Euphemia.My old name grates like nails on a chalkboard on this man’s tongue. He’s a complete stranger—how can he know my name?
Myrealname?
I step back from the balustrade. My blood is ice cold. I can feel my heart thumping wildly in my throat, pumping my body full of adrenaline.
Run,it says.Run like hell.
But then he’s in front of me, blocking my only way out. “Who are you?” I ask with as much force as I can muster. “What do you want from me?”
“Sooo predictable.” He drags out the “o,” rolls his single eye all the way back in annoyance. “You’re all the same, really. It’s always ‘who are you’ but never ‘howare you.’ Honestly, it’s kinda rude.”
“It’s kinda rude to stalk people, too.”
“Stalk you?” He huffs another laugh, but this one rings out all wrong. Distorted—crazy. “Oh,printsessa. It was never you I was following. But I’m glad he led me back to you.”
“If you’re here for Brad?—”
“Guess again.”
Cold dread settles in my stomach. “Yulian.”
He bares his teeth, grinning like a fox in a henhouse. “Bingo.”
A wave of protectiveness washes over me. For Eli, for the child in my belly—and for Yulian, too.
“You don’t want to cross him,” I growl. “You have no idea how strong he is. He’ll end you before you can even get close.”
“End me?” His laughter turns manic. “I’d like to see him try.Again. Last I checked, we were four-and-oh in my favor.”
“Four and…?”
“Mommy shark,” he says, counting off on his fingers. “Daddy shark. Sister shark. And girlfriend shark, too, though I’ll admit I might have jumped the gun on that.”
Mom. Dad. Sister.
Kira.
My dread turns to panic.
This man… He killed Yulian’s family. He’s one of them, one of Yulian’s shadow enemies.Prizrak.The ones who shot at us, who kidnapped Nikita, who put Kallie in the hospital.
I’m furious. I’m pure rage.
But I’m also pregnant. And if this man has no qualms about putting bullets in perfect strangers?—
He’ll put one in me, too.
And I can’t have that. Not when I have a kid at home and another growing inside me.
Run,my drumlike heart urges yet again.Run like hell.
So I do. I make a desperate, flailing attempt to rush over him, but it’s short-lived.
He catches me around the waist like I’m nothing.
“Let me go!” I scream, but he slams his palm over my mouth.
“Not so loud,” he whispers. “What will the guests think?”
