“She never was the issue,” I say simply. “So, what’s yours?”
“She’s a distraction.”
“She was a debt.”
Artem gives me an exasperated look. “You wanted to fuck her.”
“So?”
That shuts him up, but not for long. He lights a cigarette even though I know he doesn’t want it. It’s how I know he is stressed.
“She’s just a woman, Art,” I vouch with furrowed brows. “I’ve handled worse.”
“You like this one. I saw the way you looked at her.”
“Like I wanted to fuck her.”
“Like you wanted to keepher.” He shakes his head as though I disappointed him. “This won’t end well, Benedikt. We have shit to do.”
“I’m handling it.”
“No, you’re thinking with your dick,” he snaps, a rare crack in his forever-composed demeanor. “First, you bring her in and hold her for days. Then you send her away. Now you’re back here,knee-deep in bullshit that should’ve already been handled. All because she cried into a fucking phone?”
My jaw ticks.
Shedidcry.
Her voice shook.
Her desperation was real.
And I felt it.
“You let emotion get in the way of business once, Benedikt, and it’ll kill everything we’ve built.” Artem steps closer now. “You start choosing women over principles and plans, and this whole damn thing falls apart. The only way this ends is with bodies in the ground and your brother putting us out as targets.”
He’s not telling me anything I don’t know.
If Nikolai inherits my father’s kingdom, I’m dead. I’m a threat he won’t want around. Too many men are loyal to me, and I move this town with one finger.
Then I’llbe a fucking liability.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not choosing her.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Artem mutters.
I know what I’m doing. Sienna will just be something that keeps my dick hard and me satisfied for a little while. She will also help me persuade my father that I’m better suited to inherit his legacy.
He wants kids. My brother doesn’t have any. He thinks they’re too messy and too permanent. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try to do what I think he will.
Children might be messy and slow you down, but they also hold power. And my father has made it clear that he wants blood to replace blood.
A son would be enough to tip the scales.
For Sienna, I’d want a life for a life. Either I kill her father, or she gives me what I want.
It’s a fair trade. And if she agrees, she’ll no longer be just a debt.
She’ll be leverage.
