That’s always been my problem. I feel too damn much.
Sometimes she feared all the feelings would suck her under and she’d never see the light again. The only thing that kept the sea at bay was the drugs and alcohol. She’d dialed it back a little—she’d had to because Aiden had cut off her money and she wasn’t desperate enough to trade other things for coke. But getting through the day stone-cold sober?
Out of the question.
Keira shimmied out the window, ripping her jeans in the process, but she managed to climb onto the fire escape that ran down the building a few feet over. It groaned beneath her weight, but it held, just like it always had. Through it all, one word drummed through her head in time with her heart.Free, free, free.It was a lie. Everything in that house was a lie these days.
Maybe it always had been.
She slowed her pace as she rounded the corner, keeping her head down, determined not to bring attention to herself. Despite what Aiden thought, she knew how to fly beneath notice when it suited her. Keira brought out her phone and scrolled through the handful of texted invitations tonight, and picked the closest one. She wasn’t trying to endanger herself, but staying in that house a second longer than necessary was more than she could bear.
It won’t be my house for much longer.
Marriage. She’d always known that was the role she would be required to play. She’d gone so far as to offer it last year when she’d witnessed Dmitri’s ultimatum. A small, dark part of her figured being a wife to that man was nothing more than she deserved. An even smaller part of her had flickered to life when she had gotten close to him those two times, but that flame had died when she realized that he wasn’t coming around forher. He was sending a message to her brother.
He didn’t want her. Not really. He needed her to secure his position—and to put her family in their place.
“Enough. I’m so goddamn tired of feeling sorry for myself.” Feeling anything at all, really.
She made good time walking to the party, slipping through the door and moving into the crowd that had already gathered. It was being held in the basement of an old club. She recognized about half the people there, though she’d never go so far as to call them friends. They were here for the same reason she was—to forget their shitty lives for a little bit.
A guy she’d seen around often enough that she should know his name approached, a broad grin on his face. “If it isn’t my favorite bitch.”
She accepted the vodka bottle he passed over, pausing to check the seal. It hadn’t been tampered with.That’s something, at least.She peeled off the plastic around the cap and nodded. “Thanks.”
“I know your rules.” He grinned, his gaze skating over her in a way that made her skin crawl. A year ago, maybe she would have taken him up on the nonverbal offer, but now she couldn’t trust that whoever she went home withwasn’t working for an enemy. And besides, after she’d gotten tangled up with Dmitri, no one had sparked her interest enough to risk it.
Keira wove through the crowd to the couches lining the wall. There were people fucking on most of them, but one was empty. She dropped onto the thin cushion and took a long pull off the bottle. Blessed burning shot down her throat and warmed her stomach in a way nothing else seemed to be able to. She took her first full breath since Aiden had called her into his office. But she hadn’t come here to think about that. She took another longer drink, her need to breathe battling with her need to forget.
“Keira O’Malley.”
She eyed the man who appeared at her side as she took another swig of vodka. He didn’t fit here. He was too still, too watchful. That would have given him away, even if his Russian accent hadn’t. She slowly lowered the bottle, barely resisting the urge to scan the room to see ifhehad come.It doesn’t matter. I hate him, remember?
Sure she did.
The man crossed his arms over his chest, and a flash of metal showed beneath his jacket. “Mr. Romanov would like to speak to you.”
“No.”
He gave a slow blink, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “That wasn’t a request.”
“I don’t care.” She studied the label on the vodka. It was cheap shit, tasting more like rubbing alcohol than the stuff her brother had in their liquor cabinet. When it was clear the man was about to threaten her, she pinned him with a look. “From what I understand, I’ll be marrying that Russian bastard. So let’s start this correctly. If he wants my presence, hecan damn well tell me himself instead of sending one of his butchers to summon me like a naughty child.” Her words started slurring toward the end, but she bore down, forcing clarity for a few moments more. “You can pass that along—and tell him if he really wants my attention, he should bring some of the good stuff.” She motioned to the bottle. “Now get the fuck out of here. I’m tired of looking at your face.”
Dmitri Romanov might have tempted her once upon a time, but he was just another shade of O’Malley or Sheridan or Halloran. They were all the same, and she was so goddamn done with the petty power games.
There wasn’t a single thing he could do to her that hadn’t already been done.
She had nothing left to lose.
Chapter Three
Charlie should have known how things were going to go after she met Aiden’s sister on the stairs. She might have taken a page from Keira’s book and fled, if Liam hadn’t been a wall at her back. His silence and strength were strangely comforting. He, at least, knew this thing for a fraud, and he was playing along. She’d do the same.
“Third door on the right.”
She followed his low instructions, her heels clicking on the tiled floor as she walked down the hall to the room he’d indicated. A fortifying breath did nothing to fortify her, so she walked through the door before she could talk herself out of it.
Aiden leaned on the edge of a giant desk that was almost perfectly clean. She’d have thought the lack of clutter meant he didn’t do work there, but Charlie suspected it was because Aiden was a control freak of epic proportions. She’d seen his type around the poker table—the man who usesmasks to manipulate the people around him. He was the best buddy, the overwhelmed newbie, the blustering fool, all depending on what would serve him best.
