hum, un­til I can ac­tu­ally hear my throat tight­en­ing when he starts to walk
to­wards me.
I shiver when he stops right in front of me, loom­ing over me. I want to
sneer at him. Or spit on his fancy shoes. Or worse. But all I can do is purse
my lips and glare at him.
Ares smirks down into my eyes.
“They haven’t told you yet, have they?”
I swal­low.
“Told me what?”
One of his dark brows raises in amuse­ment.
“Never mind. You’ll find out soon enough. You know who I am?”
“Of course I know who you are.”
“I mean, apart from be­ing your neigh­bor.”
I stiffen, des­per­ately try­ing to swal­low back the heat from my face.
“Neigh­bor?” My voice cracks. Not badly, but enough. “I hadn’t re­al­ized.”
The dan­ger­ous and lethally-at­trac­tive man loom­ing over me smiles ruth­‐
lessly, coldly.
“You don’t rec­og­nize me?”
“I—I guess not.”
“Would it help if I took my clothes off?”
Dear. GOD.
My face turns as hot as the sun as I pray for a sink­hole to open at my feet.
“I—I⁠—”
“The meet­ing is about to start.”
He lets his lips curl slightly, giv­ing me the faintest flash of white teeth.
Then, with­out blink­ing, he starts to move past where I’m still glued to the
side­walk.
He pauses right next to me, and my breath sucks in as he leans down, so
close I can smell the woodsy, el­eg­ ant scent of his cologne and feel the heat
of his breath in my ear.
“Oh, and Neve…” he growls qui­etly. “Peach isn’t your color.”
My brows knit as I start to turn to­wards him in con­fu­sion.
“I’m not wear­ing⁠—”
Oh God.
Yes, I am.
My mind flashes back to root­ing around in my light-filled bed­room as I
yanked off my hoodie and sweat­pants. Where I pulled out the green top and
black jeans…
Af­ter putting on the laun­dry-day pair of peach-col­ored panties.
I’m not the only per­son spy­ing on their neigh­bor.
Son of a bitch.
Ares clears his throat, straight­en­ing up and but­ton­ing his jacket as I melt
into a pud­dle of mor­ti­fi­ca­tion.
“See you in there, princess.”

Chap­ter 2
Ares

Un­easy lies the head that wears the crown.

