“Yours,” I echo. Testing the word. Owning it. “And you’re mine.”
“We’ll kill him together. Equal partners.” He kisses me—soft this time, tender, a promise wrapped in violence. “The Wolf and his queen.”
“I prefer ‘The Wolf and the woman who shoots back.’“
His laugh rumbles through both of us. “Even better.”
We spend the next three hours planning for the gala. Everything falls into place with terrifying efficiency.
When we finish for the day, I move into his space, hands sliding up his chest. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“That if this goes wrong—if Matthew gets the drop on us, on me—you save yourself. You get out. You protect Mila.” My voice cracks. “She needs you more than I do.”
“Wrong.” His hands frame my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. “She needs both of us. And I’m not losing either of you. Not tonight, not ever. We’ll get through this together. And we’ll come out on the other side together. That’s the deal.”
“That wasn’t the original deal.”
“The original deal died the moment this stopped being fake.” He kisses me hard, claiming, a promise and a threat. “Now it’s real. You’re real. We’re real. And real means I’d burn the world down before I let him touch you.”
The words settle between us. They feel like truth. Like something worth surviving for.
34
Sergei
“Tellme why I shouldn’t put a bullet in your head right now.”
The words come out soft, measured, the kind of calm that precedes violence. Artur’s on his knees in the warehouse basement, hands zip-tied behind his back, face already swelling from where I convinced him that talking was in his best interest.
He’s been on my payroll for four years. Good with surveillance. Better with keeping his mouth shut.
Or so I thought.
“Boss, please—I can explain?—”
“Explain how Matthew Ashford knew we’ll be at the Plaza next week.” I crouch in front of him, letting him see the gun in my hand. “Explain how he knew about the safe house in the Hamptons. Explain how every move we’ve made for the past month somehow ended up in his fucking hands?”
Artur’s breathing accelerates, sweat dripping down his temples despite the basement’s chill. Behind me, Andrei leans against the concrete wall, cigarette dangling from his lips, watching with the detached interest of a man who’s seen this play out a hundred times.
“He—he offered me money. A lot of money.” The words tumble out fast, desperate. “Said all I had to do was report your movements. Nothing else. I swear I didn’t know he was trying to kill her?—”
My fist connects with his jaw before I consciously decide to move. The crack echoes off concrete. Artur’s head snaps back, blood spraying from his split lip.
“You didn’t know.” I stand, wiping my knuckles on my jeans. “You took money from the man who murdered my wife’s father. Who tried to kill her multiple times. Who put a sniper’s scope on my daughter. And you didn’t think to ask questions?”
“I needed the money—my wife lost her job?—”
“Everyone needs money.” I pace in front of him, the Wolf calculating how to make this hurt. How to send a message that resonates through every corner of my organization. “That’s not an excuse. That’s a choice. You chose Matthew’s cash over loyalty. Over family.”
Artur’s sobbing now, shoulders shaking with the kind of fear that comes from knowing death is inevitable. “Please, Sergei. I have a family?—”
“So do I.” He raises the gun with the barrel pointed at his forehead. “You put them in danger. Every attack, every near-miss—that’s on you.”
“I didn’t know?—”
“You knew enough.” My finger tightens on the trigger. “And now everyone else will know what happens to traitors.”
