She wasn't surprised.
Just like she wasn't surprised about Dad's death.
What did you do, Mother?
I pull Dad's lighter from my pocket. Flip it open. The flame catches in the darkness of the car, small and defiant.
"You need a husband."
Sergei's voice breaks through my spiral. I glance at him and the way streetlights paint shadows across his face, all sharp edges and controlled violence.
"Apparently."
I stare at him. At the silver threading through his dark hair. At the tattoos I know snake up his forearms. At the man who kills without flinching and looks at me like I'm worth protecting.
At the only person who's made me feel anything, except grief, in the last seventy-two hours.
He catches me staring. Those grey eyes hold mine in the darkness.
Something clicks into place in my chest. Sharp, cold, reckless.
I need a husband they can't control.
I need a weapon they can't predict.
I flip the lighter closed.
"I have an idea."
3
Izzy
Five days.
Five days of Sergei Orlov in my space, and I'm losing my goddamn mind.
He's everywhere. Leaning against my kitchen counter at 6 a.m., coffee cup dwarfed in those massive hands. Stationed by my floor-to-ceiling windows at midnight, silhouette carved against the Manhattan skyline like something dangerous pretending to be domesticated. Sleeping on my couch—allegedly—though I've never actually caught him unconscious.
The Wolf doesn't rest.
He watches.
And I feel those grey eyes on me constantly, tracking my movements through my own apartment like I'm something precious he's cataloguing. Something fragile he's afraid to break.
I want him to break me.
I want him to stop looking at me like I'm a client and start looking at me like I'm a woman.
I want?—
Stop.
I press my palms against the cold marble of my kitchen island, forcing myself to breathe. It's past midnight. The penthouse is dark except for the city lights bleeding through thirty-eight floors of glass. I came out here for water.
Instead I'm standing here in a silk robe that barely covers anything, thinking about a man who's made it very clear our relationship is professional.
Professional.