Ev­ery­one knows that. Ex­cept kings usu­ally know they’re go­ing to be kings
long be­fore they take over the throne. They pre­pare for it their whole lives,
train for it. They’re ready when the day ar­rives.
I wasn’t. Be­cause I was never meant to be king. I’m Lancelot, burn­ing and
pil­lag­ing and fuck­ing his way through the coun­try­side. Not King fuck­ing
Arthur.
But life, or fate, or karma, or what­ever you want to call it, had other plans
for me.
Nine months ago, my fa­ther Ae­neas, the head of the en­tire Drakos Fam­ily,
died at the hands of my older brother, At­las. My fa­ther was a hard, bru­tal
man. But At­las was un­hinged. And power-hun­gry.
Not to men­tion a knuckle-drag­ging fuck­ing id­iot.
His “reign” lasted less than three weeks. Then he was killed wag­ing a point­‐
less war against a man with deep pock­ets and dan­ger­ous friends, all over a
woman.
It’s an ab­surd story. Years and years ago, At­las had once been be­trothed to
this woman’s mother, Saoirse —an Irish Mafia princess and Cil­lian Kil­‐
dare’s sis­ter. But Saoirse ended up hav­ing a fling with some­one else, pro­‐
duc­ing a daugh­ter, Rose—who went on to end up with this man with the
deep pock­ets and dan­ger­ous friends.
At­las de­cided the daugh­ter of the bride he’d been cheated out of should be
his. Ob­vi­ously, the man with whom she lived and shared a bed dis­agreed.
And when the dust had set­tled, my brother was dead, and I was king in his
place.
Some­times I’m con­vinced life re­ally is a Greek tragedy.
Or a com­edy, de­pend­ing on how cyn­i­cal you are.
But, heavy as the bur­den to lead is, I was born for this. All my sib­lings and I
were. Liv­ing un­der our fa­ther’s rule may have been a les­son in bru­tal­ity and
vi­cious­ness, but it hard­ened us. It pre­pared us to lead and to con­quer. When
I took the throne that was un­ex­pect­edly thrust upon me, I was ready.
And then, of course, life threw me an­other curve­ball.
My sib­lings and I were all born here in New York. But my fa­ther ul­ti­mately
pre­ferred Eng­land, where he’d grown up. So that’s where the real seat of the
Drakos em­pire was for the last twelve years, while my un­cle Vasilis over­‐
saw our op­er­at­ions back here in New York City.
Un­til four months ago, when, as I say, the prover­bial shit hit the prover­bial
fan.
Our fam­ily and the Irish Kil­dare fam­ily have never got­ten along. There’s
gen­er­at­ions of bad blood be­tween us, go­ing back who even re­mem­bers how
long. At one point, there was at least a half-truce—when Saoirse was
promised to At­las. And even when that mar­riage fell through, things at least
cooled off be­tween our fam­i­lies for the next twenty years or so.
Un­til things went side­ways, badly.
I’ve heard it started as a po­ten­tial peace agree­ment. Vasilis sat down with
De­clan Kil­dare, Cil­lian’s half-brother and the head of Kil­dare op­er­at­ions
here in New York. But what­ever “peace” they were try­ing to ham­mer out
shat­tered when a gun­fight broke out be­tween them, killing them both.
It should mean all-out war. A blood­bath in the streets. The fi­nal show­down
be­tween the Kil­dare and Drakos fam­i­lies un­til only one is left stand­ing.
Luck­ily, nei­ther Cil­lian nor I is sui­ci­dal.
Cil­lian is a fuck­ing psy­chopath, there’s no ques­tion about that. He’s been
de­scribed more than once as the kind of man who wants to watch the world
burn be­cause he en­joys the smell of the smoke. And I think that’s a fair as­‐
sess­ment. But ei­ther out of self-in­ter­est or greed, we’ve man­aged to work
out an ar­range­ment.
It’s time to set­tle this bull­shit be­tween our fam­i­lies once and for all.
And the key to set­tling it is cur­rently glar­ing dag­gers at me from across the
room. Clearly, no­body’s told her yet. But she’s it.
We’re it.
My eyes nar­row, my mouth tight­en­ing to a line as I let my gaze drag across
the scowl on Neve Kil­dare’s face.
It makes sense that she hates me. Even if nei­ther of us had any­thing to do
with the vi­o­lence of a few months ago, at the end of the day, my un­cle and
her fa­ther killed each other. From what I gather, nei­ther she nor her sis­ter
Eil­ish was very close with De­clan.
But still. Blood is blood.
And soon, we’ll be blood.
Joined.
Bound to­gether for­ever.
My jaw grinds as my mind flashes to other more lit­eral ways I could bind
the stun­ning and fu­ri­ous-look­ing red­head across the ta­ble from me.
My tempt­ing, sin­fully at­trac­tive neigh­bor who re­ally ought to have some
cur­tains put up in her bed­room.
The one who’s been spy­ing on me. The one I’ve been spy­ing on right back.
I’m just much bet­ter at it than she is.
De­sire makes my cock swell as my mind flashes back to ear­lier to­day.
When I was stand­ing in my kitchen rins­ing out my cof­fee cup, star­ing
through the win­dows above my sink…
Into her bed­room. Where I watched her strip off her sweat­pants and hoodie
