My stomach plunged. Before I could ask anything else, the office door clicked.
And Dmitri stepped out, shadowed and furious.
Dmitri
Georgi shut the office doors behind her with her boot, blocking out the noise of workers and Cori’s bullshit chatter. She didn’t bother sitting. She never did when it was bad.
And the look on her face? Yeah, it was bad.
“Talk,” I said, leaning back against the desk. My arms folded, but the tension in them said I was ready to break something in half.
Georgi didn’t waste a second. “I found the man who ran Natasha off the road.”
My jaw locked. “Alive?”
“Not anymore.”
I exhaled slowly. “You got what you needed first?”
“Of course I did.” A faint, feral smile cut across her face. “He screamed a lot. Eventually he stopped lying.”
Good. Georgi tugged a small notebook from her jacket and tossed it onto the desk near me. Blood had dried along the edges.
“He confessed he was working under orders. The warden, Dmitri.”
Ice slid through my bloodstream.Bitch!
“What orders?”
“To follow Natasha. Harass her. Damage her apartment. Make her scared. And—” Georgi paused, looking at me with a gravity that tensed the room, “—when the time was right, kill her.”
Everything inside me went still. Not anger. Not shock. Something colder.
“Maria,” I said flatly.
“She’s the one,” Georgi confirmed. “I’ve been tracking her for days. The problem is—she’s gone. No digital trail. No bank movements. No cameras. She cleaned her shit up fast.”
Maria always was meticulous. And obsessive. It’s why I chose her. She could meet me where I was at mentally. A dark head space and ready to taint whomever fucked with me. She’d pretended to be somebody else for me, while knowing I didn’t want her. I’d treated her like she was the woman that I wanted. How had I truly guessed this shit would end? I hadn’t even thought that far.
Georgi stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I broke into her house.”
“Good.”
“There’s more.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small stack of glossy photos. “Found these hidden in her bedroom.”
She placed them on the desk. My stomach didn’t drop. My pulse didn’t spike. But something twisted inside me. The photos were of me and Maria. Fucking. Her riding me with her head thrown back. My hands wrapped around her neck. My hands pinning her down. Her sucking my dick.
Private moments. Intimate ones. Recorded for her sick fucking pleasure. That wasn’t part of the plan for obvious reasons. And then—the last picture. A photo of Natasha, but tape covered her face. On top of it? Maria’s face, cut out and placed there instead.
Georgi’s tone dropped, a rare dose of sympathy threading through it. “She’s obsessed with you, Daddy. Madly. Completely unhinged.”
I stared at the photo for a long, dangerous moment.
Georgi continued, “She thinks Natasha stole you from her. Everything she set in motion? It was about getting rid of Natasha so she could have you.”
A slow, poisonous fire lit under my skin.
“She put a hit on Natasha for jealousy.” She swallowed. “For obsession,” Georgi corrected. “And the men she hired were disposable. The one I caught was instructed to stake out your apartment too. Just in case.”