and prowl naked around her dis­as­ter of a room un­til she found some other
clothes to pull on⁠—
“You re­al­ize she’s go­ing to bite your dick off the first chance she gets,
right?”
My jaw grinds and my train of thought is in­ter­rupted as I glance side­ways at
my younger brother, Hades, sit­ting next to me on our side of the con­fer­ence
ta­ble.
When we were kids, I used to roll my eyes at the way our fa­ther named all
of us af­ter Greek gods, ti­tans, and muses—At­las, Ares, Hades, Deimos,
Kratos, and our sis­ter, Cal­liope. But as we’ve got­ten older, we’ve all
weirdly grown into the mytho­log­i­cal fig­ures we were named for. Hades es­‐
pe­cially.
There’s a dark­ness and an edge in all of us—our fa­ther made damn sure of
that with his heavy hand and strict dis­ci­pline. But Hades—named for the
god of the dead, the king of the un­der­world—al­ways seems to revel in it.
The sadis­ti­cally so­cio­pathic glint I can cur­rently see in his eyes is a tes­ta­‐
ment to that dark­ness.
He shrugs at my cold si­lence.
“You know I’m right.”
“What I know is this is nei­ther the time nor the place, Hades,” I grunt back.
My brother shrugs again, push­ing his longish hair back from his face. He
got our mother’s pierc­ing ice-blue eyes. I got our fa­ther’s dark, brood­ing
ones.
Be­hind him and tow­er­ing above all of us de­spite be­ing younger than Hades
and me, Kratos mim­ics my stern glare at our brother.
“It’s a good ar­range­ment,” he rum­bles in that moun­tain­ous way of his.
I nod to my brother. Kratos is a good, steady voice of rea­son. Though
Deimos, who’s hold­ing down the fort back in Lon­don, is the true peace­‐
keeper of all of us sib­lings.
A peace­keeper in the style of a nu­clear de­ter­rent, that is, not Gandhi.
“Oh, I agree,” Hades smiles brit­tly. “It’s good for peace and will bring an
end to blood­shed. I mean, it’s not my cock that’s go­ing to get chewed off.”
“Could you at­tempt to not be a dick for just two min­utes, Hades?”
I turn to smirk qui­etly at Cal­liope, my sharp-tongued lit­tle sis­ter, sit­ting on
my other side. The youngest and small­est of all of us, and yet some­how,
she’s the law-keeper. She’s got our grand­mother Dim­i­tra’s genes.
Across the room, the group of Kil­dare men who’ve been talk­ing qui­etly
amongst them­selves fi­nally come find seats at the ta­ble. Cil­lian and I catch
each other’s eyes, and we nod.
This wasn’t his idea, or mine. It was Dim­i­tra who first put it for­ward: a way
to put the hos­til­i­ties be­tween our fam­i­lies and our sub­sidiaries be­hind us for
good. As she pointed out, the clos­est we’ve ever got­ten to peace be­fore was
when At­las was set to marry Saoirse.
What bet­ter way to set­tle our dif­fer­ences than by be­com­ing fam­ily?
But when I glance at Neve sit­ting across the ta­ble, still glar­ing pure mal­ice
at me, it’s clear her un­cle still hasn’t told her what’s about to hap­pen.
This should be in­ter­est­ing.
Cil­lian clears his throat, sit­ting back in his seat as his green eyes slice across
the room, si­lenc­ing it with a look.
“I’m not one for fancy speeches, so I’ll get straight to it. We’re here be­cause
the hos­til­i­ties be­tween our or­ga­ni­za­tions have reached an un­ten­able level.
Ri­val­ries are one thing. But we’ve crossed too many lines, and there’s too
much blood in the streets.”
He pulls a sil­ver cig­ar­ ette case out of his breast pocket, opens it, slips one
be­tween his lips, and lights it deftly with a flick of a sil­ver Zippo. Smoke
curls around the Irish­man’s head as his glint­ing green eyes pierce through it.
“I’m not go­ing to get all weepy and sen­ti­men­tal. The truth is, the rea­son all
of us are here is that war will mean ruin to both the Kil­dare and Drakos
fam­i­lies. It will de­stroy our busi­ness in­ter­ests. And there are al­ready enough
jack­als cir­cling, wait­ing for the first sign of weak­ness to strike. The Boli­‐
naro Car­tel. The Carveli Fam­ily. The Reznikov Bratva, not to men­tion their
al­lies.”
Cil­lian’s icy gaze lands on me.
I don’t blink.
“So in the in­ter­est of not get­ting hit from be­hind by an en­emy while we
bicker like school­boys, Ares and I have come to an ar­range­ment—one that
will end these hos­til­i­ties for­ever, and make both of our fam­i­lies stronger
than ever as a united front.”
I watch Neve’s face scrunch up in con­fu­sion as she turns to frown at her un­‐
cle.
Oh, this is about to get good.
“A united front?”
God­damnit, Ezio.
I frown qui­etly as I lean for­ward, turn­ing to stab my gaze down the length
of the ta­ble to where Ezio Adamos is glar­ing dag­gers at Cil­lian.
“Please, go on about this fuck­ing united front we’re sup­posed to have
with⁠—”
“Ezio.”
My voice is nei­ther raised nor very force­ful. But it cuts through the room all
the same, quickly si­lenc­ing him. He stares at me, fury and pain boil­ing be­‐
hind his eyes.
The Adamos fam­ily is a sub­sidiary, trib­u­tary fam­ily to ours. Their al­le­‐
giance has been pledged to the Drakos fam­ily for gen­er­at­ions, and the way I
can see Ezio about to sui­cide bomb this en­tire dis­cus­sion has my jaw grind­‐
ing harshly.
But I get it. And I feel for him.
Ezio’s only son, Ja­son, was at the meet­ing where Vasilis Drakos and De­clan
Kil­dare opened fire.
He was also killed.
“Ares, please,” he hisses at me, pain glint­ing in his eyes. “You can­not se­ri­‐
ously be con­sid­er­ing al­ly­ing our­selves with these back­stab­bing, hon­or­less
Micks⁠—”
“Be silent,” I snap.
I’m not com­pletely heart­less. I un­der­stand he’s in pain. But this is de­cid­edly
not the place for it. Or the time for him to start hurl­ing slurs.
Cil­lian clears his throat, ey­ing Ezio across the ta­ble.
“What would…ease your grief?”
Fuck.
This isn’t Cil­lian be­ing diplo­matic.
This is him go­ing for the throat, and Ezio’s about to walk right into his trap.
“What would ease my fuck­ing grief?!” He snaps at the Irish­man.
“I don’t be­lieve I stut­tered, Mr. Adamos. What’s the go­ing rate on grief
these days? Ten thou­sand? Twenty?”
God­dammit.
Ezio lurches to his feet, his face a mask of seething rage as he whips his
head around to glare at me.
“This is in­sult­ing! I will not sit here⁠—”
“Yes, you will.” My gaze hard­ens on him.
I’ll tell him again how sorry I am for his loss later. Not here.
“You. Will.”
His mouth thins to a line as he points a fin­ger across the ta­ble at Cil­lian.
“This piece of shit dares to of­fer me money?! I lost a SON, Ares!”
“And I lost a fuck­ing brother,” Cil­lian snaps coldly. “But here we are. And
you can ei­ther get on board, or go find a nice length of rope some­where and
join your boy.”
Yeah, they’re not ex­ag­ger­at­ing when they call Cil­lian a sadis­tic so­ciopath.
The room goes silent. Ezio’s face turns pur­ple. He looks like he’s se­ri­ously
con­sid­er­ing jump­ing across the ta­ble and mur­der­ing Cil­lian with his bare
hands. But in­stead, he spins on his heel, glares at me vi­ciously, and storms
from the room.
“Well, I have to say. This is TWICE as much fun as I imag­ined it would be,”
Hades mut­ters next to me.
Cil­lian sighs, drum­ming his fin­gers on the ta­ble as his gaze drags back to
me.
“You need to keep your dogs on a tighter leash.”
“He’ll keep to the truce,” I growl back.
My eyes swivel to Neve again, drink­ing in her fiery red hair, the dust­ing of
freck­les across her nose, and the sharp green eyes so like her un­cle’s, still
squint­ing in con­fu­sion.
“And you?” I mur­mur, pulling my gaze from Neve to Cil­lian. “You’ll keep
to our agree­ment?”
He takes a long, slow drag of his cig­ar­ ette, and then nods slowly.
“We will.”
He turns to his niece, and my eyes lock onto her as well.
“Neve,” Cil­lian sighs. “There’s no easy way to say this. And if there was
any other way…” he shrugs. “But there isn’t. Not one that doesn’t end in
more blood.”
Her brow fur­rows deeper.
“Un­cle, what are you talk­ing about? And why am I⁠—”
“You’re go­ing to marry Ares Drakos, Neve. That will be the fi­nal truce to
for­ever end this bull­shit be­tween our fam­i­lies.”
The room goes silent. Neve’s face turns white as she stares dumb­founded at
her un­cle. She blinks, frown­ing as if will­ing him to laugh at the spec­tac­u­lar
joke he’s just made.
But this is no joke.
This is hap­pen­ing. And as re­luc­tant and un­happy as I am about it, I’m
guess­ing from the look of hor­ror that spreads across her face that she’s
twice as re­luc­tant and un­happy.
“What?!”
Cil­lian takes one last pull from his smoke, ex­hal­ing to­ward the ceil­ing be­‐
fore drop­ping the butt in the mug of cof­fee in front of him.
“It’s the only way, Neve. You’re go­ing to marry Ares, and that’s fi­nal.”
She blinks, shak­ing as her mouth forms silent words, none get­ting out.
“No—”
“I’m afraid this isn’t a dis­cus­sion, Neve,” he says qui­etly, a flicker of re­gret
and rare-for-Cil­lian apol­ogy on his face.
“Like hell it’s⁠—!”
“Neve,” he growls thickly. “It’s. Been. De­cided.”
Slowly, her face pale as a ghost, Neve turns to let her fierce green eyes stab
into mine like knives.
I stare right back.
My lit­tle peep­ing Tom of a neigh­bor.
My en­emy.
My wife.
“I think you’ll find, Neve, this is the best way to set­tle all of the bad
blood⁠—”
“And I think you’ll find your­self, Ares, with a knife in your throat if you
come any­where fuck­ing near me.”
She stands abruptly, her eyes wild with fear and anger.
“Neve,” Cil­lian hisses qui­etly. “It’s done⁠—”
“Oh, we’re done, all right.”
With­out an­other word, she whirls, storms to the con­fer­ence room doors, and
blows right through them.
Shit.
“So,” Hades sighs, his voice drip­ping with amuse­ment. “You ready to dis­‐
cuss body ar­mor for your dick yet, or do you wanna talk bach­el­or party?”

Keep read­ing!
 De­viant Hearts - Ex­clu­sively on Ama­zon and in Kin­dle Un­lim­ited!

Come hang in my read­ers-only Face­book group for first glimpses of cov­ers,

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ALSO BY JAG­G ER COLE

Ven­omous Gods:
Toxic Love
De­vi­ous Vow
Poi­sonous Kiss
Cor­rupted Heart
Mon­strous Urges

Dark Hearts:
De­viant Hearts
Vi­cious Hearts
Sin­ful Hearts
Twisted Hearts
Stolen Hearts
Reck­less Hearts

Kings & Vil­lains:

Dark King­dom
Burned Cin­der (Cin­der Duet #1)
Em­pire of Ash (Cin­der Duet #2)
The Hunter King (Hunted Duet # 1)
The Hunted Queen (Hunted Duet #2)
Prince of Hate

Sav­age Heirs:
Sav­age Heir
Dark Prince
Bru­tal King
For­bid­den Crown
Bro­ken God
De­fi­ant Queen

Bratva’s Claim:
Pay­ing The Bratva’s Debt
 The Bratva’s Stolen Bride
Hunted By The Bratva Beast
His Cap­tive Bratva Princess
Owned By The Bratva King
The Bratva’s Locked Up Love

The Scaliami Crime Fam­ily:

The Hit­man’s Ob­ses­sion
The Boss’s Temp­ta­tion
The Body­guard’s Weak­ness

Power:
Tyrant
Out­law
War­lord

Stan­dalones:
Bro­ken Lines
Boss­hole
Grumpa­holic
Stalker of Mine

OceanofPDF.com
 ABOUT THE AU­T HOR

A reader first and fore­most, Jag­ger Cole cut his ro­mance writ­ing teeth pen­ning var­i­ous steamy fan-
fic­tion sto­ries years ago. Af­ter de­cid­ing to hang up his writ­ing boots, Jag­ger worked in ad­ver­tis­ing
pre­tend­ing to be Don Draper. It worked enough to con­vince a woman way out of his league to marry
him, though, which is a to­tal win.
Now, Dad to two lit­tle princesses and King to a Queen, Jag­ger is thrilled to be back at the key­board.
When not writ­ing or read­ing ro­mance books, he can be found wood­work­ing, en­joy­ing good whiskey,
and grilling out­side - rain or shine.

You can find all of his books at

www.jag­ger­colewrites.com

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